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Texas Terror; New Germanwings Crash Report Released; Deflategate Report. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired May 06, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:06]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go, hour two. You're watching CNN.

Breaking news from the NFL. After months, we're finally getting an answer on the infamous Deflategate scandal. And that answer, well, that kind of depends on who you're asking.

A league investigation made public just a couple of hours ago casts suspicion on the New England Patriots, the winner of this past year's Super Bowl, finding that -- quote -- "It is more probable than not" -- this is a phrase that is repeated a couple of times in this -- "more probable than not that two team employees deliberately deflated those game balls during" that AFC Championship Game with the Indianapolis Colts.

That report indicates that quarterback Tom Brady likely knew about the violation. Patriots owner Robert Kraft, issuing a swift and sharp rebuke, response. And in part of it, he writes this. "When I addressed the media at the Super Bowl on January 26, over 14 weeks ago, I stated that I unconditionally believed that the New England Patriots had done nothing inappropriate in this process," he goes on, "or in violation of the NFL rules and that I was disappointed in the way the league handled the initial investigation.

"That sentiment has not changed. To say we are disappointed in its findings, which do not include any incontrovertible or hard evidence of deliberate deflation of footballs at the AFC Championship Game, would be a gross understatement."

And there's more from Bob Kraft. We will get into that here.

But, first, up with me live, CNN Sports anchor Rachel Nichols and CNN Sports analyst Christine Brennan.

So, ladies, let's begin with the actual reporting here.

Rachel, to you, what exactly did they find?

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, the preponderance of the evidence is a phrase we hear in legal terms. Right? That's basically when they say more probable than not, not enough necessarily to get you put in jail, convicted in a criminal court, where we say beyond a reasonable doubt, but to equate this, it would be enough to get you convicted in civil court.

So, that's kind of where we are on this. And they basically have a lot of circumstantial evidence. As Robert Kraft points out, there is no smoking gun here. There's no video of someone deflating footballs. But there are quite a few different things along the way, including some incriminating text messages that talk about needles, that talk about deflating footballs, that reference Tom Brady and his knowledge of the situation, interviews that they did with Tom Brady. And then the fact Tom Brady refused to turn over his phone and his text messages was taken into account as well.

So, there is a lot in this report. We will obviously comb through the many hundreds of pages word by word. But in the executive summary, you can see that they had quite a bit of circumstantial evidence, even if they don't have that smoking gun videotape that would make this a whole lot clearer. And then the question is, what do they do from here?

BALDWIN: Right, let's get to that in a second.

But back to Tom Brady, the superstar of this New England Patriots team, let's just remind everyone what he said very publicly in that news conference. That was after they played the Colts and won before the Super Bowl. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: I didn't, you know, have any -- I didn't alter the ball in any way. I have a process I go through before every game where I go in and I pick the balls that I want to -- the footballs that I want to use for the game.

QUESTION: Is Tom Brady a cheater?

BRADY: I don't believe so. I feel like I have always played within the rules. I would never do anything to break the rules.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was back in January. This is what the report says. And Rachel mentioned he's mentioned a lot, a lot. But it also says: "It is also our view that it is more probable than not that Tom Brady was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski involving the release of air from Patriots' game balls."

Christine, this is the -- I think you referred to him as Mr. Clean. Squeaky-clean Tom Brady, does this tarnish his image at all for Pats fans or those people who love to hate the Pats?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You know, Brooke, I think it tarnishes his image a lot. This is something, as we know, the story -- it's the story that ate America in January right before the Super Bowl. It was just huge. And now here it is again. And while a lot of us at the time said we don't know whether to laugh about this and just think it's another one of those little funny things in sports, quirky little elements of sports, or if this is a serious issue, Brooke, of cheating, right to the integrity of the game, which is so important to all leagues, especially the National Football League.

And I think now we're getting our answer. And my sense is that people are going to turn on Tom Brady. Patriots fans, of course, they're going to defend him. They will be with him forever. But the rest of the nation, I think, is going to look at Tom Brady in a different way because of what -- that clip you played, because he stood there and was Mr. America and said what he said.

