Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Helping Children Through Disasters; Oklahoma Tornados; Congress Grills Over IRS Over Targeting

Aired May 22, 2013 - 09:30   ET

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

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'll tell you, after Newtown, I think you and I talked about this, poor sleep in the first few days is one of the greatest predictors of how a child's emotional help is going to be in response to an incident like this. So just, making sure your kids get good sleep. It sounds so basic, but so important in the first few days, and I've been telling parents I have seen around here who have been asking me about that exact thing. Hug them, as have you been tweeting about, but also making sure they get good sleep tonight.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Emotional injuries, we tend to push off and write it off as well. Tough it out not true, something you have to think of as seriously as a broken arm.

GUPTA: It can last a lot longer and if there is food news in there, it can be dealt with as long as recognized. So, it's a tough community. I mean you've seen the people here. They're already back trying to clean this place up. It's amazing what they have already accomplished with the cleanup. But again, they call this is the heroic period. A lot of media attention, support from around the country. That disappears after a few days, and the people are still going to be here. They need to be strong for each other emotionally.

CUOMO: It' interesting, we're talking to people from Save the Children yesterday, the organization that comes post-disaster try to help. And their assessment jumped right to one month, three months out. We will do things right now. But it's later that especially the kids need attention. Why?

GUPTA: They think about that because this acute period, again there is so much in terms of resources and attention. But in terms of how they spend their money, an organization like Save the Children or Red Cross, in terms of where they divert resources, there's got to be people who are thinking about this a little bit longer term, in terms of physical and emotional, but also in terms of rebuilding, getting people back to work, creating a sense of community again. Those things take months and years.

Those things are still going on in Haiti, they're still going on in south Asia after the tsunami of 2004. I've seen this now, that's eight years, nine years ago, those are long-term initiatives that big relief organizations have to be responsible for. They spend a lot of money that people are giving acutely now, but they also have to think about further down the road. CUOMO: Sanjay, always a pleasure. Thank you for the perspective, and brings to mind CNN.com/impact. Please go to the website, find ways you can help today, and don't forget the people here. We'll do our best to remind you, CNN will continue its commitment. Remember to try to help yourself. CNN.com/impact. We'll take a break. When we come back, more on the latest of what's going on to recover from the tornado in Oklahoma.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Carol Costello. More of our special coverage from Moore, Oklahoma, in a minute.

But we want to turn to another major story happening right now. Any minute, Lois Lerner, the IRS official who oversaw the unit that singled out conservative groups is expected to appear -- actually she's already there, at the House Oversight Committee hearing and she's supposedly, hopefully going to talk about the controversy, but we really doubt that, because for anyone hoping to learn more about the IRS' actions, they will have to wait, because Lerner will reportedly assert her fifth amendment right and refuse to testify. You'll hear a lot of "I plead the fifth" this morning.

Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, is here and also our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash. Welcome to both of you.

Chairman Issa is giving opening statement and then the ranking member Elijah Cummings will give an opening statement, and then we assume that the questioning will start for Ms. Lerner.

Dana I want to start with you. Congressman Vern Buchanan says Lerner's decision to take the fifth is a slap in the face to all Americans. He adds, what is she hiding? Dana, I know you are not a lawyer, but you certainly know your way around a congressional hearing, so why isn't -- why won't Lerner spill the beans about what she knows?

DANA BASH, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Because she doesn't want to incriminate herself. That's the bottom line. And you know sometimes you think about people pleading the fifth, maybe in the movies and they do it because they don't want to talk. In this case, she has been so at the center of the questions here, and she has been named by members of Congress as somebody who they believe has already not been forthcoming and maybe lied to Congress. That is a crime. So, that's why her lawyer doesn't want her to potentially commit any other crimes in her answers and not answering things the way she answered before. That could be perjury, it could go on and on.

But I think it's important for our viewers to know you are exactly right. She is really a key player here for several reasons. Number one because she was the head of the -- or is the head of the tax exempt division. She is the closest of the IRS officials who were kind of in charge to the actual activity.

