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NSA Leaker in Hiding; Woman Tried to Stop Gunman; Jury to Decide Murder, Suicide in Seacat Case; Alleged Mob Boss Goes on Trial

Aired June 10, 2013 - 11:30   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Edward Snowden, that's a name you will hear a lot more in the days to come because he's admitted he is the guy behind all of those stories on the NSA's classified surveillance programs, the stuff we are not supposed to know about, but we do because of him. Snowden worked for a private contractor in Hawaii but he ran off to Hong Kong about three weeks ago, just before the story broke. He says he plans to seek asylum. We are not entirely sure where he's planning to seek asylum yet.

CNN's Anna Coren is in Hong Kong with more on Snowden and his decision to flee there -- Anna?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, the source of one of America's largest intelligence leaks is here in Hong Kong, holed up a hotel room. 29-year-old Edward Snowden has been here in Hong Kong for the past three weeks. He says, as an analyst for the NSA, the National Security Agency, he witnessed abuses and reported them, but they were never addressed, and that is why he's decided to go public.

He claims that the NSA has an infrastructure that can intercept almost anything. And that it has lied about the scope of surveillance of the American public.

Now why did Edward Snowden choose Hong Kong, 14 hours away from where he is based in Hawaii, halfway around the world to leak these highly sensitive information?

We spoke to some analysts here in Hong Kong who believe that it is China that is the key factor, that he's in position with a treasure- trove of information for the Chinese would obviously like to get their hands on.

Let's now have a listen to a Ewen McCaskill, a journalist for "The Guardian," who spoke to Snowden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EWEN MCCASKILL, JOURNALIST, THE GUARDIAN: His main focus to get this out and he has no real plan. He knows that he can't go back. The terrible thing is he is worried about his family, whether they will be victimized. He is cut off from his family. If he keeps in touch with them, then he's scared they will be penalized for that.

He's in a strange no-man's land of Hong Kong. He was partly Chinese sovereignty to enjoy some freedom of some legal status. So who knows what will happen if the U.S. asks for extradition?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: An extradition treaty is in place between Hong Kong and the United States, but China can intervene and veto this, potentially, offering Snowden asylum in exchange for information -- Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: The plot thickens.

Anna Coren, thank you for that.

I want to bring in our CNN senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, who is here with me in New York.

I don't know where to begin. First of all, we have the Espionage Act and crimes that almost certainly have been committed that could have myriad of different charges attached to them. Then we have a guy in a place that is overseen by China. So take me to the beginnings and that is what the charges could be. Nothing will happen until that happens.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It seems entirely clear and Snowden has more or less admitted that he disclosed classified information. That's a crime. Unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a crime. Anyone who ever --

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: It is a very big crime potentially, depending on how the government frames the indictment, it could be 10 years in prison, could be 20 years in prison. The Espionage Act is something that the government has started to use for on people who give information to the press, could be another 10 years in prison. Those are the two main charges but the government can usually design others when they seek it out.

BANFIELD: The Espionage Act, I think it was 1917 --

TOOBIN: Right, it's a law -- it is a very old law. It's been amended several times.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Didn't it lay dormant, too?

TOOBIN: For a while, there were no prosecutions under it. But in recent years, the government has said, if you have classified information and give it to the press under the wording of the Espionage Act, it could be espionage. The Supreme Court has never upheld those prosecutions. Most of them have been amended in plea bargains. It is theoretically possible that that could be added to his charges.

BANFIELD: That's the actual charge, espionage?

TOOBIN: Correct. BANFIELD: Simple and clear. Well, not so clear.

(LAUGHTER)

TOOBIN: Not so clear. I mean, what makes this all so odd is that he is in Hong Kong which is in -- which is a -- a very distinctive jurisdiction that is different from almost anyplace on earth.

BANFIELD: In 1997. When it reverted back to Chinese control. The Americans prior to that day were very clear in making an extradition treaty that would work, despite the fact that there would be this giant to the north. In that treaty, there are some political protections, exemptions, from people being extradited for political reasons. Could this be seen if you charge it as espionage? As political?

