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Clinton to Address Controversy; ISIS Losing Ground; ISIS Hacking U.S. Businesses; Prosecution Highlights Boston Bomber's Actions After Bombing; A Life-Changing Accident for Miles O'Brien

Aired March 10, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton has decided sooner rather than later. In a surprise move, the former secretary of state will address the e-mail controversy swirling around her and she'll do it the hard way. She'll take questions from reporters. CNN national political reporter Peter Hamby is in Washington with more.

Good morning, Peter. Why did she decide to do it now?

PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Hey. Well, look, I mean, she should have done this probably last week. They thought they could tamp this controversy down last Wednesday around midnight with a tweet saying I want the public to see all of my e-mails. Look, I think Clinton world probably thought that this was just another kind of tempest in a tea pot, you know, micro controversy that the press is just obsessed with and that it would go away.

Clearly we saw over the last week that this ballooned into something much bigger. We saw top Democrats in the Senate and elsewhere raising questions about these e-mails. We saw Democrats in early primary states raising questions about these e-mails. We saw Obama administration officials not quite sure how to answer questions about this.

And so what we're going to see later today, after she gives a speech at the U.N., a huge zoo. There are going to be so many reporters up there, Carol. It's going to be, you know, absolutely totally swamped. And this is the first big sort of controversy sort of political hurdle really that Hillary Clinton has had to confront in what is likely her presidential campaign.

We saw lots of sort of, you know, things bubble up last year during her book tour, but this is the real -- first real serious controversy that cuts to her tenure as secretary of state, her behavior as secretary of state and also her political abilities and, frankly, the abilities of her staff to manage and deal with the press and controversies like this. You can be absolutely certain that Republicans and Republican researchers are getting their popcorn ready for this press conference later, Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, geez. And what time should we expect to eat our popcorn? HAMBY: Sometime in the 2:00 hour it sounds like she's going to give a

speech and then hold something between a press conference or a media avail, we're not quite sure what that's going to look like yet. But I can guarantee you that there will be north of 100 reporters there, if not more than that. This is New York City after all.

COSTELLO: Peter Hamby, thanks so much.

I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: In northern Iraq, ISIS fighters are losing ground on two critical fronts. First, Iraqi forces may be just days away from reclaiming the city of Tikrit. It's been under ISIS control since June. Second, and even more importantly, the group is showing signs of fractures in some of its other strongholds, so could the ISIS reign of terror be weakening. CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Baghdad with more about that.

Hi, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

Yes, if you look back just to late last summer, it definitely looked like ISIS was on a role. They were gaining territory in Syria and Iraq. But now the situation is dramatically different. What we have here in this part of the country is outside Tikrit we've seen Iraqi forces, which is a combination of militias, the army, police, tribesmen, really closing in on this -- on that city of around 200,000 people. We have seen ISIS losing ground dramatically in recent days, taking a lot of casualties. And apparently what we're hearing from inside the city is that they are beginning to execute some of their own who ran away from the battlefield. We also know that others are trying to sneak out of the city among fleeing civilians.

In northern Iraq, just outside of Kirkuk, yesterday and the day before there was a major battle where the Kurds were able to retake around 12 villages, take a large area of land. So definitely in the north and in central Iraq, ISIS is really being pushed back. And, of course, what's interesting is that when organizations like these, when they're winning, when they're gaining ground, they gain more support and they gain more followers. But as it seems that their fortunes are changed rather dramatically, we are hearing from inside ISIS that there's beginning to be in fighting among, for instance, the local fighters and those who come from abroad, arguments over who gets the perks, who does the hard work.

So, certainly, if you were here yet last year, the atmosphere is much different. The threat of ISIS, to many people, does seem to be receding at the moment.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Ben Wedeman reporting live from Baghdad this morning. That said, ISIS is still playing games. Example, on any given day, if

you visit eyeflow.com, it looks like this. Eyeflow is an Internet marketing firm from Pittsburgh. Now, imagine you're the company's CEO and you visit your site and this pops up. Take a look. The site was hacked by ISIS. In small print it says, "we are everywhere," and it has a little winky face there. So what do you do? Talk about creepy. Well, it happened to Phil Laboon. He is the CEO of Eyeflow. His company is one of dozens of websites allegedly hacked by ISIS.

Phil, thank you for joining me.

PHIL LABOON, CEO, EYEFLOW.COM: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: What was your first reaction to this?

LABOON: At first we thought it was a joke. We saw it. I was at a dinner party. I was getting text messages from people. And, yes, it was -- it was a really interesting experience to say the least.

COSTELLO: Interesting. I mean were you afraid when you -- when you realized that this -- your site might have been hacked by ISIS?

LABOON: Well, at first I thought I'd go to the news and there was going to be thousands of people hacked. And then all of a sudden we did some searches and noticed that we were one of very few people. When I did a search, there was no one else saying this happened. So we thought we were the only ones targeted. And then after doing some research, that slowly more and more people were coming out, but it was still such a small number that we were really nervous that it was targeted for us specifically.

