Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

FBI Thwarts Alleged Domestic Terror Plot; Father of Suspect Defends Son; Report: French Police Seek New Suspect

Aired January 15, 2015 - 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: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, attack arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: An Ohio man now in custody for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired attack at the U.S. Capitol.

COSTELLO: A clear picture emerging this morning of Christopher Cornell, close to his parents, playing video games. His best friend, a kitty cat. His father this morning saying his son was entrapped.

JOHN CORNELL, FATHER OF OHIO TERROR SUSPECT: He was definitely set up.

COSTELLO: Forced resignations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The agency was, quote, "starved for leadership."

COSTELLO: A Secret Service shakeup. Five now out after the White House fence jumper and leadership blunders abound, is this really enough?

Also, Indianapolis Colts linebacker Josh McNary charged with rape. Disturbing new details this morning. What the NFL is doing about it.

And the climb of a lifetime.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Feels incredible.

COSTELLO: To the top of El Capitan in Yosemite. A 3,000 foot climb and the picture of the morning.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

We start this hour with a failed plot to attack the homeland. The FBI says Christopher Cornell, a 20-year-old unemployed man from the suburbs of Cincinnati, planned to set off pipe bombs at the U.S. capitol and then gunned down lawmakers and staff as they tried to escape.

This morning his father is blasting the FBI accusing the agency of setting his son up. We're going to hear from him in just a minute, but first I want to turn to Susan Candiotti. She's been following the story and the investigation.

Tell us more.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, apparently the biggest mistake made by this young man was using Twitter and social media and that, in part, is how the FBI sniffed him out.

A criminal complaint lays out the alleged plot. The suspect, Christopher Cornell, goes on Twitter last summer in the Cincinnati area posting comments and videos supporting ISIL. A confidential informant gets involved. The FBI says the two start exchanging messages online.

Cornell writes, quote, "We should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything. We should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State here and plan operations ourselves."

Now court documents state the suspect had two meetings with the informant. He suggests setting up pipe bombs at the Capitol and then shooting people as they run away. Finally yesterday Cornell goes to a gun shop in Ohio and buys two semi-automatic rifles, walks out and the FBI takes him down.

A law enforcement source tells me, Carol, there is no indication Cornell had any actual contact with anyone affiliated with ISIS.

COSTELLO: Now you know that his father, Mr. Cornell, is accusing the FBI of setting his son up. Is there any evidence that you can see?

CANDIOTTI: Well, there -- look, when you have situations like this, there are inspirational and aspirational cases that are made. In this particular case that's why the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Forces have cyber security. They are always monitoring social media, and admittedly they did get an informant involved. They had discussions and this is what winds up happening.

COSTELLO: But they didn't move to arrest Mr. Cornell until he bought those semi-automatic weapons.

CANDIOTTI: That's right. When he took some action and walked out, that's when they said -- but at the same time you -- according to authorities, you can't just ignore these things. You've got to act on them when they play themselves out and they got it early enough so that no one was in danger.

COSTELLO: All right. Susan Candiotti, many thanks to you.

I want to bring in John Cornell now. He's on the phone. He's the father of Christopher Cornell who of course is accused of plotting that attack on the capitol.

Good morning, sir.

CORNELL: Good morning. Is this Miss Costello?

COSTELLO: It is Carol Costello. And thank you for talking with me. I appreciate it. Because I know this is difficult for you. It must seem so unreal. Have you talked to your son?

CORNELL: No. We actually hadn't even found out where he was. The FBI wouldn't even tell us where he was being held, what he was being charged with or any of that information. I actually found that out from one of your people late last night, and we've -- we've been in touch with the jail. There's no bond or I'm not allowed to visit. Visiting day is not until Saturday. He goes to court tomorrow. So he'll miss that.

We will be out there today to drop him off some money for, you know, some of essentials that he's going to need while he's in there because he will probably be in there for a while.

COSTELLO: Does he have a lawyer?

CORNELL: Well, actually, your -- your guy gave us the name of his public defender. We haven't even had -- we found that out late last night. We will be calling her early this morning and -- to find out exactly where we need to be and what we need to do, and -- well, I guess we'll have to take it from there.

COSTELLO: How are you and your wife doing?

CORNELL: Well, my wife is just totally heartbroken. I've gone from shock to heartbroken to almost having feelings of anger, and I'll explain why. I know the FBI are saying they had an informant that -- you know, Christopher had supposedly made these -- these statements on Twitter and I -- you know, when you say informant, he's not an informant. What he was is a person that had criminal charges pending and is a snitch.

