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Family Names Alleged Sex Abuse Victim of Dennis Hastert; Did China Steal Info on Four Million Government Workers? Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 05, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:01] CUOMO: It's not the ideal but it's better than nothing. And she wants to do it. And the mother insists they're all Haley's ideas and there she is with the nail gun.

CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh. So impressive.

CUOMO: Not for the typical 9-year-old.

CAMEROTA: And I know Carol Costello will be impressed also on "NEWSROOM."

Hey, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I am doubly, triply impressed. You guys have a great weekend. Thanks so much.

CAMEROTA: You too.

COSTELLO: NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, a hat for the record books. Chinese hackers may have their hands on the personal information of millions of Americans. So what are they going to do with it?

SHAWN HENRY, PRESIDENT, CROWDSTRIKE SERVICES: By collecting all this information, it's having a giant database that they may be able to tap into at anytime.

COSTELLO: We're talking about what happens next.

Also the terror takedown in Boston. Catching the suspect's family off guard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not people of destruction or terror.

COSTELLO: What is it like when a loved one turns? I am talking to the mother of a radicalized ISIS fighter who says it's hell.

Plus. Drugs for better sex, not just for men anymore. The FDA gets closer to approving a little pink pill, but there are strings attached.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOLENE REINBOLDT, SISTER OF ALLEGED VICTIM OF SEXUAL ABUSE: I asked him, Stevie, when was your first same-sex experience? I mean, he just looked at me and said it was with Dennis Hastert. And I just -- I know I was stunned. I said, why didn't you ever tell anybody, Stevie? I mean, he was your teacher, why didn't you ever tell anybody? And he just looked at me, and said, who is ever going to believe me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. We do start with breaking news this morning.

A betrayal of trust and accusations of child molestation. A woman comes forward saying her brother endured years of sexual abuse in high school by a teacher who would later become the speaker of the House. Dennis Hastert is just days from his first court appearance accused of lying to the FBI about hush money he was paying.

The woman said she never demanded money, though, nor did her brother who died 20 years ago. But she does say Hastert should pay for the abuse that left her brother severely damaged for the rest of his life.

Chris Frates is with CNN Investigations. He joins us from Chicago with more.

Good morning.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Carol. So Steve Reinboldt who's being named by his sister in an interview to ABC News as the victim of sexual abuse from Denny Hastert. She says that her brother was a victim of sexual abuse in the 1970s. That was while Hastert was in high school, he was a wrestling coach and her brother was the team's equipment manager.

Now Jolene Reinboldt says her brother told her about the alleged abuse when he revealed to her that he was gay, but it was until her brother died in 1995 and Hastert attended his funeral that she first confronted the speaker of the House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINBOLDT: I just looked at him, and I said, I want to know why you did what you did to my brother. He just stood there and stared at me, and -- then I just continued to say, I want you to know that your secret didn't die in there with my brother, and I want you to remember that I'm out here, and that I know.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FRATES: Now federal prosecutors have said Hastert was paying another unidentified man more than $1 million to hide alleged misconduct with him. Reinboldt maintained she never asked Hastert for any money and she says she was contacted by the FBI two weeks ago and that's when they first began asking her about Hastert. Now Hastert has declined to comment. The FBI has declined to comment. But CNN has reported that there was a second victim, a second unidentified victim, so this may be who ABC has found -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And I'm sure you'll continue to dig.

Chris Frates, reporting live from Chicago. Thank you.

Now the former speaker is not facing charges over the allegations of sexual abuse, instead he is charged in connection with money he allegedly agreed to pay in hush money to an undisclosed person known only as Individual A.

So I want to bring in CNN legal analyst Paul Callan.

Good morning.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: First of all, it's just hard to believe that he could keep this secret for 36 years. Because this alleged incident happened in 1979.

CALLAN: Are you talking about Hastert? Are you talking about the --

COSTELLO: Hastert.

CALLAN: Yes.

COSTELLO: And the allegations that have come to light this morning.

CALLAN: Because the real tragedy, I think, is that the victim here, this young man who -- the sexual abuse began in high school when Hastert was his wrestling coach, died of AIDS, I'm told in the probably late '70s or early '80s and -- so it's a real horrific tragedy and that Hastert would have the arrogance to go on if these charges are true and become speaker of the House of Representatives knowing that this was lurking in his background. It's truly shocking.

