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Same-Sex Marriage Showdown in Kentucky; Former Clinton Aide Faces Congress; Pressure on Texas Police to Release Second Video of Shooting; Afropunk Highlighted by CNN Film "Fresh Dressed". Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 03, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It also talked about the canines there on the ground also sort of fueled the tensions, and that some of these tactics, while allowed within these department's policies, weren't necessary and weren't really with the overall protocol, Carol.

[09:30:02] So we have reached out to St. Louis Police, as well as Ferguson Police. We haven't heard back yet.

Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we look forward to it. You're gathering more information for us. Pamela Brown reporting live this morning, thank you.

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

This morning a Kentucky clerk who refuses to issue same-sex couples marriage licenses because of her religious beliefs will appear in federal court, coming face to face once again with couples who say she's breaking the law by turning them away. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. So the big question this morning, whether Davis will be held in contempt. On Wednesday, protesters stormed Davis' office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM DAVIS, KENTUCKY CLERK: we're not issuing marriage license today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, the United States Supreme Court has authority over you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obey the law! Obey the law! Obey the law!

CROWD: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, this is not. Our county is not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In the meantime, the U.S. attorney says, quote, "government officials are free to disagree with the law but not disobey it. It is time for the clerk and the county to follow the law." But Davis, who has been divorced three times, argues issuing licenses to same-sex couples is a "heaven or hell decision."

So let's talk about this. Joining me now, CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Paul Callan. And joining me on the phone, Kentucky clerk Casey Davis, who like Kim Davis, refuses to issue same- sex couples marriage licenses.

Welcome to both of you.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

Casey, I want to start with you. You believe issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple is an assault on your religious liberty. If you're forced to do that, in your mind, is it a heaven or hell decision for you too?

CASEY DAVIS, KENTUCKY CLERK: Yes, ma'am, it is. I know that there are obviously a lot of different opinions in this and -- and I've -- I've tried to express over and over again that there is a -- a fair way that this can be handled and there is a -- there is an easy alternative, and that is simply the issuance of a licenses be taken out of the hand of the state to begin with. That's what -- that's what we're trying to get done.

As far as the legislative process here in Kentucky, our governor has emphatically denied that he won't -- he won't allow the legislative body to convene. He won't -- he won't let a special session be called. And I think that if he was -- to be fair to everyone, Kim and the other side as well --

COSTELLO: Right.

DAVIS: Then he would allow that to happen. There is -- there is a simple solution, I think.

COSTELLO: Well, Casey I think this is very much on his mind. I mean how far does this go? Is divorce a sin? Should you have the right to deny people who are divorced? Do you have the right to deny single mother who want marriage licenses? How far -- how far does it go?

DAVIS: Well, there are -- the Bible says Moses -- Moses gave a writ of divorcement. Divorce, like homosexuality, like drunkenness, like any -- any other sin, it is something that's forgivable, I believe. And there's the -- there was never a writ of same-sex marriage given in the Bible, whether you believe in God or not.

COSTELLO: Well -- but according to my own religion, a Catholic religion, divorce is a sin. You can't receive the sacraments if you're divorced. So if I'm a Catholic and I'm issuing marriage licenses, should I be able to say to a divorced person, I can't do that because, you know, my religion says you're a sinner? DAVIS: I -- I -- I'm -- it's not my job to say that you're a sinner or

that anyone is a sinner. That's -- that's not anything I can do. However, however --

COSTELLO: But isn't that what you're doing?

DAVIS: What -- what I'm going is trying to get the governor to be fair to everyone. And I think that he can -- I think that he can. Also, our constitution here in the state of Kentucky, it plainly gives protection, I think, to Kim Davis, to myself, to anyone who has a conscience against something like this. In section five it says no human authority shall in any case, whatever control, or interfere with the rights of conscience. And so I think she's doing her job. I think she's upholding her oath. And I think I am as well.

COSTELLO: OK. And just a final question for you. The First Amendment, it protects all of us, all religions, not just yours. So why should you have the right to trample on other people's rights?

DAVIS: Well, I don't think that I'm trampling on anybody's rights. I've never -- I've never prevented them from getting anything. They can go all the way around my county and get marriage licenses at any of those places. And that's -- that's fine with me. The problem is -- and it's -- and it's Kim's problem as well -- it's not that these people can't get the license, it's they just -- they can't get them from someone who says they have a religious conviction. And -- and that's wrong in itself. They -- they can -- they can get the license. It's just that they're trying to force her to give them -- give them to them. And I think that's wrong.