She is the person who can best tell them why this all of this went on, which we still don't know the answer to after hours and hours of testimony. We still don't know why. They were hoping that she could actually answer that. So, sort of the nuts and bolts of what happened and when it comes to the "why wasn't Congress told," she is really the person who they are most angry with, because she told Congress when they were investigating back in 2011, 2012, she was directly communicating with them with letters, with meetings, she found out about this going on, the targeting of Tea Party groups back in June of 2011, but did not tell Congress for almost two years.

She kept it to herself, that is something that they are absolutely furious about. And then another thing, Carol, we found out last week, the way she disclosed this to the public a couple of weeks ago, was not by having a statement, but by planting a question at an American Bar Association meeting. Those are some of the things that make her so key to this investigation.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: And going back to -- go ahead, Gloria.

GLORIA BORGER, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, let me add to what Dana just said about planting the question. Set the scene here. You have a situation which is incendiary, right? The IRS allegedly targeting conservative groups. They know that this was wrong the public doesn't know about it the White House involved to some degree in damage control about this we now learn. And how does Lerner decide to let the American public know about it? She decides to plant a question at a conference she's at, and get asked about it, and assumes that's the way to let both the American public and the Congress know about it.

And as Dana point out, Congress had been asking her questions about it for a year. It was kind of a cockamamie scheme, lame-brained, and by the way angers members of Congress who had been asking serious questions about this. Some are now saying that she directly lied to them.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: We see the camera (ph) was on Mr. Shulman, right? He was the IRS commissioner, he was appointed by President Bush. He was questioned by members of the Congress, members of this committee yesterday and he didn't have any answers either. He said yes, the buck stops here, but I don't know the whole story.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Right. He said he was saddened by all of this. And what you see, like many times in government, you will see this going down the food chain as opposed to up the food chain. We'll probably find out it was some anonymous or now anonymous civil servants who did this. Some are saying they were rogue. I kind of tend to doubt that. As Dana says, we don't know the answers to these questions and probably won't find out a lot more today.

COSTELLO: Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Lawmakers, before the hearing even started, were saying someone ought to go to jail for this. We want someone to go to jail for this. So once the hearing started. If I'm sitting in the hot seat, I'm probably not going to tell all I know either, because I'm afraid I'm going to be the one that goes to jail for lying to Congress.

BASH: Exactly. And that's exactly why, Lois Lerner's attorney, who is a very high-powered attorney, he has represented a lot of very high- powered people here in Washington and around the world really, he has said, don't do this. Don't say anything that could potentially incriminate you down the road.

One thing that tou said you really hit on, Carol, talking about the fact that Doug Shulman, who also is going to be here, he was head of the IRS during all of this, he said he didn't know about it, one of the questions that won't be answered is why, and that, of course, goes to Lois Lerner. Why didn't you tell anybody or at least the commissioner, when you found out about this two years ago?

And what that does speak to is potentially taking the politics aside here, the real heart of the mess here, which is a real bureaucratic mess. People think of bureaucracy and can't even imagine how kind of ugly it is. This is exposing the underbelly of bureaucracy and kind of the ultimate mess in that people apparently in this group, in this division, tax exempt division in Cincinnati, Ohio, whether it was malicious or not, it was certainly -- they didn't have any kind of guidance from superiors and that is Lois Lerner and that's taxpayer dollars not being spent well.

BORGER: The question not only is it a bureaucratic mess, as Dana points out, but also is it a political mess? Because, don't forget, you're in the heat of a re-election campaign, with President Obama, and some Republicans are asking the question more conspiratorially. Was this a bureaucratic mess, or did someone kind of decide to shove this aside for a while and let the presidential campaign play out? That takes it to the ultimate conspiracy, of course, but there are a lot of questions about -- about why no one in Congress was informed about more of the details of this. Now, we do know --

COSTELLO: This Oversight Committee is going on, and we probably won't find out much because frankly, we haven't found out much so far. There's also an FBI investigation into this. So, Dana, this thing could drag out for months and months and maybe years?