[09:05:02] COSTELLO: So this hush money that he was supposedly paying to this Individual A, and we don't believe this young man was -- is Individual A. I know it's confusing, I'm trying here. But when do you suppose he started allegedly paying out this hush money then?

CALLAN: Well, you know, just to give you a background in what he must have been looking at. The laws have changed tremendously in these sexual abuse cases. If this happened today this would be a case of predatory sexual abuse. There would be a long statute of limitations and the victims would have a remedy.

Back in the '70s, however, there was a short statute of limitations, criminally and civilly, and really no place for the victims to go. The law changed in 2005, extended the statute, but it still wouldn't affect Hastert, so he gets away with this if he's in fact guilty of it unless the FBI takes him down on these unrelated charges.

COSTELLO: So there's no recourse for his poor sister. You know, she went to the media in 2006, and said, hey, Dennis Hastert did this to my brother. Why isn't anyone doing something about this? Nobody could corroborate her story, right? But now she finally can and there's nothing she can do for her brother?

CALLAN: No, sadly -- sadly I don't think there is anything she could do and Illinois now has the late discovery rule. If you're told at a later time or you become aware as result of counseling that you were abused as a child, the statute starts to run. It's about 10 years in most of these offenses at that time. But he, this young man revealed this to his sister back in 1979, so he was aware of it and the statute, even if it was in place at that time, would have run by '89 and so they're really left without a remedy here.

COSTELLO: And by the way he died of AIDS in 1995.

CALLAN: 1995.

COSTELLO: I'm sure you have that fact just stored in your brain there.

CALLAN: OK. Thank you.

COSTELLO: So what happens with Dennis Hastert now? He's due to appear in court soon. One of the court appearances was put on hold for some reason and I don't know the reason.

CALLAN: Well, you know, this is a very serious federal case. Hastert is well aware of it because he was involved in Congress in passing the laws and in dealing with a law that says it's illegal to lie to the FBI, that's one of the charges. He was also involved in enacting these money laundering statutes that are on the books to get terrorists really and not so much for this situation. But you know sometimes the law serves up justice in a strange way and he's going to face justice I think in federal court.

COSTELLO: You know what they say about karma.

CALLAN: Yes.

COSTELLO: Paul Callan, thanks so much.

CALLAN: OK. Thank you.

COSTELLO: All right. It's breath taking in scale, bone-chilling in its implications. The U.S. government is scrambling to deal with a massive security hack by supposedly the China's military. Nearly every federal agency hit, possibly right up to the White House. Millions of employees robbed of personal information and possibly millions more yet to be discovered.

We're following all of the latest on this developing story, but let's begin with CNN's Athena Jones, she's in Washington this morning.

Good morning, Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You remember that huge data breach at Target a couple of years back. Well, now the list of data breaches keeps growing -- Home Depot, Sony, JPMorgan Chase, the health insurer Anthem, even the IRS, and now what could be the biggest government data breach in history shows this troubling trend may be getting worse.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONES (voice-over): This morning the U.S. government is struggling to assess the damage. Officials revealing possibly the biggest cyber attack on the U.S. government ever breached their critical computer networks. Two distinct attacks crept into the federal system. Sophisticated and undetectable for months. All the while, stealing information from the data bases of virtually every government agency.

Sensitive information from up to four million current and former federal employees now in the hands of hackers, including employees at the Department of Defense, the Social Security Administration and even potentially President Obama. Officials say there could be millions more.

HENRY: These networks are so vast they are really geographically dispersed and very, very difficult to be able to protect and the reality of it is you can't prevent these attacks.

JONES: The suspect, according to authorities, a super power. The People's Republic of China. According to officials evidence points to hackers working for the Chinese military who may be compiling a massive database of critical information on Americans. Now federal employees being cautioned to check their bank statements and get updated credit reports.

MARIE HARF, STATE DEPARTMENT DEPUTY SPOKESWOMAN: We continue to update our security but it is a pretty significant challenge.