[09:35:25] COSTELLO: All right, Casey Davis, thank you for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

Now let's turn our attention to Paul Callan. Does Casey's -- any of Casey's arguments hold water in a legal sense?

CALLAN: No, they don't hold water at all. If you -- if you're a pacifist or a conscientious objector, you can't be a Navy SEAL or a member of, you know, a Marine Corps assault unit. And if you can't give marriage licenses to people who the law says are allowed to have marriage licenses, you can't be a county clerk. Get a different job. You can't work for General Motors if you refuse to sell Chevrolets. So, I mean, this is a basic concept that people who work for the government have to enforce the law and carry out the law and find a different job. Both of them should be fired, in my opinion.

COSTELLO: I don't think you could fire them, though. It's not so simple, right? So -- because they're elected officials, that's why they can't simply be fired.

CALLAN: Well, no, but they can be --

COSTELLO: And the government has no jurisdiction over them, though -- although I don't quite understand why.

CALLAN: Well, you know, certainly they can be fired in the sense that a lawsuit can be brought, which I understand is -- it's either being done or it's in the works, to get a federal court order requiring them to either do their job or step aside. When any governmental agency -- state governmental agency violates the United States Constitution, the courts can intervene and compel compliance and, if necessary, push them out of the position that they're in if they can't enforce the law.

COSTELLO: So Kim Davis is going to be in court at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. Will she be held in contempt? And if she is, what kind of penalties might she face?

CALLAN: You know, this is really going to be up to -- to a judge. You know, I think that judges try to go a more conservative route and -- to try to get her to agree to step aside, maybe have somebody else do the job that she does. I mean you can move people into different departments and have the job performed. But certainly if she refused to comply with the order of the court, she can be fined. She can be jailed. There are a whole variety of penalties that a court could hand down, a judge could hand down.

COSTELLO: All right, Paul Callan, thanks so much. I appreciate your insight, as always.

CALLAN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Make sure to stay with us. In the next hour, we'll talk to a Kentucky couple who's been turned away from obtaining a marriage license five times.

Also still to come in the NEWSROOM, he worked on Hillary Clinton's controversial e-mail server and is due to face lawmaker's questions about it, but will they be wasting their time?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:24] COSTELLO: Right now, in south Florida, Vice President Joe Biden is doing his best to sell the Iran nuclear deal, but he's facing a very skeptical audience. He's meeting with Jewish leaders at a community center in Davie. The U.S. led deal with Iran has stirred grim security fears in Israel and many of those concerns resonate with Jewish-Americans here at home.

Two big developments today in Congress' ongoing investigation of Hillary Clinton too. This morning, her former chief of staff is testifying behind closed doors. Cheryl Mills is appearing before a House committee investigating the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. She'll face questions on Clinton's use of a controversial and unsecured e-mail server. And one week from today, that same panel will also question whether another Clinton aide, who worked on that e- mail system. But they aren't likely to learn much. We now know that Bryan Pagliano will plead the fifth and not answer lawmaker's questions.

So let's get more from CNN's Elise Labott. She's live in Washington.

Good morning. ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, the House Select Committee on Benghazi did subpoena Bryan Pagliano, but we understand from a letter that his lawyer, Mark McDonald (ph), sent to the committee, that he would plead the fifth to all questions and would not produce any documents that the committee was asking for, citing what he called the, quote, "current political environment." As you know, Carol, as Secretary Clinton has been running for president, this has become a very political charged investigation with a lot of Republican members of Congress making accusations and Clinton also saying that this was a political measure.

I'll read a little bit from a statement from Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill who said, "Secretary Clinton has made every effort to answer questions and be as helpful as possible and has encouraged her aides, current and former, to do the same, including Bryan Pagliano."

Now, you mentioned Cheryl Mills, who's testifying today. Cheryl Mills, in fact , is also charging, you know, that this is about politics. She asked, according to some sources close to her, for the committee to put out her full transcript of the testimony of the deposition she would be giving today. We're told the committee refused that. Mills worried that she said that it would be possibly selective leaking. That all goes back to this politically charged environment that the Clinton camp is claiming.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Elise Labott reporting live from Washington, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a second video may shed more light on a deadly police officer-involved shooting in Texas. So what's the holdup in releasing those pictures?

[09:45:08]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Increasing pressure on police in Texas today to release a second video of a deadly shooting. A source telling CNN the new images show the fatal encounter last week between the man and police from a different angle and captures the suspect charging at officers with a knife.

