Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Vetting the Security Clearance System; Dow Drops Sharply; Zimmerman Jury Selected

Aired June 20, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCDHOR: So, Chris, the inspector general believes these details are part of a bigger problem?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Without a doubt, Don. I mean, it really brings to mind the fact that there are 5 million people out there with some sort of security clearance. And it brings up the question of how many of their background checks were done adequately.

Plus the fact that the inspector general has already said he's going to spend a lot on this hearing basically saying, I don't know, or we haven't looked into that. Because he says they simply do not have the resources to do the kind of oversight that this kind of important job entails. I think nothing points that out better than the fact that that woman that you just mentioned, Don, the one who admitted that she falsified 1,600 credit checks.

LEMON: It's 1,600.

LAWRENCE: It's 1,600. That woman's own background check, the one that she had to go through to get her job, that was also fabricated by yet another inspector who subsequently was convicted in a separate case. It just -- just really goes to show you. Let me read you something from what you're going to hear during this testimony today.

In fact, we learned that a contract background investigator who was removed from an OPM contract for falsifying reports was later able to obtain contract employment performing background investigations for another federal agency while a criminal indictment for fabricating reports was pending. Nothing sums up the problem more than that -- Don.

LEMON: Nothing better than that. So let's talk solutions here. Any reforms to the vetting process that you're hearing about in reaction to Edward Snowden?

LAWRENCE: Well, I just got off the phone a couple minutes ago with a former defense the president official who has spent extensive years going through background checks and also overseeing some of these programs. He says the entire system is broken. He said, look, they're spending $4,000 when they could be spending 100,000. You have people sitting there asking questions on a form. Did you live at this address in 1982?

Is Julie really your wife, things that a computer could do easily, He says a lot of that could be, you know, done for $100 by a computer. And then you take the people and move them out to do more thorough investigations, to go out and talk to folks. That you're not going to catch on just a surface background, to look more deeply into people's online activities, which is where a lot of our lives are led now. Not so much with our neighbors down the street. It's who we're interacting with online -- Don.

LEMON: Chris Lawrence, thank you. Appreciate that.

And the man who prompted today's hearing is in crunch time right now. It's thought that Edward Snowden is using a 90-day tourist visa while hiding out in Hongkong. He reportedly flew there May 20th. So the visa could expire in August. So far U.S. authorities have not charged him. Not charged him. So stay tuned for that.

Want to get you to some developing news. See that there in the corner of your screen. The Dow Jones Industrial average is down 300 points. As promised, we'll get back to Felicia Taylor if something happened. What's going on, Felicia?

FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's pretty interesting because any headline can actually move the markets at this kind of a juncture. I spoke to one trader. Evidently there's a headline that crossed that said literally the fed is seen tapering QE to $65 billion at the September FOMC meeting.

The point of this, though, is that the Federal Reserve did not make that announcement. I have to be very, very clear about that. The Federal Reserve has not said that they were going to begin tapering in September. What this was, was based on a survey of economists that believe it could begin in September. So that accelerated the selling on the marketplace.

Because literally sometimes you just see a headline and you react to that, anticipating that, you know, you're not going to find the real nugget of information that's in there. That is that it was based on a survey of economists. The Federal Reserve has not made that pronouncement. Nevertheless that did accelerate the selling off.

We're now down about 292 points. I would begin to think people would get back out of the marketplace. Again, this is all based on what the Federal Reserve chairman has said already. Once again, I'm going to re-emphasize this. He has hedged his bets. He's waiting for data points to be collected over the next few months before he actually makes any kind of a move -- Don.

LEMON: Goodness. The power of being the fed chair and what you say. Thank you very much, Felicia. We'll get back to you again as this progresses here on CNN.

Up next, remember Exodus International? Exodus International, the group that spent decades trying to convert gay people to straight by saying just pray the gay away? Well, they announced yesterday they're closing their doors. The head of the group had some interesting things to say about why, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: This is just into CNN. You see live pictures of the courtroom down in Sanford, Florida. A jury has now been chosen for George Zimmerman, the man who's accused of killing an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, last year. A jury has been picked, we are told, this information just coming in now to CNN. Of course he faces, George Zimmerman there, neighborhood watchman, faces second degree murder charges in that case.

Of course, we have been following it here for the entire time. It took a while to pick the jury because they were concerned about finding someone who had not been swayed by media coverage, of course in a small town, smaller town. A municipality like Sanford, Florida. There was some concern about that. It took a while, but they did find jurors who they said were not -- at least had seen something of it on the media but had not seen a lot on television or radio or reading newspapers.

The jury had to answer lots of questions from both sides, from both attorneys from both sides. Finally a jury has been picked. It has taken a couple of weeks for them to do that. We are told that this -- originally they thought it was going to take four to six weeks for this trial. Now they're thinking probably two to four weeks.

According to all of our legal analysts, that's just about par for this type of case. Of course, this case is going to bring into question about race, whether or not Trayvon Martin, the teenager, was targeted by George Zimmerman because of his race. Then we found out, of course, that the teenager was unarmed.

