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Beverly Johnson Accuses Bill Cosby; Architect Defends CIA Interrogations; Strange Bedfellows in Spending Bill Vote; CIA Chief Defends Agency, Admits Mistakes

Aired December 12, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

She's an icon in American fashion. Beverly Johnson, one of the very first supermodels and the first black woman to grace the cover of "Vogue." And now her voice is joining a chorus of women accusing Bill Cosby of assault.

In a stunning article posted to VanityFair.com, Johnson recounts a dinner at Cosby's Manhattan Brownstone, where, as in so many of the other accusers' stories, Cosby allegedly drugged her with a drink.

Johnson writes, quote, "I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I had been drugged and drugged good."

CNN's Alisyn Camerota spoke with Beverly Johnson just a short time ago and she described the night Cosby drugged her.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEVERLY JOHNSON, SUPERMODEL AND ACTRESS: So when I -- when we went up to the living room area where he had this elaborate cappuccino or espresso contraption there, he offered me a cappuccino before we were to do this scene where I was to play a drunk woman, which I didn't know that had anything to do, because the part was of a pregnant woman. But I said, OK.

And he made this cappuccino, and I said I really didn't want to drink any coffee. It would keep me up late at night. But he was very insistent that I try this cappuccino that would be the best coffee that I would ever have. And so, I relented, and I -- he gave me the cappuccino. I took one sip and I felt something very strange going on in my head.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Describe the --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: -- sensation in your body that you started feeling immediately.

JOHNSON: Well, the first sensation was, you know, a little woozy. And so then I took another sip. And after that second sip, I knew I had been drugged. It was very powerful. It came on very quickly. The room started to spin. My speech was slurred. I remember him calling me over towards him as if we were going to begin the scene then. And he places his hands on my waist. I remember steadying myself with my hand on his shoulders.

And I just kind of cocked my head because at that point I knew he had drugged me. And I was just looking at him, and I just asked him the question, that you are an MF, aren't you?

CAMEROTA: We've heard an eerily similar story from now more than 20 women, and they all describe Bill Cosby as having drugged them, but they wake up after the fact, because they lose consciousness. You somehow kept the presence of mind not to lose consciousness, and you confronted him. And tell me about that exchange and the angry Bill Cosby that confronted you back.

JOHNSON: Well, I immediately went into survival mode. I knew that he had drugged me, and I wanted him to know that he had drugged me. So the only word I could get out -- and I don't swear -- was MF. And I kept saying it to him louder and louder. And for a moment, he stood there looking at me like I was crazy. And then -- it happened very quickly. He immediately grabbed me and started to drag me towards the stairs that went downstairs to the outdoors.

And I was, you know, stumbling around, trying to, you know, grab my handbag. And I really didn't know where he was taking me. But we ended up outside, and it was still -- it was dusk, so it was pretty light out. And all I remember is him, you know, grabbing me by one arm and him flailing for a taxi with the other.

I remember kind of looking around at people and, you know, people really recognizing that, you know, that's Bill Cosby. And a taxi stops. He opens the door and he throws me in there. And he slams the door shut. And I somehow get my address out to the taxicab driver.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Alisyn Camerota joins me now.

I read Beverly Johnson's "Vanity Fair" account, and after reading it, I just found her completely credible.

CAMEROTA: Yes, she does sound credible, and she has some vivid memories, despite the fact that she claims to have been drugged by him. Her story is eerily similar to the other accusers that we've interviewed, but also different in that she remained lucid, Carol. She remained lucid enough to fight back verbally against Cosby and yell at him. And for whatever reason, that scared him enough that he did not sexually assault her, she believes.

However, he did sort of physically manhandle her. I mean, she says these things in her essay that he yanked her. She saw his seething anger on his face. He pulled her down the stairs. She feared, "My neck was going to break with the force that he was using to pull me down the stairs."

I mean, again, this is just a much more aggressive, angrier Cosby than any of us had ever imagined.

COSTELLO: All right, Alisyn Camerota, thanks so much.

We're going to have more from Alisyn's interview with Beverly Johnson coming up in our next hour in the NEWSROOM.

