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At This Hour

Secret Service Director Answers Questions on the Hill; Major Turn in Case of Missing UVA Student

Aired September 30, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN HOST: Good morning to you. I'm Michaela Pereira.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: And I'm John Berman.

"Worthy of trust and confidence" -- that is the motto of the United States Secret Service but both of those watch words now really shaken and tested at this hour after the security lapse earlier this month at the White House which turned out to be much more serious and frankly much different than we first thought and were first told.

PEREIRA: Federal officials say the man who you see here who was able to get over the fence and into the door with a knife in his pocket, that that man made it all the way to the East Room, overpowering an officer along the way.

Now, you might recall, at first the Secret Service said Omar Gonzalez barely got in the door. This incident really is bad enough on its own, but it is magnified by the fact it is the latest in a litany of lapses at the agency.

BERMAN: So the big questions @THISHOUR, will this incident from September 19 be the last straw for the people at the top? The House Oversight Committee is grilling Secret Service director Julia Pierson right now, looking for answers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: Don't let somebody get close to the president. Don't let somebody get close to his family. Don't let them get into the White House ever. And if they have to take action that's lethal, I will have their back.

In this day and age of ISIL, and terrorists, and I -- IEDs, and dirty bombs, we don't know what's going on underneath that person's clothing. If they want to penetrate that, they need to know that they are going to perhaps be killed. That's the message we should be sending every single time, and that's the kind of Secret Service that I expect.

I thank them again for their -- their service, their dedication. We love them. We care for them. But we need better leadership.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PERIERA: Strong words there from Representative Jason Chaffetz. Right now we want to turn live to the House Oversight and Governmental Reform hearing that's under way right now where Secret Service director Julia Pierson is now answering questions.

Let's listen.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA), CHAIRMAN: No, stop, please. But I want to be considerate to you. You have a hard job. But you head an agency whose morale has gone down. It is lower than other comparable federal agencies. It has had a series of embarrassments. We're gonna leave the embarrassments out.

We've had two cases in which the reporting is evolving. Only last night to the public learn that, in fact, it was far worse, or at least somewhat worse, on September 19th. Only recently have -- has it been revealed, and you -- you said you wanted to correct the record. "The Washington Post" makes it clear, from what I read, that in fact, on November 11 of 2011, shots were fired. The assailant left. While, in fact, the Secret Service supervisor shut down the response of people who believed rightfully there had been shots fired. And, in fact, the follow-up did not discover the damage to the White House, and -- and the actual shots in real-time. Additionally, Mr. Ortega -- Ortega-Hernandez is the way I have a

written -- would not have been apprehended except that he had a car accident. And even when he was, it was not immediately linked to his criminal activity, that, In fact, the system at the White House did not detect the actual shots fired and begin the pursuit of somebody who had provided lethal force against the facility of the White House.

Is that correct? You were chief of staff at the time. Is that roughly correct? And if it isn't, I will allow you the -- whatever time you need to properly explain really happened on November 11th, 2011, so the American people can understand that September 19th is not the first time there is been considerable lapse, as I see it.

And in fact, during a long period of time -- during your chief of staff time, now during your director time, we have had the kinds of things that we should be concerned about for protecting the president.

So please tell us, in whatever time you need, about November 11th, 2011 where "The Washington Post" is right or wrong. This is your chance.

JULIA PIERSON, SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you're aware, my assignment as chief of staff...

ISSA: Could you -- could you get the microphone a little closer, please?

PIERSON: Certainly. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

As you're aware, in 2008 my assignment in the United States Secret Service was chief of staff. My primary responsibilities at that time were business transformation and IT transformation for the organization. My focus was on the business operations of the organization.

To my knowledge, and based on the briefings that I have received of this three-year-old investigation that occurred in November of 2011 that appeared in "The Washington Post" on Sunday, I'd also been aware that Representative Chaffetz had asked for a data inquiry, and we responded back to the committee on September 12th and provided him detailed information of the Secret Services' activities on that weekend.

Shots were reported by the United States Secret Service officers in the area of Constitution Avenue and 15th. There were witness accounts of a black vehicle that had fired shots. There was confusion at the time by the part of the witnesses as to what they had witnessed and what they had saw. Several of those witnesses put out Twitter accounts of what they had witnessed. They were subsequently located and interviewed, and recanted those statements.

The actual shots that were fired in proximity to Constitution Avenue and 16th, the vehicle sped away and went westbound on Constitution, erratically driving, and struck a light post in the area of 23rd and Constitution. Mr. Ortega then fled the vehicle. Park police officers and

uniform division officers ultimately responded to the scene where the vehicles left with the AK-47 in the front seat. Park police has jurisdiction over the traffic accident and assumed responsibility for the initial phases of the investigation.

