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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Chaos over London Resolved; CIA Torture Architect Speaks Out; Investigation into Sony Hack

Aired December 12, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW. Great to have you along with us on this Friday.

A technical glitch that created chaos for hundreds of thousands of air travelers over London has just been fixed. A computer malfunction at an air traffic control center is being blamed for the problem. Let's get straight to CNN's Chad Myers.

And, Chad, we just got word, as we said, that airport officials expect cancellations and delays to last the rest of the day and into tomorrow. Really a domino effect from this, right? Give us the latest.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely. For a while what they had there, what we call in America is a ground stop. You're sitting at Ft. Lauderdale, flying to New York, and it's sunny and the pilot comes on and says, we can't take off because there's weather. You look out and you go, what do you mean? What kind of weather? What are you talking about?

BROWN: OK.

MYERS: Well, what we have now, all those planes that were maybe in Paris or maybe Amsterdam, they were supposed to take off, but they didn't get in the air because it was such a short flight. So because they're not in the air right now, they're going to be 30 or 40, 50 minutes delayed to get there. So now what we have are all these crews that aren't where they're supposed to be. A 727 crew can't fly a 737 unless he's qualified and so on and so on, all the way up the chain and all the way through the Airbuses. So you have to get the right crew, the right pilot, the right first officer, even the right people in the back, the flight attendants have to be for that plane before they can actually take off, or at least qualify.

So now all of these flights are going down, at least a few minutes delayed. Over 200 flights delayed to Heathrow right now from about right there down. That was the box that we did not have coverage for, for a while. It's now all cleared up and we've never had any problems with flights leaving from America because it's a seven-hour flight or a six-hour flight to there and they knew that they would get it cleared up by then. But all of these short little flights that are taking you to Italy, or taking you to France, or maybe toward Ireland, those are all the ones right now that are delayed and this is going to take a long time to get this. And even though it was only about a two- hour, maybe even less than that delay, now all of these crews are in the wrong places, the planes aren't in the air like they're supposed to be.

Pamela.

BROWN: Wow, what a mess. Chad Myers, thank you for that.

MYERS: Sure.

BROWN: Well, one side, Bill Cosby. On the other side, a growing crowd of women, all of whom say Cosby either slipped them booze or pills, drugged them, groped them, overpowered them, undressed them and, in some cases, raped them. At least 23 accusers now, including this woman right here. You may recognize her. Beverly Johnson, the groundbreaking supermodel. She's now talking her story about an encounter with Bill Cosby that she kept secret for about 30 years. Watch this. It's Beverly Johnson earlier today on CNN, only on about the day she's convinced Bill Cosby drugged her, but why she kept quiet about it for so long.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEVERLY JOHNSON, MODEL, ACTRESS: Well, I got a call from my agent that "The Cosby Show" and Mr. Cosby wanted me to come down for an audition for "The Bill Cosby Show." He asked me to come to another taping and he said bring my daughter, which was a big deal for my daughter, who was very young at the time. And then he said that we could do a rehearsal at his brownstone that weekend. And I said, well, you know, I have my daughters on the weekend and I wouldn't be able to do that. And he said to bring my daughter along. And I thought, oh, this is just terrific. And I did bring my daughter to the brownstone. We had a brunch that was prepared by his staff there. And he showed us the brownstone. He was very charming, very nice to my daughter and I. And since we hadn't had any chance to rehearse then, he suggested that I come back in a couple of days --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, HOST, CNN'S "NEW DAY": Yes.

JOHNSON: To rehearse for the scene for "The Cosby Show" and that's what I did.

CAMEROTA: And by then -

JOHNSON: 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 had. 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. And then I --

CAMEROTA: Describe the 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 placed 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. 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 taxi cab driver.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

JOHNSON: What changed for me was a number of things, once again, but the women coming out and telling their story. I would just look at that television and just think how brave they are. And also, you know, listening to Janice Dickinson, who was a friend of mine who, to me -- I've known her for 30 years, was never a liar. If anything, she's uncensored and there's no filter there. So, if anything, you're getting the truth and the absolute truth from her and how she was being treated and how they were being vilified. And that's the norm also, that women who do have the courage to speak about a sexual assault are -- they are put - you know, they are the people that are, you know, shamed and -

CAMEROTA: Sure, re-victimized in many ways.

JOHNSON: Victimized all over -- thank you, re-victimized all over again, once again. So I wanted to stand with those women. And, this, for me, is not about Bill Cosby. This, to me, it about violence against women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Beverly Johnson first revealed her story to "Vanity Fair" magazine. She says Bill Cosby's reputation for such behavior is known in show business circles and she hopes that more women with accusations against him will speak out.