Now let's turn to the mushrooming controversy over the so-called torture report and the latest extraordinary twist. The nation's spy agency, possibly the most secretive corner of our federal government, throws open its doors and ushers in the world's media. And even as the CIA director's denied that brutal interrogations were indeed torture, he now concedes that some of the tactics were abhorrent.

CNN's Jim Acosta at the White House with more.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Good morning. That's right, the CIA director, John Brennan, conceded the agency did make mistakes in using those harsh interrogation techniques after 9/11, but he also defended those methods in some instances, saying that it's possible in some cases that they provided some useful intelligence, a view the president does not share.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): The only thing more rare than a news conference held inside the CIA was the admission from the agency's director, John Brennan, that terror detainees swept up after 9/11 were abused.

JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: In a limited number of cases, agency officers used interrogation techniques that had not been authorized, were abhorrent and rightly should be repudiated by all.

ACOSTA: But Brennan would not call it torture.

BRENNAN: I will leave to others how they might want to label those activities.

ACOSTA: Brennan's explanation, the CIA was not ready after 9/11.

BRENNAN: The program was uncharted territory for the CIA and we were not prepared.

ACOSTA: And he maintained the agency's enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs, produced intelligence, even though he conceded it was unknowable if the same results were attainable without harsh methods.

BRENNAN: It is our considered view that the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against bin Laden.

ACOSTA: That's in sharp contrast to the torture report from Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein. She responded to Brennan in a tweet that critical intelligence that led to bin Laden was unrelated to EITs. But former CIA officials insist they were doing what was necessary to stop more attacks on the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't have the luxury time. We were at a ticking time bomb situation.

ACOSTA: On "THE LEAD," former CIA director Michael Hayden defended the forced rectal feeding of detainees.

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: They had limited options in which to go do this. It was intravenous with needles, which would be dangerous with a non-cooperative detainee. It was through the nasal passage --

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": Pureeing hummus and pine nuts and --

HAYDEN: Jake, I'm not a doctor and neither are you. What I am told is, this is one of the ways that the body is rehydrated. These were medical procedures. And to give you a sense --

TAPPER: Are you really defending rectal rehydration?

HAYDEN: What I'm defending is history. To give you a sense as to how this report was put together, this activity, which was done five times, and each time for the health of the detainee, not part of the interrogation program, not designed to soften him up for any questioning.

ACOSTA: Critics of the torture report ask what's the difference between harsh interrogations under President Bush and classified drone attacks under President Obama? One intelligence committee member insisted the drone program is legal.

SEN. ANGUS KING (D), MAINE: I believe that the CIA is acting within the law and the intentions. Right now that's as far as I want to go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Now all these attacks on the CIA prompted a spirited defense from former President George H.W. Bush. He released a statement last night saying he felt compelled to reiterate his confidence in the men and women who work at the agency.

And remember, Carol, George H.W. Bush was not only the director of the CIA, the headquarters is named after him -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Jim Acosta reporting live from the White House this morning. Thank you.

A key figure in the CIA's interrogation is breaking his silence, but not breaking ranks with the spy agency that paid him millions of dollars.

James Mitchell now concedes to CNN he is, indeed, one of the so-called architects who designed the program and its often brutal tactics.

CNN investigative correspondent Chris Frates has the one-on-one interview that ultimately led to his admission.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES MITCHELL, CREATED CIA'S ENHANCED INTERROGATION PROGRAM: I think that what they're trying do is get the American public to believe something that's completely unbelievable.

I can't even confirm or deny that I have a role. You know, what's happened is the press has decided I have a role, and you guys are hounding me to death.

I've said all along that I'm perfectly willing to be responsible for everything that I've done. I don't want to be responsible for anything that I haven't done. And the way the information has been presented so far, rightly or wrongly, right, it's just the press that's identified me as this person. I'm getting all the blame and all the credit, regardless of whether I did it or not. And my preference would be to talk about what actually happened instead of what some guy's speculating might have happened.

I think it's a partisan pile of crap. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere between what the Democrats in the Senate Select Committee say and what the Republicans minority say and what the CIA's response is, but I'm not the person to talk to about that because I can't even confirm or deny whether I was even part of that program.