BASH: Absolutely. This is the beginning of the congressional investigation. The fact is that Eric Holder, the attorney general has said in no uncertain terms, that he is going to let the facts lead him where they go, and this is going to be a national investigation. Not just an investigation into that office that we've learned so much about that primarily does these tax exempt -- the tax exempt division, not going to happen. This could go on a very long time.

And, again, talking about what's happening as we speak, Lois Lerner is the key person. Speaking to what Gloria was just saying about the question about politics, there's no question in my mind, that one of the things that Republicans wanted to ask is, did you not tell your superiors, the guy sitting next to you, Doug Shulman, about this because you knew, even if no one had to tell you because you knew it was the heart of a presidential campaign, you knew it could potentially hurt the president and you didn't want to do that? We won't know the answer to that today.

COSTELLO: No, I think Mr. Shulman's testimony yesterday, he said he sort of knew it, but didn't know the whole thing.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Well, he knew it was under investigation.

Right. He knows it's under investigation. The question, whether you knew where the investigation was leading, how far along, and, Carol, I could also add there is sort of another side show going on, not in this congressional hearing room, but over at the White House, which is sort of -- well, what did the president know and when did he know it? What did the president's aides know and when did they know it?

We now know that the council at the White House knew April 24th, informed the White House chief of staff, who then told some other top officials, because they were clearly trying to figure out a way to do some damage control, because they knew when this story finally came out, that they were going to have to figure out a way to handle it. Then questions have been asked why wasn't the president told? And for that, they have an answer which I think is quite legitimate, which is if you tell the president, the next question people are going to ask is did he try in any way shape or form to affect an ongoing inspector general investigation into the IRS? And so we had to wall him off from that -- that kind of a question.

COSTELLO: Yes but --

BORGER: That kind of a question.

COSTELLO: -- you're -- you're the President and you read about it in the newspapers and you deny it when you're posed direct questions about it. What kind of make -- wouldn't -- wouldn't you want to know if you were president right away something as potentially politically explosive as this?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know I mean I can answer that and I'm guessing Gloria will agree with me. If you're the president, and you're President Obama who's been there for a term and get how it works you kind of know when you -- need to rely on your staff to protect you, if they think they are protecting you. And my guess is in this particular case, that's what he feels that he was able to do. Because he was able to go out and say to the press, I just learned about it when you did.

COSTELLO: Right.

BASH: And according to what we've been told, that's an accurate statement.

BORGER: You know Carol once something moves into the Oval Office, once a political discussion or a damage control operation moves into the Oval Office it's in a whole different level, right? And I think the decision was made by the White House counsel that -- and by Denis McDonough the Chief of Staff that you did need to protect the President as Dana points out.

Could there have been a wink, or a nod, or should they have done that? I you know that's -- I'm not a White House counsel. It's very difficult to say.

But you cannot put the President ever in a position where he might look like he's trying to cover something up or affect an investigation particularly as it regards an agency as sensitive as the IRS and also in terms of the Justice Department.

COSTELLO: Yes, yes but the only problem with that is many people think it looks like the President was covering things up, even though his staff may have thought it was protecting him.

We're going to take a short break, we're going to come back and hopefully Elijah Cummings will be done his statement and Lois Lerner will be -- will be, I don't know, the Congress will pose questions to her, we'll see what she says. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Back in Moore, Oklahoma, people are trying to figure out how to go on. The need is great. The need for supplies, shelter, clothing, food, water and healing of the heart, also very important; and that's where our two guests come in, Richard Martin and Jeanne Moore. You're the co-director of the Canine Comfort Dog Ministry through the Lutheran Church, right?

RICHARD MARTIN, CO-DIRECTOR, LCC K-9, CANINE COMFORT DOG MINISTRY: Correct based in Illinois.

CUOMO: And Jeanne, you helped train and with us of course, the most important people in this interview, two comfort dogs.

We have with us Becca and what's this little girl's name --

MARTIN: Ruthie.