The family has been very outspoken about this case from the very beginning, wondering why it had not -- George Zimmerman was not arrested initially. It took some time for him to be arrested. Finally after the family complained in the national media, the story got national attention -- we're going to listen in just for a little bit. Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: State have any objection? We're still in the alternate for B-61.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll strike B61, your honor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Defense have any objections or strikes for B-72?

LEMON: So apparently they're just doing some paper work. Crossing off all the boxes they need to take care of. Seeing if there are any objections from both sides here, but again, a jury has been picked for George Zimmerman. We'll get someone up for you to talk about this case and talk about the complexities of it, the nuances for this case. Someone from our legal unit, we'll get them up very shortly here. What we can expect from this particular jury and this particular trial.

More breaking news here on CNN that we have to move on and this one affects your wallet. You see her there. There's Felicia Taylor. She's at the Dow. She's at the stock market now. Felicia, down, what, 300 points, almost 300 points now all because of something the fed chairman said?

TAYLOR: Well, this centers around what the expectations are of what the Federal Reserve is going to be doing in the next couple months. The next FOMC meeting is in September. The question is when will this tapering begin? According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday's testimony, he never really acknowledged that anything was going to start until he sees the correct economic numbers coming out.

What I mean by that in terms of correct is a threshold that he has set in terms of unemployment, which should be at about 6.5 percent, maybe 7 percent, he would begin tapering. What tapering means is literally pulling back slowly from the stimulus that has been in the marketplace. We've seen $85 billion being injected into the marketplace on a -- well, on a very consistent basis.

You can't forget we've had this unprecedented kind of stimulus, which nobody really expected to last as long as it has for well over three years. So this is highly accommodative, highly unprecedented. So a pullback like this on the expectation it's going to slow down isn't so unusual. Yes, it's accelerated in the last few minutes.

As I mentioned earlier in the show there was a headline that crossed that literally said the fed is seeing tapering QE to $65 billion from $85 billion in September. He did not say that. This was based on a survey done of a number of economists. What you can glean from that survey, the last survey that was done only 27 percent of economists in the survey, there's only 54 of them, expected this would happen.

Now that number has moved up to 44 percent. Presumably, obviously, the economists out there are seeing indications that there's a reason for the Federal Reserve to pull back. That doesn't mean they're going to. It opportunity mean he said he would, but there's the existence and the possibility that the market is getting better. That's not a bad thing. We want the economy to get better. The problem is, is that the quantitative easing has at some point got to go away.

LEMON: What they call the stimulus. Yes, winding down on that. Thank you, Felicia.

So two big stories happening now, of course, you see the Dow, and then, which has to deal with your wallet. Then the story that has been -- people have been following here for a year now. Just a little bit more information before we go to break here. As I said, jury has been selected in the George Zimmerman trial.

Just to tell you about this jury, it's a six-person jury to hear the case of George Zimmerman. It's been chosen. It consists of six women, we are told. There are no men. No men on this jury. Four of them are white, one is black. The race of the only woman -- the race of the one lady is unknown. We're not exactly sure what it is.

But again, four white, one is black. I'm not exactly sure of one. Four alternates being chosen right now. More on this developing story when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Breaking news here on CNN. It's coming out of Sanford, Florida. There you see Mark O'Mara, attorney for George Zimmerman in court now. A jury has been picked, six-member jury. Let's put it up and show you the makeup of this jury. It's important because this case is going to center around race and whether or not Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, whether he was targeted by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman last year when he was -- when Trayvon Martin was gunned down, was shot, by George Zimmerman.

All women, there are all women on this jury. Four of them are white. One is black. One, the race is unknown. Four alternates being selected as we speak. Sunny Hostin now, our legal analyst here on CNN joining me now by phone. Sunny, no men. Does that say anything about this trial and how they picked the jury? Why would they do that?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALSYT (via telephone): Yes. I'm not sure that it says something about why they picked them. I mean, I do know I was in the courtroom for some of the voir dire in this case and it was a pretty heavily weighted jury towards women. I believe when the 40 were chosen, there were only about 16 men and about 24 women. So I suspected early on that we could reach a jury of all women. Of course, the alternates haven't been chosen. I believe there are going to be four alternates. So you may end up with a man or two on the jury as an alternate.

LEMON: Yes.

HOSTIN: But it's just sort of the way the cookie crumbles sometimes, I think what the real issue is going to be, which is fascinating, is that there has been a lot of studies on how women react to hearing certain details. How female jurors are sometimes more empathetic when there is a young victim, and so I think it's going to be almost a case study to look at for empanelling juries in the future. It is rare, I think, to have an all female jury and there's no question that there have been stud ties in regard to how women react on juries to certain evidence.

LEMON: Sunny?

HOSTIN: I think it'll really be interesting.