Meantime, a man considered to be one of the architects of the CIA interrogation program is now breaking his silence to CNN. He talked to CNN one-on-one about the spy agency that paid him millions and what he thinks about the new report on the brutal tactics he apparently helped design.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're getting an unsettling look behind the curtain at the CIA courtesy of that controversial torture report released by the administration. It details everything from waterboarding to worse. They are the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques used against terror suspects. The CIA boss defends his agency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: There were no easy answers. And whatever your views are on EITs, our nation, and in particular, this agency, did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country strong and secure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Strong and secure, as you heard it, but at what costs? Are these tactics necessary or, as critics would say, is the U.S. starting to resemble the people we're fighting? CNN investigative correspondent Chris Frates got an eye-opening interview with the man who now admits he's one of the architects of those tactics. His name is James Mitchell.

Chris, great job on this. First off, I read a little bit about this interview. He had some pretty strong words. So who's right in his eyes?

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, based on the fact that he called the Senate report a pile of crap, I think you have a pretty good sense of where he's coming from on this. And, remember, that Senate report said that the interrogation techniques, that he was the architect for, didn't provide any intelligence that prevented terrorism attacks. Now, the CIA says that's just not true. And when I talked to James Mitchell, he told me and gave me one of the best explanations I've heard for how both the CIA and the Senate can be arguing opposite points with the same set of facts. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES MITCHELL, DEVELOPED CIA INTERROGATION PROGRAM: The point of that was to get the detainee to be willing to engage with a targeter or a debriefer. So it's a little bit like I - and I would appreciate it, if you're going to use this, that you use the whole thing. It's a little bit like a good cop/bad cop argument. You'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. So it's not surprising to me that there's a food fight now because what's happened is, the Democrats in that committee have 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, no, 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 can -- as I understand it as a U.S. citizen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So, Pam, there you have - there you have James Mitchell talking about what he thinks this argument's all about.

BROWN: Hmm. Interesting to hear his defense. And what about Mitchell's credentials, Chris? Because the Senate

report, as we read, says that he has no interrogation experience, yet the government paid him and this other psychologist (ph) about $80 million. So what did he say about this?

FRATES: Well, you know, as you point out, Pam, that was a scathing report that James Mitchell didn't have interrogation experience, didn't have expertise about al Qaeda, didn't have cultural literacy about that area of the world. And so I asked him, and he couldn't either, at the time we talked, confirm or deny - he later confirmed to me that he's the architect. But at this point I said, you know, talk to me about being misrepresented in the press. Do you think you're getting a fair shake? Here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITCHELL: I think people are routinely distorting my credentials and qualifications. I'm getting all these phone calls about people being asked, what do you think of this and what do you think of that, and 90 percent of the stuff they're saying is just not true. You should read the CIA's response and the CIA is saying, no, they did - those two subcontractors did not misrepresent themselves, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So, Pam, when I talked to Mitchell last night and he did confirm to me that he is one of the psychologists in that report, he said he wasn't doing any more interviews because now that he's confirming that, he has to review a lot more of what he says and run that up the flagpole with the CIA.

BROWN: And, of course, I want to point out too, the CIA disputed the characterization, basically saying that we believed their expertise was so unique that we have been derelict had we not sought them out. So CIA backing him up there.

I'm curious, Chris, what was Mitchell like? Did he seem credible to you? Tell us about that.

FRATES: Well, certainly when - many of our conversations, he couldn't either confirm nor deny a lot of those things in the report. So it was almost (INAUDIBLE) talking to him and talking in circles where he would say, well, I'm not confirming or denying that I know about this, but what I understand about the practices is "x." So it was a tough thing to talk to a subject who, it was kind of an open secret until yesterday when I talked to him that he was this architect and he had a very in-depth expertise that he could neither really talk about or confirm, but he still had a very strong opinion and wanted to get those opinions out there, Pam.

BROWN: Clearly. Chris Frates, thank you very much.

FRATES: Thank you.

BROWN: A new plot twist in the hack attack on Sony Pictures. Now some hacked e-mails between Sony executives involving President Obama has one of them apologizing. Details on that, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Welcome back.

I'm going to show you one of those Hollywood pictures that definitely speaks a thousand words. Look at this picture right here. Angelina Jolie not looking terribly thrilled to be face-to-face with Amy Pascel, one of the honchoes at Sony Pictures. This just two days after Pascal described Jolie as a minimally talented spoiled brat in an e- mail she sent to a producer that was made public and we know this because somebody hacked Pascal's private accounts and leaked a pile of messages to the public, some of them caddy, others much more embarrassing. You've got to wonder what that exchange was like.