He became a snitch for the FBI, and I'm telling you, my son -- I'm not -- I'm not saying he's a saint. He's 20 years old, going on 16. He's a big kid. He's never been outside of Cincinnati other than to wrestle at some wrestling tournaments when he was a kid. There is no way on the face of this earth that he plotted this by himself. There's no way he could have came up with this. I know my son better than anyone. I

believe that he met with this informant before the informant ever contacted the FBI. I believe this informant filled his head with a bunch of garbage. I believe he was tricked, tricked into correspondence afterwards. This informant supposedly came to my house and picked Christopher up on a couple of occasions. You know, probably wearing a wire, but this guy, we never really even got a good look at him. Like I said, my son Christopher is 20 years old going on 16.

COSTELLO: Well, let me ask you this, sir. Let me ask you this, sir, because -- let me ask you this question, and it's a difficult question. You've said your son is a mama's boy. Still the FBI says he was tweeting using the name Rahil Ubeta. And he was expressing support for violent jihad. If that's true, is it possible there's a side to your son you just didn't know?

CORNELL: No. I knew of his conversion to Islam. You know, I -- I was concerned because I -- you know, I watch the news and I see what's going on around the world, you know, and I showed some concern and I actually had open conversations with my son, Christopher, you know, and he explained to me his feelings. You know, I asked him if Muslims hated Christians. And he said, no, Muslims were actually allowed to marry Christians, you know?

And like I said, he was just dabbling in this and never actually even really I think actually converted until maybe six weeks ago because that's when I actually noticed, you know, he was doing his prayers. He had his little prayers on his computer and he was doing -- and he was saying his prayers five times a day.

Sure there's always that chance there was a side of Christopher I didn't know, but I'm just telling you the kid's never been out of Cincinnati. He never had -- he -- they say he was unemployed. He wasn't unemployed. He was a seasonal worker up until two weeks ago. He worked at a local department store and he was going to be off until March.

He saved up about -- a little over $1200 and he was waiting for his income tax. He was going to buy himself a car and become more independent. And he wanted to -- he wanted to be able to branch out and find other work.

And when I made a statement like that I thought he was lost, I think it wasn't that he was lost. He graduated high school and he just wasn't sure, you know, what he wanted to do with his life, you know?

COSTELLO: Well, let me ask you this, too, sir, because experts say that young men who seem lost, who aren't sure what they're going to do for their lives, they're looking for meaning in their lives. Does that make any sense to you that he might have been attracted to these groups, to have meaning in his life?

CORNELL: Sure, that makes sense, but I never -- I didn't -- I didn't never -- I didn't know what I wanted to be until I was 42 years old. I always wanted to be a cowboy. I'm just telling you that's the kind of kid he was. He was a big -- he still talked baby talk to our kitty cats. He still called his mom mommy. And, you know what I mean? He was like just a big, outgoing -- I mean, he had changed.

And I had talked to him about, you know, this Muslim religion and everything and he told me what his name meant. I can't remember -- I can't recall but it was all something about journey and journey with God, you know, and everything was God, you know?

COSTELLO: This Twitter traffic, sir, this Twitter traffic where supposedly he tweeted these things about supporting violent jihad, do you believe your son did that?

CORNELL: Do you know what -- do you know what the real meaning of jihad is? I know what Westerners think -- terrorist deal and what it actually means, a struggle in the way of Allah and the flag that they found, the ISIL flag that they found, that actually says there is no God but Allah. Mohammed is the messenger of God. And that's what that says. It was all about God. And the reason why they fly that flag is because that goes back to the days of Mohammed and Mohammed was their prophet.

And it is so misunderstood, you know, by non-Muslims in this country that I -- that I'm guilty of it. I am guilty. That's why I questioned him, you know what I mean? And, you know, he explained some things to me. He believed. He read the bible. He read the Koran. He believed in Jesus Christ. He believed Jesus Christ was the savior. Jesus Christ was going to come back and defeat the evil ones.

I mean, it was (INAUDIBLE). I'm just telling you that I think if he made those statements on Twitter, that he had been in contact with this guy before those statements were ever made. I think this guy filled his head with a bunch of garbage because he needed to get out from under some charges, criminal charges that he himself had, right? And then tricked Chris. I think he filled his head with a bunch of garbage.