COSTELLO: Why do you think you were targeted, your company?

LABOON: So we did some fundraising and some charity work back in August which got some international attention. And we thought maybe it garnered the wrong type of attention. So we haven't heard anything negative about it. We did a big fund-raiser for third world countries and we thought maybe it got over there somehow and they were -- somehow saw it and maybe thought that we would be a target to hit. Maybe we were easier than other non-profits or something that they could hit and that was our initial assumption.

COSTELLO: So what are authorities telling you to do?

LABOON: Not much right now. They're looking into it. They're obviously concerned that it wasn't a mass hack. I'm in the industry, so usually when you see these types of hacks, they find a plug-in and they're hacking thousands of websites at a time. They find a vulnerability. In this scenario, it's very targeted. It's one or two companies in each state, it seems, and it's just one or two more coming out every day. It's not like a typical hack that you would see on a mass scale across the U.S. where there's tens of thousands of people affected. It's a very small target and they're slowly trickling in every day. So right now the FBI is kind of keeping us in the dark a little bit until they find out exactly what's happening.

COSTELLO: So is life back to normal? I mean, how are you dealing with it and your employees?

LABOON: I would say I'm getting a lot of family and friends contacting. We're getting a lot of media, especially locally, since we were the only one in the state that got hacked. There's a lot of -- a lot of concern going on. We're obviously locking the doors at the office. We're taking extra precautions. We're monitoring our servers and seeing who's coming in. And, yes, I mean, it's kind of a -- you know it's a little bit -- everyone's definitely on alert at the office.

COSTELLO: I can understand that. Phil Laboon, thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate it.

LABOON: Yes. Thank you. Bye.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new, never before seen surveillance footage revealed, tracing the steps of the accused Boston Marathon bomber. CNN's Alexandra Field in Boston.

Good morning.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Carol.

This video shows the bizarre stop that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made after the blast. We're also seeing video of the moments leading up to those explosions. We'll show you both coming up right after the break.

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COSTELLO: What did accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev do after killing three people and injuring more than 260? He went to a grocery store and bought some milk. Seriously, take a look. Federal prosecutors introduced this never-before-seen video in court, tracing the 22-year-old back to a Whole Foods less than a half hour after the deadly attack.

CNN's Alexandra Field is covering the trial in Boston. Good morning.

FIELD: Hey, good morning, Carol. Look, the prosecution wants to show Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a cold-blooded killer who was calculated in his planning of the attack and who demonstrated a certain amount of callousness following it. So they showed the jury that video of him purchasing milk. They show him at the gym, hanging out with his friends, just a day after the attack, and also combing through his social media, highlighting one tweet just two days after the attack in which he says he's a stress free kind of guy.

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FIELD (voice-over): Dzhokhar Tsarnaev inside a Whole Foods market, carefully considering his choice of milk, then swapping it. Ordinary moments in the aftermath of that horrifying attack. The milk run made less than half an hour after the blasts.

An FBI video sequence shows Dzhokhar and his brother, Tamerlin Tsarnaev, on Marathon Monday, turning on to Boylston Street. They stopped together at one point before splitting up. There's a phone call between them, then that first explosion at the finish line.

That's Tamerlin moments before. The sun was shining. Jessica Kensky, a newlywed remembers her arms were wrapped around her husband. "I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything. I just felt like I was on a rocket. I just grabbed tightly to Patrick and it felt like the two of us shot right up in the air."

A nurse, a two-time marathoner, a double amputee. Kensky is wheeled to the witness stand, her service dog, Rescue, by her side. "I was most focused on my husband who was still next to me. His foot was detached, just hanging on by a thin thread. Then a man came over and said, ma'am, you're on fire, you're on fire. The fire was from my shoulder all the way down to my pants."

Farther down Boylston Street, Dzhokhar seen with a backpack in front of him outside the Forum restaurant. He walks away, looks back, later he takes off running with the crowd.

"When I got to the front of the Forum, the thing that struck me first was the smell of burning tissue and blood. It just looked like people had been dropped like puzzle pieces onto the sidewalk. A severed foot was right on the curb right in front of me," testifies Dr. James Bath.

Firefighter Matt Patterson hears the explosions and runs toward them, scooping up 6-year-old Jane Richard and borrowing a belt to stop her bleeding. Her leg was amputated above the knee. There was just barely enough to place the tourniquet. She was watching the marathon, feet away from Tsarnaev.

Danling Zhou is in the crowd. Her stomach is ripped open by the blast. She's forced to hold it together with her hands. Her legs intertwined with her friend, Lingzi Lu, who hadn't planned on watching the runners and made the last-minute decision.

"I check Lingzi's wound. She's yelling so I know she's alive. I try to talk to her, but I can't at that point."