TOOBIN: Well, that would be a judgment that the Hong Kong authorities would have to make. It is also important to remember that the Chinese government has veto power essentially over extraditions back to the United States. Those protections were put in place to protect Chinese in the United States who might be prosecuted for political reasons and being brought back to China. This is the reverse of that situation, potentially, where an American citizen would be brought back to America.

BANFIELD: Which does not fall under these exemptions. As I understand it, it has been very clear there are two exemptions. One, Chinese being brought back, and Americans being pulled back, but not Americans being brought back to America.

TOOBIN: One thing I have learned about extradition, it is that it is an enormously time-consuming and complicated process. And any predictions, what we might make about when or how someone could be extradited are -- are pretty shaky. So if -- if the American government is counting on extraditing Snowden from Hong Kong, it is going to be complicated and it's going to take a long time.

BANFIELD: Not to suggest you spend a lot of time in Hong Kong and --

TOOBIN: I wish.

BANFIELD: Like, hey, I love it.

(LAUGHTER)

One of the things that I have heard and have seen is that the judiciary still left behind in Hong Kong is still very much those of the British ilk. They behave and perform accordingly. They haven't done these rogue sorts of international moves, whereby China has big- footed. It has gone according to plan.

TOOBIN: And the American government has been very cooperative and successful in dealing with the Hong Kong government on law enforcement matters. This one is very different. This isn't a financial crime.

BANFIELD: It's not a murder. TOOBIN: This is not a murder. It is something that -- very -- it is something very different. So, yes, there is this good history of cooperation between Hong Kong and the United States. But whether this will be just as successful is hard to know.

BANFIELD: So from our reporting now, it is to totally unclear. He may have checked out of his hotel and may be on the run again. If he goes gaming in Macow (ph) or on the mainland again, does it get anymore complicated?

TOOBIN: Absolutely. Because China, above all, wants to know how our intelligence operations works because so much of it is directed against China. He is someone that could be very valuable to the Chinese.

BANFIELD: Funny how that happened on the very day that the president of China was here meeting with --

(LAUGHTER)

TOOBIN: As if they didn't have enough to talk about.

BANFIELD: So angry about their hacking.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Turns out, we are doing our own.

OK. Thank you, Jeffrey Toobin. I think we will have more conversations about this.

Also, Anderson Cooper is having another conversation about this. His special guest tonight is Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, who knows a thing or two, as I said earlier, about leaking, about crimes, and about being stuck somewhere where you don't want to be to avoid prosecution. "AC 360" coming up at 8:00 eastern time.

A gunman armed and, as police put it, ready to do battle, left a deadly path through Santa Monica last week. One woman tried, tried, to stop him. And luckily, she lived to tell her story. She will tell us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Police have identified the man who killed five people in a shooting spree in Santa Monica, California. Investigators say 23- year-old John Zawarhi (ph) started at his home on Friday where he shot and killed his own father and brother and then set the house on fire. After that, he carjacked a woman and made her drive him to Santa Monica College. Luckily, she escaped any major physical injury. But once he was there, he shot Carlos Franco and his daughter, Marcella, who were driving to buy textbooks. Carlos died on Friday and, sadly, his Marcella passed away yesterday. A fifth victim killed on campus has not yet been maimed in this tragedy. Police were able to shoot and kill the man at the college before the rampage got any worse.

But before he even got there, one person did try, and tried hard to stop him.

Kyung Lah has her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Holy cow.

(voice-over): You can't help but react to the holes of Debra Fine's bloody shirt before bullets ripped into her body. She was in her silver sedan when she found herself in the middle of a shooting spree.

Fine saw the gunman, 23-year-old John Zawarhi (ph), stop a woman in the car right in front of her.

DEBRA FINE, VICTIM: I was so angry that he was pointing the gun at her, and she was scared and I just wanted to stand up for her.

LAH (on camera): Debra Fine saw the gunman standing on this side of the street. She saw him raise his rifle at a woman on this side of the street. She hit the gas and put her car in between the gunman and the woman.

FINE: I will never forget his eyes. They were just so intense and so cold.

LAH (voice-over): First shot went right into the center of her driver's side window.

FINE: As he was walking across, my front window was exploding. And I was -- then I was --

(CROSSTALK)

FINE: Then I was falling into the passenger seat to try to stay down. That's when I kept feeling bullets hitting into my other shoulder.