Mark Thiessen in his book and Jose Rodriguez in his book both describe the point of those techniques. And the point of those techniques is they describe them in the book, not as I say they actually happened, but as they described them in the book, because I have no -- I can't acknowledge that I know how it happened if I do or I don't, right? It's a little bit like a good cop, bad cop argument. They've got a bad cop and a good cop.

The point of the bad cop is to get the bad guy to talk to the good cop. And so it's not surprising to me that there's a food fight now, because what's happened is, the Democrats and that committee has gone back and said, look, it doesn't look like a lot of stuff was gotten by the bad cop. And the other people are saying, no, no, no, we think the bad cop was necessary to get him to talk to the good cop.

That's the explanation as clear as I understand it as a U.S. citizen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. I want to bring in Chris Frates now. Welcome, Chris. I understand you talked again to Mitchell last night. And this time, he disclosed something else. What was it?

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. So Mitchell told me that part of his nondisclosure agreement with the government now been lifted, and he confirmed the fact that he was, in fact, one of those two psychologists mentioned in the Senate intelligence report, and that report, remember, said he was responsible for designing the CIA's harsh interrogation program. The report, if you'll remember, used pseudonyms to identify the two

men. And so, I asked Mitchell, hey, which guy were you in that report? And he still wouldn't tell me which moniker was his. And that report says Mitchell helped run and design the interrogation program. And he didn't have any particular expertise, according to the report. The CIA disputes that.

But the fact remains, Carol, that the company he started made $80 million contracting with the CIA, and there's real questions about whether or not he had the expertise to start to run that program.

COSTELLO: I'm sure you'll keep digging.

Chris Frates, thanks so much. We appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the CRomnibus passed. And I'm not talking about a breakfast sandwich. I'm talking about the bill that keeps the government running and puts political foes on the same team. This is really strange. We'll talk, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Oh, talk about strange bedfellows. Well, there were strange bedfellows in the spending bill. Liberals and Tea Partiers allied against rolling back Wall Street and campaign finance reforms, while President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner joined together to push the bill through.

In the end, the House approved the spending bill, just barely, and the government will stay open for business. But, of course, as you might expect, there's still some acrimony in the air.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: So, here we are in the house being blackmailed, being blackmailed to vote for an appropriations bill.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I'm here today to ask my Republican colleagues who don't want to see another Wall Street bailout, to join in our efforts to strip this Wall Street giveaway for the bill.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Democrats have supported this provision in the past. It was agreed to in this bill on a bipartisan, bicameral agreement.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

COSTELLO: CNN's chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash joins us now, as well as our chief business correspondent Christine Romans.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: They're calling this the cromnibus. Christine and I were trying to figure out what that actually sounds like, Dana. I came up with the breakfast sandwich.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that was hilarious.

COSTELLO: Christine came up with a skin disease.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: Listen, if you guys want to be really congressional nerdy like we are, call it the cromni. That's what the cool kids called it.

COSTELLO: Oh, cromni.

BASH: Yes, just want to give you a little inside scoop there.

COSTELLO: OK, let's talk about the strange bedfellows. The Tea Party queen, Michele Bachmann, aligned with the queen of liberal, Nancy Pelosi? That just doesn't seem right!

BASH: You know, remember that "Seinfeld" episode bizarro world?

That's what I was living in on Capitol Hill yesterday. It was, because you're exactly right. You had the House Republican leadership, John Boehner, trying to coordinate with the Obama White House because it wasn't just his conservatives. There were always going to be a group of conservatives who didn't like this bill for various reasons, but it turned out that you had the Democratic leader in the House and many of her Democratic rank and file rebelling against this as well.

So, very strange bedfellows. As you just pointed out, when you have Elizabeth Warren, who's about as liberal as you get, appealing to Tea Party conservatives, you know that maybe something is either right or something is wrong. And that is that this negotiation was done old- fashioned style, with Democrats and Republican negotiators on the appropriations committees.

And as even the top Democrat, Barbara Mikulski, said emphatically last night, we don't get everything we want. That's the art of compromise.