ISSA: Ma-am, I'm -- I'm gonna give you all the time you need and thank the ranking member. But the answer is where are the inconsistencies with what we now know from "The Washington Post"? You said that they got the story wrong. They were misstating it. They were mischaracterizing it.

I'd like to hear the inconsistencies. So far you're just corroborating that, in fact, the understanding of the series of failures in real-time to protect the White House are, in fact, correct, according to "The Washington Post". So please tell us where they're not correct, please.

PIERSON: Throughout the course of this, there was a command post established down at Constitution Avenue and 23rd Street. Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Park Police, the United States Secret Service were there attempting to resolve or understand from witness accounts what had happened along Constitution Avenue.

Back at the White House, individuals had heard what they believed to be shots. The Secret Service, according to the records that I have been able to locate on this three-year-old investigation, did respond properly. The emergency response teams and other and their officers did a protective sweep of the area to make sure that we did not have any intruders, to make sure that there were no injuries, and obvious signs of anything that had been damaged.

Further investigation with the Park Police, they were unable to resolve at that time as to whether or not these were shots being fired at other vehicles or shots being fired at the White House. That took some time to -- to understand.

It wasn't until the -- the usher's office was preparing for the return of the president and first family -- or the president and first lady -- that they identified damage on the Truman Balcony. That led to further investigation, and that led to us contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to initiate their full investigation.

ISSA: Thank you.

Mr. Cummings, I want to thank you for your understanding and -- and just relate something that you and I discussed yesterday, if I may.

In Washington D.C., and around the country, there are a number of systems that we all know, and Baltimore, I believe, has it too, that -- they're basically microphones that hear gunshots, can identify the direction, can quickly, without human intervention, figure out whether or not a real shot has been fired, confirm it, and often give a very accurate direction. That type of technology isn't so odd that we don't see it in our

cities. And I think that's the reason I went on so long with this question.

Ms. Norton, I know, knows this. The district does have a sophisticated system. And I think the committee's gonna want to make sure that not only does the White House have a higher level of awareness of the system, but that the district system be enhanced if necessary to make sure that something like this never happens again. And I think the gentleman for his patience.

REP. ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, (D-MD), RANKING MEMBER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Director Pierson, I have thought all of this long and hard. And I think my major concern goes to the culture. It is very disturbing to know that Secret Service agents in the most elite, protective agency in the world feel more comfortable apparently, from what I'm hearing, coming to members of this committee and telling things -- than coming to you and members in the agency.

That -- that, I'm telling you, when I boil all of this down, that to me is dangerous. It go -- it has to go against morale. I don't even see how good decisions can be made if your own people don't feel a level of comfort that -- or they feel fear that they are going to be able to talk about the things that concern them.

And that's -- I just want to go through some questions. And I want you to -- I want -- give you a chance to address that. Because to me, that -- when we -- when all the dust settles, that's a problem.

And so, going back to this November 11th, 2011 incident. And I know you were not the director. I understand that. A lot of people talk about the culture problem with the Secret Service. And the press reports -- of all the press reports, the one that concerns me is that, back down to 2011, and it said, I quote -- quote one of the officers, "Officers who were on the scene who thought gunfire had probably hit the house that night were largely ignored." And some were afraid to dispute their bosses's conclusions.

Did you see that report, and are you aware of this issue?

PIERSON: Ranking Member Cummings, I, too, read that newspaper article, and was troubled by those accounts. I have asked my Office of Professional Responsibility to retrieve the file and those records -- what we know and when we knew it, if this young officer had made such a statement. I did find the statement that -- this young officer alleges that they were reluctant to report to their supervisor to be criticized, I believe was the statement. That troubles me, as well.

CUMMINGS: And that's a major problem.

PIERSON: I am going to ask my Office of Professional Responsibility to reinterview that officer -- they remain on the job today -- to determine whether or not that officer would be more competent today, or what were some of the problems that night that she felt like she could not say that. That extremely troubles me.

Now...

CUMMINGS: It said that she heard shots -- and I quote -- "She heard shots, and what she thought was debris falling overhead. She drew her handgun and took cover, then heard a radio call reporting possible shots fired near the South Grounds. She then called Secret Service Joint Operation Center to report that she was breaking into the gun box near her post, pulling out a shotgun."

According to this article -- and I quote -- "She replaced the buckshot inside with a more powerful plug (ph) in case she needed to engage an attacker. But then, the call came over the radio to stand down."