CUOMO: Ruthie. Hello doggie dogs.

So the most important thing is you come into a disaster like this, when we think of need, we think of all the obvious things, but there are other needs, isn't that right, Richard? What have you learned in your experience about what these dogs can do?

MARTIN: Well we just find that when the dogs are working with people, individuals whether their infants or adults, they just bring a calmness they bring a healing. You can see it in the way they pet the dogs. The transference of energy and emotion and they're just, you're there for them in their time of need and they're just -- they're being still and being them.

CUOMO: The benefit in situations like this, what have you seen in your experience?

MARTIN: Well, it really helps in the healing process, as far as people being able to talk about the disaster. The tornado in this circumstance and it helps in the healing process, in that it moves it along a little bit quicker.

CUOMO: Jeanne, how do you make just a sweet dog into a comfort dog?

JEANNE MOORE, CO-DIRECTOR, LCC K-9, CANINE COMFORT DOG MINISTRY: A lot of touch. These dogs, they -- anybody knows you want to -- the golden retrievers love to be touched. They love to be petted. And that's what it's from the time that they're eight weeks old, they start their training. And it's just a lot of practice.

CUOMO: And practicing what, like what kind of skills does a comfort dog need to have?

MOORE: Basic obedience. Very strong basic obedience. These dogs are service trained so they are at a level where they should be able to handle disasters like this.

CUOMO: Stressful on the dogs do you think because you wind up having them with people who are in a hard way right?

MOORE: Yes.

CUOMO: Often in hard situations?

MARTIN: Well we -- we are very careful of the surroundings. And the -- everything that goes into their outings, whether it's the weather, the number of people, the time they spend on the job. We try to break them every two to three hours. Give them a rest. Take their vest off, feed, water, exercise.

CUOMO: Your lanyard says Newtown High School. We all know that situation very well, what happened in Connecticut. You were there with the dogs I take it?

MARTIN: We were. Ruthie and I were there for five weeks between Newtown High School and Sandy Hook Elementary. We still have two dogs serving there today, Addie and her sister Maggie. And we go back on occasions to make sure that everything is good.

And we just returned a week ago from the Boston marathon bombings, we were there for a few weeks. And Jeanne returned from her deployment at West, Texas after the fertilizer plant explosion.

CUOMO: Really.

MOORE: Yes.

CUOMO: What a terrible situation down there in West, Texas that town of just about 3,000 almost half of the town has to move out because of that. How long will you stay in one place?

MARTIN: Well, in Newtown, we expected to be there five days, and we were there five weeks. In Joplin, Missouri, we didn't know how long, but we ended up spending eight weeks. Seven days a week. We had teams rotating in and out every week. And actually those two dogs Jackson and Louie are going to be here with us this weekend.

CUOMO: So they are tornado vets. How does this situation size up to what you dealt with in Joplin?

MARTIN: Every disaster, every tragedy is different. There's just no explanation and words for the emotions that people go through. And they're all devastating.

CUOMO: How are you making yourself available here in Moore? Where will you be? How are you going to help move yourself into the community?

MARTIN: Well, right now we're working through the Lutheran Church, Messiah Lutheran Church in Oklahoma City. This afternoon, we'll be at the Oklahoma University Medical Center. We'll be working in the pediatric ward and visiting with some adults over there. And the rest of the week, we're available, and people can actually go to our Web site. And if they have individuals or families that are looking for a little comfort, they can go to our site visit request.

CUOMO: How do you get the dogs? People donate them? Do you have specific breeders that you like? I mean how do you cultivate your beautiful little workers here?

MARTIN: We mainly work with breeders. We have breeders in the Chicago area, in Michigan that we primarily work with. They work with dogs that either have a service training in their bloodlines or show dog training. So we know at the beginning, there's predictability, as far as the calmness of the dog coming out of those litters.

CUOMO: Very nice. Have you been able to see people here yet?

MARTIN: We're just beginning our day.

CUOMO: And what will be the first stop for you?