And, now, wait a minute. It's not true? I think that that really could be a devastating thing for his -- for the P.R. image that is Tom Brady that he has fostered and really cultivated for years. I do think this is a big deal, yes.

[15:05:02]

BALDWIN: Let me go back, following up on that, Rachel, to Bob Kraft's statement, because this is -- it was actually three graphs in. This is what jumped out at me.

He says: "What is not highlighted in the text of this report is that three of the Colts' four footballs measured by at least one official were under the required PSI level." He goes on, "As compelling a case as the Ted Wells report may try to make, I'm going to rely on the factual evidence of numerous scientists and engineers, rather than inferences from circumstantial evidence."

How do you read that?

NICHOLS: Yes, look, if you look through the report, they talk about that any deflation that happens with the Colts' footballs was not nearly as significant as the deflation that happened with the Patriots' footballs. And weather, you would assume, would affect all footballs the same way.

Again, there's a large -- hundreds of pages of this report that address the science. We will go through those over the next day or so. But the report found in its executive summary that that wasn't the kind of factor that Robert Kraft would like to make it out to be.

And let's remember, guys, it was 51 degrees out that day. It wasn't 10 degrees. It wasn't 20 degrees. It was 51 degrees in January in New England, which I think qualities as balmy, right, for that part of the country at that time of year.

BALDWIN: Right.

NICHOLS: So, you know, throwing weather into this is, of course, the great confusion, because we can't all say exactly what happened to those molecules. But, again, this is a very thorough report. It took months. Ted Wells is a very, very, very thorough lawyer. And they combed through that scientific evidence. It's not as if they

didn't address that. They did in this report.

BALDWIN: All right. I know possible consequences, Christine, you mentioned before, maybe docking them a couple of games for the next season, which, as you pointed out, is a huge, huge deal.

Christine Brennan, thank you. Rachel Nichols, thank you both.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And now this new report provides perhaps the most damning detail yet that co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings Flight 9525 committed mass murder. Investigators now believe Andreas Lubitz repeatedly practiced putting the plane into a deadly descent on the flight right before the one that left all 150 people on board dead.

The information comes from a preliminary report by the BEA. That's the French agency investigating the March 24 crash. And it put forth this graph to explain how Lubitz rehearsed. I want you to take note of all the red at zero level there you see on the bottom of the screen.

So this is exactly how long and how often Lubitz, according to this report, set the plane to drop toward 100 feet, to the same autopilot setting Flight 9525 was at when it collided into the French Alps.

So, let me turn now to senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen first.

And, Fred, what was the pilot doing when his co-pilot was -- was entering 100 feet altitude?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's really part of the interesting side of this interim report, Brooke, is that the setting that happened in that outbound flight -- this is the leg from Dusseldorf to Barcelona a couple of hours before the doomed flight happened, which was the leg back -- was exactly the same setting that you had on that doomed flight.

The pilot, the captain, had left the cockpit. And that's when Lubitz started fooling around with the controls. Now, you have noted there were several instances where he put the autopilot down to 100 feet. There was also, however, where he put it to 100 feet and then very quickly put it to the maximum altitude of that plane, 49,000 feet. He only had it at 100 feet for about three seconds.

The interesting thing about all this, Brooke, is that while he was doing this, it didn't affect the trajectory of the plane at all. He was already beginning the normal descent of the plane.

BALDWIN: Right.

PLEITGEN: He was then fooling around with the controls, putting it to difficult levels. The plane was regularly descending. This might have been one of the reasons why the captain at this point in time didn't notice that Lubitz was doing this to the controls.

And then, a couple of minutes later, according to this interim report, the cockpit door was opened again. The captain came back in the cockpit, and the plane landed normally. However, the investigator went on camera today and said he's very, very certain that this was Lubitz practicing what he then did on the flight back -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Fred Pleitgen, thank you.

Let's springboard off of Fred's points here. The preliminary report also laid out minute by minute what happened as Flight 9525 dropped altitude. It noted how high that plane was when the cockpit door was heard closing.