The next day, the officer -- and I quote -- "listened during roll call before her shift Saturday afternoon as advise -- supervisors explained that the gunshots were from deploying (ph) two cars shooting at each other." The report said that she -- and I quote -- "had told several senior officers Friday evening that she thought the house had been hit. But on Saturday, she did not challenge her supervisors for fear of being criticized, she later told investigators.

Now, Director Pierson, as a former P.O. (ph) agent, and as the head of the agency, that has to concern you tremendously. Is that right?

PIERSON: Yes, sir, it does. It's unacceptable.

CUMMINGS: Does it trouble you that some of your agents apparently do not feel comfortable raising security concerns?

BERMAN: You've been watching a hearing, the House Oversight Committee talking to the director of the Secret Service, Julia Pierson. She has been talking about the incident a couple weeks ago where a man walked through the front doors, really ran through the front doors of the White House and was able to get much deeper into the White House than we thought.

I want to bring in Michelle Kosinski, our White House correspondent. Michelle, two questions not answered so far, how on earth this happened , where was the breakdown, and why is it that the story has kept changing over the last ten days?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Surely that's going to come up. We heard in some of the initial statements by members of the committee that five rings of security were breached. I mean, this never should happen. This shouldn't happen on our watch, but what we're hearing now is they're going beyond that. They're actually really getting beyond this incident which, of course, still needs to be delved into and fully investigated and talked about openly and publicly. It will be to some extent.

But they're getting into the culture and what problems exist within the Secret Service. How it's run. One of the members was calling for a change in leadership, saying he has serious concerns about leadership and what they were talking about was the incident in 2011 when shots were fired. It took the Secret Service four days to realize and investigate that, okay yes, those shots did hit the White House and, in fact, it wasn't even the Secret Service who realized that those shots hit and what happened back then? Certain officers saying that they didn't feel comfortable coming forward and disputing the accounts of their supervisors and then relating that to this incident now where you have officers coming forward as whistle-blowers to a congressional committee instead of going to their supervisors and even the director of the Secret Service and telling them about it.

So they're saying that there's a correlation here and there has been for years. That this could go beyond one incident, that it goes within, also, the culture of the Secret Service.

PEREIRA: All right, thanks to Michelle Kosinski and what's really interesting here, too is that this is the very woman that brought in to, in part, help reform an agency that was struggling following this scandal, following these other issues and she was tasked with try to get a better image on this place and now she finds herself answering some really tough questioning. I want to turn to our Brian Todd. We've been watching this together. And Brian, I know you've been watching all of this. You're able to sort of show us on a map, if you will, just how far this intruder got. I think this visual really helped folks at home.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hopefully it will, Michaela and John. Yeah, we're going to show you this from an animation we've created. This is where Omar Gonzalez, after he jumps the fence, he sprints across the lawn, this is on the night of September 19th, he then turns and goes into the Portico area.

There is a uniformed Secret Service officer. This is the video of Gonzalez rounding that corner, going up the steps toward the front door. There's an officer there who approaches him. He apparently ignored commands at some point. We believe that's the officer that gave him a verbal command to stop. Now, he goes into the North Portico, here's the animation, through the entrance hall here. This is the entrance hall where he enters. Now, he's heading this way and then he's about to make a left down this entrance hall toward the East Room of the White House. This is about where he is on the map and this is where he is in reality with the picture, he's going to make a left here.

Then we hit this, he goes down, looking down the Cross Hall, he's heading in this direction. This is a picture where he's turning left. That's the East Room there. Then we proceed to where he heads into the East Room. He gets all the way into the East Room, almost to the Green Room, to the door, the south side of the East Room is finally where he is subdued. There's a picture of the green room where he's finally subdued by Secret Service officers here.

Images here of the East Room, the East Room, of course, a very significant place in the White House. It where's the president has given some major speeches. This is where President Obama told the nation that Osama bin Laden was dead. So many major events have occurred in East Room and that's where this man got before he was subdued. Michaela and John, this is everything that is being dissected now in this hearing that Darrell Issa is chairing. Just what were the five rings of security that were breached?

We kind of took you through the process, but hopefully we'll get more detail as to why this happened at each level, each ring that was breached. Why wasn't there an officer right inside the door, right outside the door? Why wasn't he stopped before he got that far into the White House?

BERMAN: Yeah, hardly rings of steel, these five rings, apparently. Brian Todd, thank you. I will say one thing that just came out of this hearing, that's coming out right now, they now have doors that lock after you shut them at the White House. It appears to be one change they have made.