JONES: Hackers have targeted the American government before. Just this week, investigators say Russia attacked the IRS and made 100,000 tax returns vulnerable to criminals.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Now President Obama has been briefed on this latest breach as the investigation continues. And lawmakers on Capitol Hill are saying look, cyber security has to be a top priority. They're calling for swift action on legislation that's already in the pipeline that's aimed at bolstering the nation's cyber defenses -- Carol.

[09:10:01] COSTELLO: Athena Jones reporting live from Washington this morning.

Of course China is denying allegations it's behind the attacks. A spokesman for the Chinese embassy saying, quote, "Cyber attacks conducted across countries are hard to track and therefore the source of attack is difficult to identify. Jumping to conclusion and making hypothetical accusations is not responsible and counterproductive," end quote.

All right. This just into CNN. In the last half hour, the government released the May jobs report. The economy added 280,000 jobs in May, that exceeds predictions. Jobs in the construction, retail and health care industries all increased, but the unemployment rate did tick up slightly to 5.5 percent. Stock futures remain lower.

Our chief business correspondent Christine Romans will join me this hour later -- a little later on to help explain what exactly this says about the nation's economy.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the family of the Boston terror suspect speaks out saying Rahim did not plan out his attack.

CNN's Alexandra Field is in Boston.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Carol. They are calling for a thorough investigation into his death and the alleged plot, and finally they are seeing the surveillance video. We'll tell you what they have to say about that, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:24] COSTELLO: A final phone call and a decision by police to act fast. Officials say Usaama Rahim, the man shot dead after lunging at Boston police with a knife, called his father just moments before he was killed to say his final good-byes. We are learning new details about the ISIS-inspired plot.

Sources tell CNN overseas, ISIS supporters actually encourage the plan. In the meantime, an exclusive interview with CNN's Erin Burnett, Rahim's brother, a well-known California cleric, is asking people to hold off judgment until all the facts are in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IBRAHIM RAHIM, BROTHER OF BOSTON TERROR SUSPECT: You got to start speaking more about the Muslims of America and not the Muslims in Syria who are doing the bad things who don't like America. Speak about the Muslims who actually live here who love America. That's me. That's Usaama. That's the Rahim family. Let's establish the facts. The facts are still coming in. We need more information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Let's get more information from CNN's Alexandra Field. She is live in Boston this morning. Good morning.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN REPORTER: Hey there, Carol. Good morning.

The Rahim family taking one important step forward as this investigation continues. They have now seen the surveillance video which captured the death of their son who was shot by police after authorities say he lunged at them with a military-style knife. Initially, the Rahim family, you saw his brother Ibrahim, had gone on Facebook and said that he believed that his brother was shot three times in the back, the viewing of that surveillance video has changed the family's impression. It seems they are no longer disputing how or where Rahim was shot. But they say they've got a lot of questions about this case.

They are calling for a thorough investigation into Rahim's death. They are also calling for an investigation into the plot that he is accused of. Family members say they saw no evidence he was inspired by ISIS. The allegations come as a shock to them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN, DEAD TERROR SUSPECT'S AUNT: If it wasn't for him being Muslim, then we would not be hearing terrorism, we would not be hearing ISIS. What I heard on the media is that they said at the last minute, at 5:00 a.m., he decided to -- he mentioned (INAUDIBLE), so which was some last-minute discovery. There was no plot, there was no scheming, it was some type of impulse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Law enforcement authorities say they have been watching Usaama Rahim for years, that they have been surveying him 24 hours a day for about 10 days prior to his death. They became increasingly alarmed when they say that he ordered three knives off of amazon.com and they have laid out in court documents that they believe that he had a plan to attack police.

We are now learning that authorities decided to intercept Rahim at the CVS parking lot. They say earlier that morning, Tuesday morning, he has made a phone call to his father saying a final good-bye.

Carol, I asked a family spokesperson about that phone call. They say they are aware of the phone call between the father and son, but they say they are not at all clear on what the content of that phone call was.

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

Now, in addition to making threats against police officers on social media, Rahim also liked ISIS on Facebook and spoke about his terror plot in code. The authorities are now worried the number of plots being planned by ISIS supporters on American soil is on the rise.

In addition to social media, terrorists are also communicating using encrypted messages and their goal to evade law enforcement. What is it like when a loved one turns to terrorism?