And from that point to the catastrophic end, air controllers tried to reach the cockpit 11 times. After those attempts, you see how low the plane was when the French military tried to make contact three times. Then violent blows to the cockpit door are heard. The BEA's report then indicates just about 30 seconds later the plane was obliterated against the mountainside in France.

With me now, CNN aviation analyst Les Abend, who is pilot and contributing editor to "Flying" magazine.

Good to see you, sir.

Let's begin with this notion that he was setting multiple times the altitude to 100 feet on that previous flight. Would -- would air traffic control on the ground have any indication that that was happening?

[15:10:06]

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Not necessarily. It depends. There's a certain transponder that in certain areas of the world would allow them to see it.

I know, when I fly into Heathrow, they know the setting that I put in for the airspeed. It may or may not have. Chances are, he was moving it so quickly that it just seemed like a rapid movement. The bottom line is, there's two settings or two steps to this whole process. He was just moving an altitude select. He had to go through another process of saying, OK, I want to descend. So, there was another mode that he had to use in this particular airplane that it means moving the knob of that altitude select button and beginning the descent.

But, to me, what's curious is that the captain once again, or for the first time...

BALDWIN: Right before that flight.

ABEND: Because this was a preview.

BALDWIN: Right.

ABEND: Gets out of the cockpit, and in a way, he knew that he was going to have to begin a descent. So, that's a lot of trust to the co-pilot. To me, it says, OK, if we start a descent, he can handle it.

BALDWIN: Which also speaks to the relationship, which we talked so much about before.

ABEND: Exactly. Exactly.

BALDWIN: So there would be that trust for him to leave, knowing the plane was going to descend.

ABEND: Which is very curious.

BALDWIN: Huh.

ABEND: And so is this -- was this guy practicing, or was this guy just trying to build up the courage and maybe was going to do it from Dusseldorf to Barcelona, as opposed to Barcelona back to Dusseldorf, where we all know what happened?

BALDWIN: Right.

ABEND: I mean, this just makes it darker for the poor families and the victims.

BALDWIN: And then you think about the people who were on board on that plane in which he was doing the practice runs. And I think I would be squeezing my kids a little tighter today, perhaps knowing that.

With the captain of this plane coming back into the cockpit, knowing that he was out for those four minutes, is there any indication on any of the -- forgive me -- gadgets in the front, the controls...

ABEND: The mode control panel.

BALDWIN: ... the controls that would indicate he had attempted or done these practice runs?

ABEND: No, the captain wouldn't have known. By the time he got back in the cockpit, he would have looked up and seen -- he would have seen that the altitude selector was in the spot that it should have been...

BALDWIN: To descend.

ABEND: ... to descend for the clearance that they had been given. My And Understanding, it was 21,000 feet.

BALDWIN: Got it. Les Abend, thank you.

Next: two officers charged in Baltimore now saying Freddie Gray's knife was, in fact, illegal, and that could change this entire case. We will speak live with a defense attorney and Don Lemon next.

Also just in, the ISIS recruiter linked to the shooter in Texas is now responding to the attack on the cartoon contest there over the weekend. Hear what he is saying.

And breaking news, ISIS forces have just breached the perimeter of a major oil refinery in Iraq. We have all those details for you. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:00]

BALDWIN: In the city of Baltimore, the pushback has begun. Attorneys for two of the officers charged in Freddie Gray's death are asking to inspect the knife that Baltimore state attorney Marilyn Mosby said was, in fact, was legal to carry under state law.

The lawyers are challenging the charges that Gray was improperly arrested. Officer Edward Nero, who is the one -- one of the officers on those bicycles, and officer Garrett Miller, both of whom face charges of assault, misconduct and false imprisonment, their attorneys want to inspect that knife, this piece of evidence, as part of their defense.

They claim Gray's knife violated Baltimore City code and thus that that arrest was justified.

Joining me now, "CNN TONIGHT" anchor Don Lemon and defense attorney and former prosecutor Randy Zelin.