PEREIRA: An alarm was muted. The dog was not released. I mean, there's a lot of questions. We'll be continuing to monitor this for you and bring you any fiery moments from that conversation. All right, ahead at this hour, in Virginia, a stunning development in the Hannah Graham disappearance. Police say they have linked the case to the death of a Virginia Tech student five years ago and to the assault and kidnapping of a third woman.

BERMAN: And is ISIS trolling for Western recruits on social media? Talking about everything from chicken wings to video games. I've got to say, the posts we'll show you are very, very surprising. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: A major turn in the case of missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham. It's now been more than two weeks since Graham disappeared in Charlottesville after a night out with friends. Now a law enforcement source tells CNN that police have DNA evidence that links the suspect in this case to another unsolved crime.

PEREIRA: The unsolved crime of Morgan Harrington. She's a Virginia Tech student who went missing from a concert five years ago. She was found dead not far from where Graham disappeared. Harrington's mother says the focus still, though, needs to be on finding Hannah Graham.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIL HARRINGTON, MOTHER OF MORGAN HARRINGTON: We know where Morgan is. Morgan's in a box over there. Hannah Graham is still missing and her family needs to know where she is. We need to bring Hannah home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Police have also made a forensic connection between the Harrington case and the sexual assault of another woman in Virginia nine years ago. The victim in that case was able to get away.

PEREIRA: Joining us from Washington, Mary Ellen O'Toole, she's former FBI senior profiler and a special agent. Mary Ellen, thank you so much for joining us. Clearly, forensics here are going to be key. I'm assuming that the police are thrilled to get some sort of breakthrough here. How tenuous might these connections be until they find Hannah Graham?

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER FBI PROFILER AND SPECIAL AGENT: The connections, some of them will be tenuous. Some of them will not be tenuous. But until we are able to find Hannah, we won't get that absolute DNA connection back to the suspect. So you have one case, for example, connected to a second case, originally, but no suspect. So it sounds like what has happened is that now they've got the two that were connected to an unknown offender, now are connected to an offender. After the search of the residence and his car, if there were items of evidence that were found there, that can be another link, not forensically linked or through DNA at this point but it still can complete that circle which makes possibly and hopefully all three even more cases connected to one person.

BERMAN: You know, Mary Ellen, we're using professional terms here and I know it's grim, I know it's gruesome, but when we say these cases are forensically linked, I think we need to know, what does that mean exactly?

O'TOOLE: Well, generally nowadays what is it means is that it's connected through DNA. And DNA is a fluid that can be blood, it can be semen or it can be sweat. Those are generally the three sources of DNA. Some people say when the term forensic is used it can mean ballistics, it can mean hairs and fibers. That's true, but nowadays the terminology is such that when you say we have a forensic link it generally implies some kind of DNA linkage.

PEREIRA: There are at least two other women, by some other accounts, as many as four women since 2009 who went missing in this general vicinity, talk about this Route 29 area. Do these cases look like a potential serial killer situation to you?

O'TOOLE: Well, they could be. I know you have age differences, you have racial differences. But that is meaningless, quite frankly. I've worked and/or consulted on hundreds of serial murder cases. You have to get beyond the trappings of what the person looks like and their age and you have to really go much deeper. They are in the general area and except for, I think the one where there was a suspect and there was a conviction, several of these cases are unsolved. So they absolutely will be looked at. I can guarantee you that. They will be looked at. They'll be reinvestigated. Common elements will be identified and compared with the other known cases. So they definitely will be factored in. They're not -- they are no longer just cases that are of interest, they're cases now that become part of this series until they are eliminated from the series.

BERMAN: Does this now throw open the file for other cases. You keep on locking one after the other after the other, you have this geography to go from. Where does this lead?

O'TOOLE: Well, for example, we have a suspect who was driving a taxicab. That makes him mobile. You also have a sexual assault up here in the D.C. area that has been attributed to this suspect. So we know that he's mobile. So what we do in these kinds of cases is we do a timeline and because this individual is 32 years of age, the timeline is not going to be as cumbersome as it could be if he were, say, 65. But they'll do a timeline on the time he went to grade school, to high school, to college. This will take time, but that's what they will do because we know this behavior doesn't just happen in a vacuum. It happens on an evolutionary scale. So I would be particularly interested in looking at really zeroing in on his behavior around 14, 15 years of age.

PEREIRA: Mary Ellen O'Toole, we are so appreciative to you. You have a special insight into this, as grim as it is, and as horrifying as it is, the sadness of those families looking for answers. We want to thank you.

O'TOOLE: You're very welcome.

PEREIRA: All right, a short break here. The head of the Secret Service says the buck stops with her. After the latest lapse, turns out to be even more shocking and troubling, is it time for changes at the top? We are having that discussion coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)