So the big question remains, who did it? Who is the hacker? Who broke in to some Hollywood big shots' e-mails? Well, the FBI is looking into it as we speak. Some people think it's the North Koreans. And until we find out, the apologies are flying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hollywood's elite have been rubbing elbows with President Obama for years, making millions in fund-raising dollars for him.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hello, everybody!

BROWN: Now, a major plot twist. One of Hollywood's biggest players, Sony exec Amy Pascal, forced to apologize for e-mails in which she wrote racially charged jokes about the president, e-mails made public by hackers. In one e-mail to producer Scott Rudin, Pascal, despite being a prominent Democrat Party donor and Obama supporter, insinuates that Obama only likes films with black actors, like "Django Unchained."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Django. The "d" is silent.

BROWN: Pascal, shortly before attending an event with the president, wrote, "should I ask him if he liked 'Django'?" "12 Years," Rudin responded, referring to the film "12 Years a Slave." Pascal wrote back, "Or 'The Butler'."

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: She said, even though this was a private communication that was stolen from me, she takes full responsibility and she apologizes for it.

BROWN: Pascal released this statement say the hacked e-mails are, quote, "not an accurate reflection of who I am. I accept full responsibility for what I wrote and apologize to everyone who was offended."

It's just the latest embarrassing leak after hackers, calling themselves "Guardians of Peace," infiltrated Sony's computer systems in an unprecedented breach, also revealing celebrity Social Security Numbers and salaries, to studio secrets about budget-busting movies, like the next James Bond film "Spectre." Leaked memos reveal it's already $50 million over budget. Others newly surfaced e-mails bashed stars like Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Adam Sandler.

HOWARD BRAGMAN, FIFTEEN MINUTES PUBLIC RELATIONS: Behind the scenes, you're seeing a lot of phone calls being made to talent and their representatives, trying to mend fences.

BROWN: Hollywood insiders say the leaks are causing prominent producers, directors and Sony executives to go on major damage control.

BRAGMAN: They're embarrassed. They're humiliated. It's a very awkward situation.

BROWN: A big concern is that the leaks could continue to spill out and haunt Sony and its thousands of employees for months, possibly years to come.

STELTER: Some people at Sony think this was basically a terrorist attack. That this was the equivalent of a physical bombing, but only, you know, via cyberspace instead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And sources with firsthand knowledge of the investigation say the hack is believed to be politically motivated and the hackers want to embarrass Sony by trickling out confidential information and private e-mails to the public.

And just to clear something up here, Pascal was told by producer Scott Rudin that Jolie was, quote, "minimally talented and a spoiled brat," that quote that we've been hearing since the hack, not the other way around. So there was an exchange about Jolie there.

And in other news that we're following today, we've seen nationwide protests against excessive force by police and now some protesters have filed a federal lawsuit to try to stop law enforcement from using tear gas against them. Details on that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This just in to CNN. The cause of Tamir Rice's death, homicide. That's the ruling of the medical examiner in last month's shooting of the 12-year-old. Rice was waving a toy gun at a Cleveland Park when police pulled up and fatally shot him, mistaking the toy for a real firearm.

And this programming note to pass along. The parents of Tamir Rice are talking to Anderson Cooper. You can watch that interview tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time right here on CNN.

And the ruling of the Tamir Rice case coming as outrage continues to spread across the country over the recent killings of unarmed black males. And it may be intensifying. Organizers say tomorrow will be the culmination of what they call this week of outrage, with marches planned in major cities like New York and Washington to protest the lack of indictments in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Thursday night, Eric Garner's daughter led a group of protesters through New York City to a sidewalk in Staten Island. And then Erica Garner laid down. It was the exact spot where her dad took his last breath after gasping these words to police over and over again, "I can't breathe."

And Ferguson, Missouri, now, where Michael Brown was shot and killed in August, fallout from the tragedy has had a devastating effect on local businesses there. Some were destroyed or badly damaged when protests turned violent. Others have suffered a severe decline in revenue. To help them reopen or remain open, the state of Missouri has launched a grant program called Ferguson Rebuild.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON KANDER, MISSOURI SECRETARY OF STATE: This is not a government program. No state or federal tax dollars or grants are going towards this project. This is about Missouri stepping up to help Ferguson, Dellwood and Jennings rebuild.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, Missouri is reaching out to the St. Louis business community, as well as business leaders across the state, to raise money for this program.

And at the heart of these nationwide protests, excessive police force. And now it's a subject of a federal lawsuit. Missouri protesters say their constitutional rights were violated when St. Louis Police threw tear gas canisters and doused them with pepper spray. Police claim they used the chemicals only after protests became violent.