LAH: He struck both shoulders, her arm. Shrapnel lodging two inches beneath her skin. A bullet even struck her right ear, where she says the ringing won't stop.

FINE: I laid down just thinking, please stop, please stop shooting. Thinking that if I just acted like I was dead, he might go away.

LAH: He did leave, carjacking the woman Fine tried to save. But he did not kill that woman. Neighbors rushed to help Fine. They also called 911, an early alert to the police about the heavily armed gunman making his way through Santa Monica.

FINE: I'm glad I did what I did. But thank god I'm alive. And my children need me.

LAH: Just like a young woman that Debra didn't know, but needed to save.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Santa Monica, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Wow. Unbelievable.

You know, you can help the victims of the Santa Monica College shootings. We set this up for you. You can go to CNN.com/impact and take a look there at the ways you can help out.

In another story a woman, Vashti Seacat, the wife of an ex-police officer, she was found dead of a gunshot wound as her house burned around her. Her husband claims she did all that herself. Now a jury has to decide whether he is the one who did it, whether he's telling the truth, or whether he is covering up her murder.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Shot in the head and then consumed by flames. Can she die by her own hand as her husband claims or was she the victim of a diabolical murder? That's what the jurors have to decide and that's a tough question. It is all about an ex-police officer, Brett Seacat, who is on trial for his own wife's murder. They are going to hear closing arguments today. They could even begin deliberating if it all goes according to plan.

CNN's Ted Rowlands brings us this update.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fate of Brett Seacat should be in the hands of the jury by the end of the day. The former sheriff's deputy is accused of shooting his wife in the head and then setting the family home on fire to conceal evidence.

ROGER FALK, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Do you love Vashti.

BRETT SEACAT, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER: I loved Vashti.

FALK: Did you kill her?

SEACAT: No, I did not.

ROWLANDS: During a day and a half on the stand, Seacat, who requested his face not be televised, told his version of what happened, saying he was asleep on a downstairs couch when Vashti called him from upstairs, on her cell phone, asking him first if he was awake.

FALK: Did Vashti say anything else to you when you did not respond to her telling you need to come get the boys?

SEACAT: Yes. The next thing she said was you need to come get the boys or they are going to get hurt.

ROWLANDS: Seacat says as he ran up the stairs, he heard a pop, then saw smoke and flames in the master bedroom. He says he ran in and tried picking up Vashti but realized she was dead.

SEACAT: I immediately started heading for the boys. I just dropped Vashti. I didn't lay her down or anything. I just let her go. And -- as I was letting her go, I was already spinning to head out of the room and run to the boys' room.

ROWLANDS: Prosecutors say that Brett Seacat is lying and he's one that shot his wife and lit the house on fire to conceal evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED PROSECUTOR: You killed your wife. Didn't you?

SEACAT: No, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED PROSECUTOR: And you did it while your two kids, 2 years and 4 years old, were in the house.

SEACAT: Absolutely, not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Ted Rowlands is live at the courthouse and has been following this.

Ted, how has it been left so far. Closings are important, but with the evidence, how compelling a case did these prosecutors make?

ROWLANDS: Well, the prosecution has made a very compelling case. The question is did the jury believe Brett Seacat while he was up on the stand? What he did do what he did do is he had an answer for all the allegations. The bottom line is will the jury believe his story. And, at times, watching the jurors faces, it's going to be tough for them.

BANFIELD: Reasonable doubt. Do you get the sense there was enough of it mounted by his defense for the jury to consider?

ROWLANDS: I think with the handwriting expert, yes. There was reasonable doubt. We're talking about a suicide note that the prosecution allegations Seacat wrote himself.

In terms of the details of what happened that night, it only takes one juror. It's a tough sell to think a mother of a 4-year-old and 2- year-old got a can of gas, lit the house on fire and shot herself with a .45 Magnum.

BANFIELD: What's reasonable to me and you may not be reasonable to anybody else and that's why juries are so unpredictable.

Ted Rowlands, thank you. I know you'll give us that information when it's updated.