Chris was very, very -- like I said, 20 going on 16. Very impressionable. You know, if the FBI knew this was going on and they've been following him since August and he had already made some terroristic threats or whatever, why did they not arrest him then? This kid's never had -- I know for a fact when he left out of here -- we never knew that he actually left, but he did take his -- we noticed he took his money with him. The kid had about $1200, right? And those guns --

COSTELLO: But he did go in that gun store, Mr. Cornell, and buy those two semi-automatic weapons.

CORNELL: Sure he did. Sure he did. The FBI goes in there.

COSTELLO: So what was he going to do with them?

CORNELL: What I'm trying to explain to you is he never had enough money to purchase those guns. They supplied him the money to purchase those guns. The FBI supplied the money to purchase those guns. The kid never had the money. And he never -- he don't know his way out of Cincinnati, how in the hell was he going to go to Washington, D.C. and blow up the capitol?

I think they filled his head with a bunch of garbage to make it more serious than what they would have had him on and, you know, especially with everything that's going on in the world and in this country now. You know, I think they made it -- they wanted to make a bigger deal than -- it is a big deal, I mean.

COSTELLO: Right.

CORNELL: But like I'm telling you, I'm not saying it because he's my son. I know how they operate. I mean, you know, I've had all of this and I know in my heart this is what they did. He never had the money to purchase those guns. The FBI gave him the money to purchase those guns or the snitch took him to buy the guns, had the FBI waiting. COSTELLO: Well, we'll --

CORNELL: That is a setup and that is entrapment in my book.

COSTELLO: Well, we will look into all of that.

Mr. Cornell, thank you so much for talking with me this morning. I appreciate it.

CORNELL: OK. Thank you, Carol. I watch your show all the time. Very lovely lady.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Cornell.

Let's talk a little bit about -- more about this alleged terror plot with Susan Candiotti and Paul Cruickshank.

Paul, you listened to this father. He's a loving father. He loves his son. So you can understand sort of where he's coming from, right? But, you know, your initial impression of what Mr. Cornell said?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, I mean, a horrible situation for him to be in. Clearly he wasn't aware of this radicalization, otherwise clearly he would have intervened. It seems this young kid converted to Islam quite recently and became very, very quickly radicalized by what he was seeing on social media, what ISIS were putting out there. By all accounts a very impressionable young man. But quite terrifying that somebody like this could be radicalized so quickly without even his family realizing it.

COSTELLO: Susan, Mr. Cornell said the FBI informant, and in the complaint it says that this informant had a criminal past, right, or had some kind of crime attached to him that he wanted to get out of. I mean, Mr. Cornell says he pushed Chris into making these bad decisions and the FBI even supplied him with money to buy the weapons.

CANDIOTTI: Well, we don't know enough about the details behind this.

It's -- it would not be unusual for the defense attorney who's representing him to suggest that entrapment was involved. That's what generally happens in cases like this.

But in this situation the authorities once this move forward to the extent where as you indicated, the guns were purchased along with 600 rounds of ammunition, the FBI felt that they had to act at that time.

And you do feel terrible sorrow. It's unfortunate for the father and mother who have to deal with this now. Clearly, he talked about converting to Islam, but described it to his family as the father put it as a lifestyle more than anything else. So whether he revealed anything else to his father about apparent or alleged radicalization, father and mother don't seem to know a thing about that.

COSTELLO: Is this typically how it happens, Paul, how organizations like ISIS go after young men, this particular kind of young man who is searching for a meaning in his life and doesn't have a permanent job and --

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Yes. I mean, yes, it seems like he was self-radicalized to quite a large degree to what he was finding online, radicalized him. There's no evidence that he had any contact with any terrorists over seas. He may have been claim that go to this confidential informant, but that could have been a bravado, or, hey, I reached out to this guy who seems to be in Syria on Twitter.

So, no connection to overseas terrorist groups. This is on the wannabe end of the scale. What we found in recent months is even these wannabes can kill. I mean, we've seen that in Australia, in Canada, in France as well before Christmas.

So, a lot of concern about lone wolves like this without those connections overseas, how are you going to find them? How are you going to get on to them? A lot of monitoring of social media and then they're launching these sting operations when they see people they're concerned about.

COSTELLO: Let's talk a little bit about these parents because Mr. Cornell said he was concerned when his son chose to convert and he did talk to him about it and he was concerned. So, what should other parents do in that situation?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, converting to Islam, absolutely, a lot of people convert to Islam, very peaceful form of the religion. It's the radicalization that's the problem. It's support for ISIS. It's when people --

COSTELLO: How can you tell? How can you tell?