My next guest says her son was radicalized, and traveled to Syria to join ISIS back in 2014. She says her son was later killed by an air strike near the Turkish border.

Karolina Dam joins us now live from Copenhagen. She is a co-founder of a non-profit network Sons and Daughters of the World, who tries to help families spot the symptoms of extremism.

Welcome, Karolina.

KAROLINA DAM, SON KILLED DURING AIRSTRIKE AFTER JOINING ISIS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I'd like to ask about the Rahim family. They refuse to believe their son was involved with ISIS. How can that be?

DAM: Excuse me? Come again?

COSTELLO: The Rahim family in Boston, their son is accused of being radicalized by ISIS, but they don't believe, they can't believe it. How can that be when there is plenty of evidence to say he was involved with ISIS?

[09:20:00] DAM: Because it is hard to -- it's hard to cope with the facts. I don't really know the case, but I think it's like with every other case, these boys and girls are living a secret life, and they are not -- they are not giving away evidence as such, and we need to put focus on the whole brainwash issue. This is far worse than we ever imagined. I think -- well, in my case, I have a hard time believing my son was is, because he is not that kind of a boy.

COSTELLO: At what point did you find out your son was involved with ISIS?

DAM: I found out after he was dead that he was an ISIS member, but I have not seen any pictures of him surrounded with other ISIS fighters. I have heard through sources what his jobs were and what he has been doing. I have searched for answers because I need to know what my boy has been doing.

COSTELLO: How do you believe that ISIS brainwashed your son?

DAM: Well, if it's not is, it could be any other group that is down there. There are a lot of groups right now and they are fighting amongst each other.

As for my son being ISIS, I didn't know anything about that until he was allegedly killed, and I think it's not hard to choose sides. If an ISIS recruiter or fighter shows videos of beheadings or kids being slaughtered and telling them that this is a sad, this is the coalition, then it's not that hard to choose sides because at the end of the day, they want to do the right thing. But if they are told the right thing is the right thing under false pretensions, it's not hard to choose.

COSTELLO: What is the most effective tool that ISIS or other terrorists groups use to attract these young people?

DAM: Well, they are using the religion, and they are using themselves against themselves, I think. For most of these young adolescence, they are -- some of them are vulnerable and some of them have not got a father figure in their life, and there are a lot of things going on in their world.

And let's be honest, they are teenagers and they are still looking for the right thing to do, and they are still looking for answers on what is the meaning of life.

Some of them want fame, and it's very complex, but it's -- the recruiters to find the vulnerable parts and work on that.

At the end of the day, my boy went -- he ran off to turkey to help with aid, and he did that for the first four months, so he didn't travel to ISIS, he travelled to help in aid camps and with clothes and food and stuff.

COSTELLO: So, you started this Web site, this Facebook page to help other parents try to understand how their kids might be being recruited. What is the best advice you can give to parents out there?

DAM: Be aware and don't be afraid to ask the hard questions. Ask them about what they think of democracy. Ask them about what they think of gay sexuality. Ask them -- well, there are two sides. My boy was a convert. I'm not Muslim.

So when I saw him, I just saw him as a Muslim. But wearing your kufi or robe all day, being more radical, that has to bring up some signals to force getting answers, and don't rely on nothing is going on. Be aware that there probably is something going on, and that it's a secret part of his life that he is not sharing with you.

COSTELLO: Karolina, thank you for talking with me with morning. I appreciate it.

Still to come, a strong May jobs reports just released in the past hour. Will it help us help the fears of another economic showdown, or shutdown, or slowdown, or whatever you want to call it?

[09:25:00] Plus, a social media post leaves to a strike against ISIS. How one ISIS militant revealed too much online.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

In the last hour, the Labor Department released the May jobs report, 280,000 jobs created last month, that exceeds expectations.

Our chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here to parse the numbers for us as usual.

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

It was strong report, 280,000. You can see the trend here. The trend has been very nice and there was some revision. So, it was a little bit stronger in the winter than we had thought. That's the kind of trend you want to see.

The unemployment rate ticked up, and 5.5 is the unemployment right now. But it ticked up, Carol, for all the right reasons, because 290,000 people in the month came into the labor market. They hadn't been looking for the job in the months before that, and they decided that they were going to try their hand at it.