He's an alleged monster and a reputed FBI informant. He even spent time many the infamous Alcatraz Prison. That's how long back that wrap sheet goes. Whitey Bulger, what a history with Boston, and he's about to meet a Boston jury.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Happy birthday equal pay. It's the 50th anniversary of act signed into law by JFK. And today, President Obama is marking this occasion with an address in the East Room of the White House. We're watching this closely because we fully expect while the equal pay movement is critical that this president is about to get hammered with questions about the NSA and the leaker who became unleaked, so to speak, leaked his own name and identity over the weekend. We're watching it for you. We'll bring it as soon as the president begins to address those issues.

Another big story developing in Boston as the alleged mob boss of South Boston, James "Whitey Bulger," who was expected of whacking anyone that got in his way, is about to go on trial he fled. He escaped capture for 16 years. He's 83 and is about to get his day of reckoning in a courtroom of a long and bloody list of crimes, including 19 murders. Jury selection is now underway.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick recounts Bulger's reputed exploits that made him a legend in the annals of organized crime.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After more than two decades as the head of Boston's criminal under world, followed by 16 years on the run, which is how James "Whitey" Bulger returned home two years ago after one of the FBI's largest and longest manhunts. Since that disgraced homecoming, he's been incarcerated. He's accused of extortion, money laundering and 19 counts of murder, charges to which he's pleaded not guilty.

J.W. CARNEY, BULGER'S COURT-APPOINTED ATTORNEY: Mr. Bulger this afternoon stood up and said, "Good afternoon," to the jury.

FEYERICK: The trial will likely close a traumatic chapter in Boston's history, as well as the history of the FBI. By all accounts, Bulger's ruthless empire was allowed to go unchallenged in the '70, '80s and '90s because of this man, John Connelly.

BARRY MAWN, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, NEW YORK DIVISION: He destroyed the reputation. A lot of good agents were hurt and the whole office was tarnished.

FEYERICK: Connelly was raised in the same housing projects as Bulger and allegedly cut a deal with the alleged mob boss.

GERALD O'NEILL, FORMER BOSTON GLOBE JOURNALIST: Whitey Bulger was a surprising informant to be had in Boston and Connelly knew that.

DICK LAHR, FORMER BOSTON GLOBE JOURNALIST: He did everything, including breaking all kinds of laws over the years, to keep that alive.

FEYERICK: Protected by the rogue FBI agent, he got the name of other informants and rival gang members, people he's now accused of killing. He knew when police were watching, when they were moving in and when to disappear.

In 1994, he got up with of his last tips. He was about to be indicted on federal charges. He had planned ahead, stashing cash in various security boxes. He fled Boston, later taking girlfriend, Catherine Greeg (ph). 12,000 leads poured into the FBI while he was on the run. Reported sightings in Ireland, London and South America.

TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: In a way, he became the Elvis of gangsters. He was constantly being spotted somewhere.

FEYERICK: In the end, he was found here in Santa Monica three days after a public service announcement seeking information about his girlfriend. The couple had been living under the alias Charlie and Carol Gasko. The self-described Chicago businessman and his younger wife. Inside the partially shielded third-floor apartment, agents found $800,000 in cash and more than 30 weapons stuffed in the walls.

Whether Bulger planned to shoot his way out was anyone's guest. He was lured to the basement on a ruse, his storage locker has been broken into. The fear of Whitey Bulger was arrested quietly and without incident.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: The prosecution has some problems already with its star witness. We'll see if things go off without a hitch.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Thanks for watching. AROUND THE WORLD is coming up next. See you tomorrow.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: NSA leaker revealed. The 29-year-old Edward Snowden, hiding out in a hotel in Hong Kong. Why did he escape to Hong Kong?

Nelson Mandela is hospitalized in intensive care. He's suffering from a lung infection. Close friends say it's time to let him go.

Prince Harry shows off what he can do with an Apache helicopter and empty air space. Much of it to the delight of fans at an English air show.

Welcome to AROUND THE WORLD. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. Michael Holmes is off today.

We follow this. He was a high-school drop out, making a six-figure salary, living in Hawaii. Why did he give it all up to reveal details about a top-secret U.S. surveillance program? Edward Snowden says that the public needed to know that the government is monitoring, e- mail and tracking phone calls. Snowden has come forward as the person who leaked information about the classified programs.