So, gentlemen, on the knife issue, Randy, first to you. I was talking to someone earlier who was a prosecutor in Baltimore County, because it's very specific. You have Baltimore City code for knives, and you have Maryland state law for knives.

Maryland's -- the chief prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, says it was, in fact, legal in the state. The cops are saying, no, it was illegal in the city. Could it be both?

RANDY ZELIN, ATTORNEY: First of all, my understanding of the two codes, they are consistent. So let's throw out any notion of, in the state, it would be OK, but in the city it wouldn't be. That is utterly ridiculous.

If it is spring-loaded, spring-assisted, it is an illegal knife.

BALDWIN: So either it is or it isn't.

ZELIN: Correct. It ain't like being half-pregnant. It is or it isn't.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: OK. Sorry. Needed to take a moment for that one.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Randy...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And this is also significant because this is the first time we're hearing sort of a foreshadowing of a defense.

ZELIN: It is huge on a whole host of levels, legal and practical. Legally, obviously, any charge that flows from an illegal arrest, say goodbye to it.

But it's a credibility issue. This prosecution team now, if in fact that knife was illegal, has lost such credibility, has prejudiced -- because some grand juror is out there watching this. Some trial jury is out there watching this. You can't do this. You want to hold a press conference, be right on your facts.

LEMON: And, of course, the attorneys for the six officers are going to hammer that home when it ends up in court.

ZELIN: Hammer? It's not a hammer. It's like something out of "Game of Thrones," man. It's something huge.

LEMON: Yes.

BALDWIN: You were the first to talk to her after she announced those charges last Friday.

LEMON: I was, right after.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And we talked about that. And so I'm wondering, you know, when you look at someone like a Marilyn Mosby, who's been on the job just a couple of months, she's almost damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. Right? It's a matter of, if she had waited longer vs. shorter, she'd be criticized either way.

LEMON: Yes. But that's what happens when you're -- it's -- you have got to put on your big boy pants.

That's what happens when you're -- when you're carrying the football, people hit you. They hit the person who's carrying the ball. Right? So she's going to get hit whether she -- because they would say, if you have the information, if you know that they are guilty and you believe that, you have all the evidence, then why wait, right?

And then the other side now is saying, why not take some time to make sure that every T is crossed, every I is dotted? And -- but I -- and I understand that. The criticism, though, is that I had heard was about youth and inexperience. And so that's where this is coming to now.

[15:20:08]

BALDWIN: But I have also heard criticism from a legal perspective.

After she stood on the steps of the War Memorial and announced that she was charging criminally all six of those officers, she sort of paused and then also spoke to youth of the city. Is that legally OK for her to do, as the city's chief prosecutor?

ZELIN: It's a very dangerous thing for a prosecutor...

LEMON: It's legally OK.

ZELIN: ... to play to the media.

LEMON: But it's...

(CROSSTALK)

ZELIN: It depends. Ethically, it could be a problem.

As a prosecutor, you should get in front of a camera and simply talk about the charges and talk about the evidence and the charges. You might as well just read the charging instrument. Then you can't get into trouble. But when you start commenting on evidence, when you start commenting on your case, you walk a very fine line, even if you're right, because you're prejudicing the defendant, who's presumed innocent.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: In her defense, basically, that's what he did, except when it came to the protesters.

She said, young people, I hear you. You're saying no justice, no peace. So this is justice in motion. Now I want you to be peaceful.

She wasn't saying, I'm going to send these people to jail. She said, justice is moving in the right direction, or at least it's moving, so be peaceful.

ZELIN: Well...

LEMON: She didn't say right direction. That's how I interpreted it. So, I think it's all in the interpretation.

(CROSSTALK)

ZELIN: In 1935, Chief Justice Sutherland of the Supreme Court said a prosecutor's job is not to get a conviction. It's to do justice.

And when you start talking about evidence, particularly when you know what it is that you're talking about, you're doing not just the defendant, you're doing society a grave injustice, because it undermines our confidence in the criminal justice system. And once we lose that, you don't have a shot.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: You think she talked about the evidence? I thought she just read from the charging document in the...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: ... went into specifics about...