LEMON: Can I jump in here and ask you, I think this is important as well. More than half of the people who are chosen that we know about on this jury, the alternates have not been chosen, half are gun owners.

HOSTIN: Yes, isn't that something? We are talking about a case in the south. There is -- there is more gun ownership. We don't see it as much here where I grew up in the northeast. I think that is going to be a factor in this case because many people are saying, well, you know, he had a gun. Well, yes, but he did have a permit for that gun.

He had a weapons permit. Perhaps these jurors aren't going to think much about that. They're going to think, well, that part is OK. That, I think, takes away some of that, you know, for lack of a better term, the feeling of animosity that some folks have about -- about gun ownership and people that have guns. I don't think that's going to be a factor anymore in this case.

LEMON: Sunny, standby. We're going to need your expertise. We want to get now live to Sanford, Florida. HLN's Jean Casarez is there. Jean, you've been following this case from the very beginning. You've watched the lengthy process of picking a jury here and now one has been picked. We've been talking about the makeup. As you're there and you've been watching, what's your assessment at this point?

JEAN CASAREZ, HLN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I want to tell you I just got out of the courtroom and it's very, very intense in there, extremely intense. Of course, jurors are not present. This is being done before the judge, but it is an all female jury. It went very quickly. I think what is interesting to note is the peremptory strike, which can be for any reason whatsoever, but it must be race neutral.

It was the prosecutor that exercised a peremptory strike on an African-American male. He was one of the initial jurors to be questioned in this case. The defense did not contest that to say it was not a race neutral reason. The defense allowed it to go forward. But when it came to striking white females, the defense stepped in with what is known as a Batson challenge saying that four white female jurors in a row was gender specific, unconstitutional.

So then one after the other, they went through those four white females. The prosecutor got two of those strikes to remain, but the defense got two of those jurors back. Two of those jurors the prosecutor did not want that are on this six-person jury.

LEMON: Yes. So you heard, Sunny. I imagine you heard Sunny Hostin talk about the jury makeup about women. As you're there in the courtroom and you're watching, is the strategy of picking a woman, it's obvious, right? They want -- are they thinking that women may be more sympathetic to either side here?

CASAREZ: I think they're listening to exactly what these women had to say. Now, let me tell you that the order of their individual questioning was the order in which they went for these strikes. So it wasn't for the group of 40 in general and the group was predominantly women so that as the judge said is reality right there.

But I think what's to note is all of their differences. They have -- they are various ages. They have various life experiences. Some have children. The woman that is -- is black or, as the prosecutor said, possibly Hispanic, moved from Chicago recently. She has eight children, one near the age of Trayvon Martin and there are mothers on this jury.

LEMON: Right. Yes. We're going to talk more about that. My next question to you, the mothers have been in the courtroom for both men. We need to get to a break. Our Jean Casarez has been in the courtroom. Just got out of court in Sanford, Florida, where a jury has been picked in the George Zimmerman case. Short break. Don't go anywhere. We're back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Breaking news here on CNN, two big developing stories right now. One is the stock market, the Dow. Look at that down 337 points. All because of the Federal Reserve, federal chair came out and said just the other day that the quantitative easing or the stimulus going to be easing off now. It's the end of that. So people are taking their money out here. We've been watching this along with Felicia Taylor watching this on Wall Street to see just how far this goes.

One, before we bring Felicia in, I want to tell you that Sanford, Florida, live pictures in the courtroom. George Zimmerman, that neighborhood -- volunteer neighborhood watchman accused of killing Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager, shooting him, has admitted to shooting him, the jury has been picked in that case, a six-member jury. We're going to take you there live as well.

Back to Wall Street now and Felicia Taylor. Felicia, it is not looking good.

TAYLOR: No. And it's absolutely accelerated in terms of the selling pace in just literally the last probably five or ten minutes. That is not necessarily unusual. The last hour of trade between sort of quarter to 3:00 and 3:00 on the New York Stock Exchange often accelerates what the pace has been. I would anticipate that selloff is going to continue. We are near session lows. I think the lowest so far was about 338 points.

Again, you know, the debate is out there, Don, as to when this pace of, you know, bond buying is going to start to pull back. Again, you know, and I emphasize this because I think it is so important. This is -- this is a slow pullback. They aren't taking away all of the funds and the stimulus that has been in the marketplace all at one time.

Nevertheless, the market has been trading and had double digit gains this year. If somebody had come to you in January and said, you know what, I'm going to give you and guarantee the Dow is going to be 8 percent, 10 percent, you'd be like, I'll take it. So far the S&P is up 13 percent. Now we're up 11 percent. That's not a bad -- that's not a bad gain in your 401(k) if you've been able to ride through some of these market highs and lows.

LEMON: All right, Felicia Taylor, thank you very much. We appreciate that. We'll keep a close eye on that.

Getting very close to the top of the hour on CNN, we're going to regroup and get more information on the two breaking news stories here, one in Sanford, Florida, the other one on Wall Street where the Dow is tanking. No better way to put it. Dow is tanking. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)