MARTIN: The first stop is going to be at Messiah Lutheran Church in Oklahoma City and then we're moving to the medical center.

CUOMO: Someone can't wait to get going.

She's very anxious here. How many dogs do you have? How many dogs can you deploy to different places?

MARTIN: Well, we're able to make multiple deployments. We have over 60 dogs right now in eight states. We just placed a dog in Louisville, Kentucky last weekend. In events like this, we send out invitations then to our affiliate members who have the canines and volunteers primarily make up our staff and our workforce.

CUOMO: Did you fly here or did you drive here?

MARTIN: We drove here last night from Chicago. We arrived at about 3:00.

CUOMO: How long? MARTIN: Longer than I'd like. It was about 15 hours.

CUOMO: Holy cow.

MARTIN: We do make multiple stops for exercise and getting the dogs out to stretch, so.

CUOMO: How long have you been doing it?

MARTIN: I've been volunteering with Lutheran Church Charities for over ten years. We've had the comfort dog ministry since 2008.

CUOMO: Driving 15 hours, staying in a place that's hard hit for weeks, how do you sustain?

MARTIN: Through the grace of God.

CUOMO: Through your faith. All right doggies, let's see, can you give me a little comfort? Very nice. You're very comforting. You, you won't even look at me. But I'll give you a scratch.

MARTIN: Every dog likes that.

CUOMO: Richard, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to meet you. Good luck with your work. Jeanne thank you for being here.

We're going to take a break right now. When we come back, we'll give you the latest on the efforts to heal and recover here in Moore, Oklahoma.

COSTELLO: All right, Chris, before we take that break, I want to take you back to Capitol Hill because Lois Lerner, the IRS official who oversaw the unit that singled out conservative groups is about to testify at that House oversight committee that's conducting a hearing into the controversy.

Dana Bash and Gloria Borger rejoin me now. And the questions have begun but the questions are now being posed to the inspector general from the Treasury Department who initially did the investigation into those allegations at the IRS.

And again, Miss Lerner will soon be posed questions, and we do expect her to plead the Fifth, am I right, Dana Bash?

BASH: You are right. From everything that we're told. They're haggling over some documents that they just received from the inspector general. So that's what's delaying the swearing in of the witnesses. And that is going to then follow questioning, and that's the time that we expect her to not answer the question and even decline to give an opening statement according to a source that I talked to on the committee.

But one thing that is also going to be interesting in addition to Lerner, is that we're also going to hear from a senior treasury official. His name is Neil Wohlland. He's the number two at the Treasury Department. And the reason that is important is because as we talked about a little bit earlier in this program, one of the outstanding questions, especially from Republicans is who knew what, when in the Obama administration.

He actually was told, and will admit it, before the election, by the inspector general that this was going on but he has said as the White House has said that he didn't tell anybody about it. He just simply said to the inspector general, thank you for informing us. Please go on your way, I want to stay out of your way.

That's going to be the critical question and a critical point of testimony from Neil Wohlland when it comes to the whole question of who knew what when and the bigger implication and accusation by Republicans that maybe the Obama officials tried to intervene and interfere with something that could potentially really hurt them, and that was, the IRS tried to stop Tea Party groups from forming.

COSTELLO: Interesting.

BORGER: And Carol.

COSTELLO: Go ahead. I'm keeping one eye on this hearing, by the way, to see when Lois Lerner will testify. Go on Gloria.

BORGER: This treasury official Neil Wohlland will make the point that, A, they're trying to dig into this problem and figure out whether this is a larger cultural issue, a management issue, with the IRS. But B, the point that he will emphasize is that it's important to keep the inspector general separate and if the inspector general informs you we are proceeding with an internal audit on x, y and z that it is imperative -- imperative that the Treasury Department let him do --

COSTELLO: Gloria, I'm going to have to interrupt you. I'm so sorry, we must take a break right because we've got to make the money, too.

BORGER: Sure.

COSTELLO: So we're going to take a break. We'll come right back with more testimony from the Hill.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)