But as Christine knows very well, the idea of Wall Street and rolling back any reforms hit a very raw nerve, and that's what made this so difficult.

COSTELLO: OK, so, let's, like, tamp down on that very issue, Wall Street and how this spending bill benefits Wall Street.

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase guy, he personally lobbied to ease restrictions on big banks trading derivatives. A little history for you, Dimon's bank, JPMorgan Chase, accepted a $25 million bailout in 2008 because of poor investments. His bank lost $2 billion in trades because they were poorly executed a few years back.

And now, taxpayers might bail out the banks again, because bankers want the government to allow them to make these risky investments.

Am I right, Christine?

ROMANS: This is a bitter pill for the Democrats. This is a bitter pill for Elizabeth Warren. And, you know, the White House calls and says this is what compromise looks like. They got more money for the SEC, more money for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but they had to take this in return, rolling back a provision of Dodd/Frank that would have prevented banks like JPMorgan from making derivatives trades, risky trades, with taxpayer-backed money. That's been rolled back now.

It's a huge win for the banks, a huge win for the banks and really something that liberal Democrats are very unhappy about, Carol.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: Now remember, JPMorgan Chase, also, they just recently settled the biggest settlement ever with the American government, $13 billion for the mess that was the mortgage fraud that happened before the financial crisis. Admitting the role, really, in what happened that brought the world economy to the brink, and now succeeding in rolling back some of these Dodd/Frank regulations.

COSTELLO: So, Dana, in lawmakers' minds, how is this good for taxpayers?

BASH: Well, you know, as I said, what those who supported this large compromise measure would say is that, you know, you don't always get what you want. For example, on this issue of Dodd/Frank or of the Wall Street reforms, walk in the hallways late into the night as I was last night, I saw people who were involved in negotiations on the Democratic and Republican side, saying that the Republicans wanted to do even more of the rollbacks. They had like six ideas, and Democrats, as Christine was just talking about, pushed back on that.

So, the other thing I will tell you is that, you know, there are very different ideas about whether or not this is a rollback or not, whether or not this really would hurt consumers if the sky were to fall again. You have Republicans who philosophically, again, don't believe in very strict regulation that think that that is just not true, and that is a difference of opinion, but that is also what we're hearing on Capitol Hill from people who support changing this.

COSTELLO: Got you. I've got to leave it there. Dana Bash, Christine Romans, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM: fallout from the hack attack on Sony pictures prompting an apology from an executive for nasty e- mails about Angelina Jolie. The awkward moment between the two women, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Abhorrent -- that's how CIA Director John Brennan describes some of the agency's post-9/11 interrogation techniques during a rare press conference, firing back against claims that tactics didn't work. Brennan said some of the information obtained by interrogators did, indeed, help them find bin Laden.

But not everyone agrees, and now some are calling on Brennan to resign just two years after taking the helm.

Let's bring in CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. She has more for us.

Good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

John Brennan thrust on to the world stage at CIA headquarters, one of the most secretive agencies in the world. It's leading a lot of people to ask exactly, who is John Brennan?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): In times of crisis, John Brennan is often the man President Obama turns to as his counterterrorism adviser and now as the head of the CIA.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He is one of the hardest working public servants I've ever seen. I'm not sure he's slept in four years.

STARR: John Brennan has been part of the government's national security apparatus his entire career. The New Jersey native joined the CIA as an analyst in 1980, just three years out of college. Since then, he's held positions throughout the agency. He gave briefings to President Clinton in the mid-'90s, served as chief of station in the Middle East, and was deputy director of the agency under President George W. Bush.

Now, the CIA director is under the spotlight for his defiant reaction to a newly released report which slams the agency for torturing terror detainees during those Bush years.

He says it's unknowable if enhanced interrogation techniques directly caused detainees to offer useful intelligence, but there was useful intelligence.

BRENNAN: It is our considered view that the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against bin Laden.

STARR: For years, Brennan has been dogged by questions over his knowledge of harsh interrogations when he was at the CIA.

BRENNAN: I was aware of a detention interrogation program. I had some visibility into some of the activities that were there. I did not have authority over the implementation of that program or the management oversight of it.