CRUICKSHANK: As a parent, unless you're monitoring their social media accounts 24/7, you can't. You know, it's impossible. And time after time after time the parents haven't got a clue in these cases. They're very, very surprised when they find out that their kids have become radicalized. It's just an awful tragedy for these parents.

CANDIOTTI: Not only that, I would think trying to talk to the friends of your children and find out how they're spending their time as much as you can. It may or may not turn up information. Mr. Cornell seemed not to know about anything else about his activities on social media, but as you point out, he said he did ask his son what he was up to or what he felt about the religion. But in this case, it apparently went -- his son allegedly wasn't telling him everything.

COSTELLO: All right. Susan Candiotti, Paul Cruickshank, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In France, police are reportedly on the search for a new suspect in last week's terror bombings.

Let's head to Paris now and Jim Sciutto.

Good morning, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

That's right. That's based on the French newspaper "Le Parisien" citing police sources as saying this man may have driven the terrorist Amedy Coulibaly to the kosher supermarket where he took the hostages and killed four of them.

CNN has learned that Coulibaly and his partner drove from France into Spain on New Year's eve, about a week before the attack. A few days later, he returned to France, she went on to turkey. She's still on the run believed that she went in to Syria.

Today, there are two more funerals for two more of the victims from last week's attack, both killed here at the "Charlie Hebdo" offices. One, a cartoonist, the second a police officer who was providing security for the magazine.

And also, Secretary of State John Kerry will be arriving in Paris tonight. He's going to meet with the French president tomorrow. Before he left, he told reporters traveling with him that he's coming to Paris to give the city, in his words, a big hug, to express the affection of the American people during a terrible time of loss here in the French capital. He is the highest ranking U.S. official in France since those attacks.

Also today, federal prosecutors in Belgium tell us that U.S. authorities that a man is under arrest in connection with arms trafficking. He had recently sold a car to the widow of the grocery store attacker.

I want to peel back the layers on this as the international web of terror expands from here in Paris.

CNN senior international correspondent Frederick Pleitgen is here with the latest from our Paris bureau.

Fred, what are you finding this morning about all the connections they are finding to the attackers?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's more and more connections. The interesting thing, Jim, is that investigators here are not only trying to track where Amedy Coulibaly was at all time but they're focusing on tracking the weapons and the money. Those are the two main things.

It appears that Amedy Coulibaly went to the border between Belgium and France and took out a loan for 6,000 euros or $7,000 and then went across the border into Belgium and met with the person who brought the vehicle from his girlfriend, from Hayat Boumeddiene.

And, apparently, Coulibaly bought several weapons from this man. He's a known arms dealer. He turned himself in Belgium a couple of days ago. And confirmed apparently, this is according to media reports, that he had sold Coulibaly a submachine gun, which is called as a Scorpion and a Tokarev pistol.

That's interesting because if you go back to the video of Coulibaly where he pledges allegiance to ISIS, the automatic pistol is a Scorpion pistol. If you go back to the video that shows him inside that kosher store that he held up here last Friday, he's carrying a Tokarev pistol as well. That's, of course, one of the weapons that had been sold to him by that person.

Now, we're also saying there's another suspect that police are looking for. He's also implicated in shooting a jogger on January 7th also from ammunition from a Tokarev pistol. So, it seems this weapon was involved in this whole spree of things as they went along. So, police right now trying to piece together where the weapons came from and where the money for the weapons came from and certainly seems to be finding out things by the hour.

The information is coming in almost by the minute, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Fred Pleitgen, thanks very much.

Over on my count, if you look at the countries connected to these attacks, you have a tie to Belgium, travel through Spain, another suspect in Bulgaria as well as travel on to Turkey, possibly Syria.

Carol, becoming very clear here that there were at least connections between these attackers and several countries around Europe, makes it much harder to track, but another thing you and I have talked about this week, it's very easy to travel between countries in Europe. It's really like crossing state lines in the U.S. no passport control, et cetera, makes it very easy to move and. In this case, easy to move around after the attacks and before the attacks.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Sciutto, many thanks for you. You're going to come back in a few minutes. So, thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: coalition forces continue to carry out punishing airstrikes against ISIS. But is it working?

Up next, why some say the terrorist group is actually gaining ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)