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FIELD (on camera): Lingzi Lu could not be saved. Her friend Danling Zhou was on the stand taking deep breaths and long pauses, and at some point wiping away tears. She's one of more than two dozen witnesses who has already testified, a number of them survivors of this attack. And, Carol, they have shown great commitment to telling their stories, fighting to keep composure while Tsarnaev sits in front of them. Mostly we've seen him slumped down in his chair, avoiding eye contact with a number of the witnesses. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Alexandra Field, reporting live from Boston.

Checking other top stories for you at 51 minutes past. Ferguson judge Ronald Brockmeyer is resigning. The move comes after a scathing U.S. Justice Department report that accused Brockmeyer of using his court to fund the city on the backs of poor minorities. The city's cases are being transferred to another judge. Three senators want to legalize medical marijuana under federal law.

Rand Paul, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory Booker are introducing a new bill. It would let states that have already legalized medical marijuana operate legally under federal laws. Currently, federal laws leave those who prescribe, use, and sell medical marijuana vulnerable to arrests. The senators say want patients, including veterans receiving care from VA facilities, to have access to the care they need without fear of prosecution.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM --

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MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I didn't have a template for a one- armed television journalist. So I didn't know what I could do.

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COSTELLO: Learning to cope with the loss of an arm. The emotional road to recovery for my friend, Miles O'Brien.

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COSTELLO: This next story is personal to the CNN team. It's about a longtime anchor and correspondent Miles O'Brien. Miles was on assignment in the Philippines when a case of equipment fell and hit his arm. He ignored what he thought was just a nasty bruise. Well, the accident ended up costing Miles his arm and nearly his life.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Miles was rushed into the operating room. At that point, he thought he could still be treated but complications from compartment syndrome caused Miles' blood pressure to rapidly fall during the procedure. And so with Miles still under anesthesia, the doctor made the decision to amputate Miles' arm above the elbow. A painful decision that had to be made and probably saved his life.

O'BRIEN: I could barely believe what I saw. I mean, you know, it's amazing that I -- it felt like it was there. It really did. But it wasn't.

GUPTA: Miles was alive but he was in deep denial over what had just happened to him.

O'BRIEN: I don't think we're very good -- human beings in general -- are good at perceiving what our real risks are, right? You tell people you're going to Fukushima. They go you're crazy. You tell people I'm stacking up some Pelican cases, they say so what? Our perception of risk does not match the reality. And I have learned that in a very painful way.

GUPTA: The denial was so strong, Miles left the hospital two days after his operation and checked into a hotel. He didn't tell anyone that his arm was gone. Not his family. Not his friends. Not his co- workers. No one knew.

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COSTELLO: I have tears in my eyes. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta spent last year following his friend, and mine, as he learned to cope with the loss of his arm. And I just can't imagine how emotional this was, especially for Miles, but for you too.

GUPTA (on camera): He's a brother to all of us, right? You know, Carol, we always used to joke. You know Miles well. He was the guy who was covering space so he was the rocket scientist and I was the brain surgeon. We heard a lot of fun together.

And when I heard this news, like I'm sure a lot of people, it literally took the wind out of my -- I couldn't breathe when I first heard what had happened to him. But I'll tell you, he's obviously a -- he's a very smart guy. He's a very resilient guy. But he taught me a lot through this whole process.

COSTELLO: Really?

GUPTA: Yes, because I think we doctors like to put things in neat, convenient packages. You go through denial, you go to anger, you go to bargaining, the stages of grief. And what I learned from Miles, because I was with him and he's my friend, is that it's not that neat. It's sticky. It's messy. People may get to acceptance and then go all the way back to denial again. He comes out of the gate going a million miles an hour. I want to do these things. I want to be Miles O'Brien again. And there's some value to that.

COSTELLO: I totally get that. I would not -- if it happened to me, I can see myself doing the same thing. And it wouldn't just be I was in denial; it would be I don't want to burden my family. I want to get on with my life and I can take care of myself.

GUPTA: and there's definitely a component of that with him as well. I mean, look, can you imagine, he was sitting in his hotel room in the Philippines for a week after this happened to him. He's still turning in stories that he was shooting out there. They don't know that he lost his arm. He doesn't tell his family. He doesn't tell anybody. So talk about not wanting to burden people -- that was certainly going through his mind as well.

But I think the lesson a little bit here, as well, Carol, is that that's not -- that sounds heroic in some ways, but there is a psychological reckoning that people have to deal with at some point. Even if you're Carol Costello or Miles O'Brien, at some point, you have to deal with these things. And I think even a year later, he's still doing that.

COSTELLO: And I just want to say something to you. Because whenever something happens to any of us at CNN medically, we call you. And I did it, too. Because my husband went through a terrible time and I called you, the neurosurgeon, because I knew that you would know the answer. And I just want to say I so appreciate that. And we all do. Honestly. GUPTA: Well, you're very kind to say that. It's an honor to be able

to help. There's not many times you get a chance to help other people so it's a privilege. I really appreciate you saying that.

COSTELLO: Thanks, Sanjay. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Oh, that Sanjay and Miles. Both great guys. Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports on "MILES O'BRIEN, A LIFE LOST AND FOUND" tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

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