Sara Sidner live in San Antonio following the story. Good morning.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, the Bexar County sheriff says the videos, both of them, are troubling, but the second video is extra troubling because, she says, you can definitely see that the suspect's hands, both of them, are up when he is shot and killed by her deputies.

We also know from the sheriff though that she believed that video also shows the suspect had a knife in his hand when he was shot and killed as well. [09:50:03] That video is now being sent to the Texas Department of

Public Safety so that it can be slowed down and also so they can zoom in on it and get a very good look at exactly what may be in the suspect's hand.

But this morning, the attorney for the Flores family, Gilbert Flores being the suspect that was killed, has a lot of questions about why it is that video has not been released to the public and why it is they need to enhance it if it shows what the sheriff says it does.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS HENRY, FLORES FAMILY ATTORNEY: If you've got a video and you need forensics to look at a video to see if there's something in your hand or not in your hand, that's certainly an interesting scientific concept, because we all have eyes and we should be able to all see it and see that second video.

Secondarily, if he did have a weapon in his hand, certainly we saw all the officers standing around him when he was dead, and certainly we would have had the opportunity to photograph a knife on the ground, and that hasn't come out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: We asked the sheriff about that, whether or not a knife was recovered from the scene. She was unable to give us an answer, saying that she did not have that information and would get back to us.

We also know that, you're looking at this from a legal perspective, at the time the officers shot and killed the suspect, whether or not the officers were in imminent danger. That is something that a district attorney is looking at. He expects to get the full report from the sheriff's department and all the data from the sheriff's department sometime by the end of the week perhaps a,nd we should be hearing from him very shortly after. He says he's going to make a swift decision in this case. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Sara Sidner reporting live from San Antonio this morning. Thank you.

Getting a check of some top stories for you at 51 minutes past.

Six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray will be tried separately. That was a small victory for defendants on a day the judge denied a motion to dismiss charges against the officers. He also rejected their request to remove Maryland state's attorney Marilyn Mosby from the case. The 25-year-old Gray died of spinal injuries while in police custody.

Some 12,000 troops marching through the center of Beijing today. We're hearing word that China is cutting 300,000 soldiers from its military.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:58] COSTELLO: Hip-hop fashion exploded in the early 1990s, not only as a style statement but as an expression of identity. Today that same urban community continues to showcase its creativity at festivals like Afropunk.

CNN's film "FRESH DRESSED" documents it all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much Afropunk, thank you so much.

UF (voiceover): This is Afropunk. It's a global music festival featuring black artists with an annual show in Brooklyn and shows this is year in Atlanta and Paris. It's a movement reminiscent of the counter-cultural roots of hip-hop.

JOCELYN COOPER, PARTNER: AFROPUNK: Afropunk, if we use one word, is about freedom. What defines this movement is individuality, the DIY setting. I think it is pushing the boundaries of what society says that young people of color are.

MICHAELA ANGELA DAVIS, IMAGE ACTIVIST: They're young, they're black, they're American. That's complex, and in this time of revolution, this time of rebellion, they're showing you what they believe. When you go to Afropunk, you see that. You see this community expressing itself fearlessly.

UF (voiceover): And to document it all, there are the photographers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I began photographing at the age of 15. I used to walk through the streets of New York taking photos. I remember walking through Times Square and looking up at all the giant posters and light. I never really saw any blacks on the forefront of those images. I felt like that needed to be challenged.

Tumblr at the time played an important role. It was the first timethat I could get an audience to just look at my work at its most basic form.

DAVIS: The way that fashion works now, if you want to see what's hot, you're not running to "Vogue"; you're going to the blogs. You're going to Tumblr, you're going to Pinterest, you're going to Instagram. The community are now the curators.

COOPER: Particularly for us and looking at culture through our lens, and those images instantaneously going out globally, it changes the mindset of folks who may not feel empowered.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And be sure to see the "FRESH DRESSED" premiere on CNN tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(MUSIC)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM, this morning, new leads in the expanding manhunt for three suspected cop killers, but one of them a hoax.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She fabricated this story because she was looking for attention.

COSTELLO: How hundreds of officers are intensifying the hunt as the office officer's wife shares her grief.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joe was my best friend and my life, my world, my hero. The love of my life for the last 26 1/2 years.

[10:00:00] COSTELLO: Also, Trump taking on Bush again. Donald's new message for Jeb: Speak English on the campaign trail.