(CROSSTALK)

ZELIN: Well, at some level, somebody's talking about an illegal arrest. And if you don't know that -- your own evidence and you don't know that this knife, in fact, is illegal, that's scary.

LEMON: Yes. Well, that's a different thing.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Can we just say, can we just say, bottom line -- and they're going to have to figure out the deal with the knife, but this doesn't answer the question still as far as what happened to him prior to the arrest, right, and what happened to him once he was arrested.

(CROSSTALK)

ZELIN: That's a wonderful point, because the truth remains. And thank you for not losing sight of that.

You can talk about the arrest all you want, good, bad, or indifferent. The man is dead. We need to know how and why he died. And if he died as a result of something that would constitute a crime, then the people who did that need to be brought to justice, whether that was a spring-loaded knife or an Uzi.

LEMON: But still -- but it still -- if they're wrong about the knife, then that changes the whole thing, even...

BALDWIN: Who's the they here, Marilyn Mosby?

LEMON: If the prosecutor is wrong about the knife, that's...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And, in fact, it was illegal, thus the arrest...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: ... going to change the whole thing when it comes to investigating how he died.

BALDWIN: That's a big deal.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: That's a very big deal.

ZELIN: Certainly.

LEMON: And if you look at Page Croyder, who is very respected, what she said today, everything is politically motivated, I think. But Page Croyder is so respected. I don't know if she has any political motivations in this. It's going to be -- that's a toughie.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Don Lemon, Randy Zelin, thank you both very much.

LEMON: Yes.

ZELIN: Thank you so much.

LEMON: OK. Thank you.

BALDWIN: And make sure you watch this guy "CNN TONIGHT," 10:00 here on CNN.

LEMON: That's right. Thank you.

BALDWIN: Breaking news, ISIS forces have just breached the perimeter of a major oil refinery in Iraq. We have those details ahead.

Plus, a new tweet from an ISIS member connected to that gunmen from the shooting over the weekend in Texas -- what he is saying in this chilling new threat straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:50]

BALDWIN: Bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We got breaking news out of Iraq. ISIS forces have breached the perimeter of that Baiji oil refinery. ISIS has been battling over this refinery for months and months.

Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, tells us ISIS made the surprise advance on the refinery within the last 48 hours. A Pentagon spokesperson tells our colleague here ISIS is inside the perimeter, but is not in full control of the facility. A Pentagon spokesman says Iraqi forces are trying to fight back.

Meantime, new developments here in the terror attack over the weekend in Texas. A couple of issues stand out as investigators are trying to trace the movement here of Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi in the days and weeks leading up to the shooting outside this Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in a Dallas suburb.

First, the FBI is on the hunt for any possible accomplices here in the United States. They're questioning members of a Phoenix mosque. Both of these men lived together in a Phoenix apartment. Investigators are also looking for possible ties to terrorists overseas.

With regards specifically to what happened in Texas, a recruit for ISIS in Britain tweeted, "You ain't seen nothing yet."

Let me bring in CNN's chief national correspondent, Jim Sciutto.

Jim, of particular interest to the FBI is this British ISIS recruiter in his tweet. Can we talk about that most recent tweet? What was that?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it sounds like a warning. And he's a potential real player here.

His name is Junaid Hussain. He's British. He's now believed to be in Syria. He's a hacker. He was prosecuted in Britain on computer charges. But he's also believed, and this is more important, today to be a recruiter.

So, he tweeted again just recently about, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Appears to be a warning about more attacks. No idea, no evidence to back that up, but the other thing, he was tweeting before the attack in Texas. He tweeted: "The knives have been sharpened. Soon, we will come to your streets with death and slaughter."

And there was some contact between him and the gunmen in Texas. So, U.S. investigators are now looking into what kind of connections he had. Was it just a Twitter relationship, tweets back and forth, retweets, et cetera, or did he inspire them, did he encourage them?