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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Two Top Ben Carson Aides Resign; Cosby Lawyers Vow to Fight, Not Bargain. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 31, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: To adult court so that in the future should he violate, he will be subjected to a much harsher punishment.

[12:30:06] But as it stands now, the mother, based upon her intentionally harboring and really getting him out of the country and working to evade capture, she faces the harsher punishment at the moment.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCOHR: So, then, is that why, Danny, you think that maybe Ethan isn't necessarily -- he's fighting to stay in Mexico. Why is that? Just like we heard Joey say, it could be a matter of four months in jail.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: We've been racking our brains with that very question, Joey Jackson and I. But it really begs the bigger question, why go to Mexico in the first place?

But insofar as he is currently challenging his return to the states, his deportation back to the states, what is the basis. I mean, what are the grounds that he can challenge his deportation? He's not lawfully in Mexico.

So, it seems like eventually he will be returned to the United States. But it really does beg the question why go to Mexico in the first place? Because he made a very deliberate decision. Either go back and face a potential violation of probation for whatever he violated in his court order or flee the country and now he's seeking to stay in Mexico. And what we know now is he will be seeking to stay in Mexico now without his mother, who has been deported.

KEILAR: Can you really imagine, what is the scenario, Joey, where he would actually be able to stay in Mexico?

JACKSON: I don't see the scenario. And, Brianna, just to be clear, I would never begrudge anyone for exercising the full gamut of their constitutional rights. That's what he did with filing this writ of amparo, suggesting that his rights were being violated in some way and challenging the fact that he could be deported or brought back to the United States in the first instance.

So, it's a remedy that's available but ultimately I don't see it as a viable remedy in as much as, you know, he's a fugitive from justice. As a result of that, he could delay the proceeding. But at the end of the day, I see him back in the United States, facing the violation of probation and the consequence of all the circumstances that comes along with it. So, this is a bump on the road but you know what, he'll be back.

KEILAR: And there's so much more ahead. It's really a fascinating and heartbreaking story to watch.

Joey, Danny, thank you guys so much. Happy New Year to you as well.

CEVALLOS: Happy New Year. Thank you.

JACKSON: Thank you, Brianna, all the best.

KEILAR: All the best to you as well.

And after the break, we're going to be talking about Bill Cosby. This is his biggest legal battle yet, but it might not be his last. I'll be speaking with a lawyer for the young woman whose case might lead to more criminal charges.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:36:02] KEILAR: All right, we have some breaking news. A little bit of a shake-up in Ben Carson, the Republican presidential candidate's campaign.

We have learned that two top -- really, the two top aides to the campaign resigned. This includes both the campaign manager, Barry Bennett, and the communications director Doug Watts, to Ben Carson. This has been confirmed to us by CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson. So we're looking to get more details on this.

We -- this was reported, I should say, by "The Des Moines Register". There had been some inkling that perhaps something would happen right before Christmas. "The Washington Post" reported that Ben Carson was planning a staff shake-up, but then it seemed like he was sort of backpedaling on it and it was unclear whether that was going to happen. Now we know that it is.

Big breaking news here in the presidential race: two top aides to Ben Carson resigning. We're trying to get to the bottom of this, what does this mean for the future of his campaign, as he has struggled in the wake of these two terrorists attacks where he's seen his polls dropped. (AUDIO GAP) his ability to tackle the issue of national security. We're going to continue to follow that story. We'll bring you more in just a moment.

The other big story we're following is Bill Cosby. He's due back in a Pennsylvania courtroom two weeks from today. A preliminary hearing is the next step in a process that many of the entertainer's accusers had waited years for, criminal allegations of sexual abuse.

Cosby faced a judge yesterday. This was just briefly that he did this. It was on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. This arose from a 2004 case involving the first woman to publicly accuse him. Her name is Andrea and when the D.A. at the time declined to bring

charges, she filed suit, a civil suit, in Cosby's own words, in a deposition unsealed this summer in that lawsuit that she settled with Cosby helped bring about the charges that he faces now. Cosby entered no plea yesterday, but a member of his legal team told a network morning show they plan to fight to the end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TV ANCHOR: Do you think there will be discussions about a plea agreement? Would you be open to some kind of plea agreement or, in your mind, is this a case that will go to trial?

MONIQUE PRESSLEY, ATTORNEY FOR BILL COSBY: I have no idea what the prosecutor's office is going to do and what the inner workings are of their system.

TV ANCHOR: Would you be open to it?

PRESSLEY: My client is not guilty and there will be no consideration on our part of any sort of arrangement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right. Those are some fighting words. But these are the women that Bill Cosby is up against. In the year since Andrea Constand first spoke up, more than 50 women have come forward with stories very similar to hers. One is represented by my next guest, Spencer Kuvin.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Tell us briefly the story of your client, Chloe, and also her reaction. We've heard about various reactions that some of the alleged victims have had from some of them breaking down, crying, some of them having happy dance and calling other women who are alleged victims to celebrate.

What was her -- what was her response to this?

SPENCER KUVIN, ATTORNEY FOR COSBY ACCUSER CHLOE GOINS: Well, when she woke up yesterday morning to the news, I spoke with her, and she was in tears. She was happy. You know, it's a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling of vindication to a certain extent. And, you know, she has always felt comfort in the other women that have come forward and told their accounts of the incident. And she felt strongly about wanting to come forward herself.

So, to see him actually, hopefully, face justice, behind bars ultimately has been her goal since the beginning of this.

KEILAR: Chloe alleges that she was assaulted at the Playboy Mansion in 2008 by Bill Cosby. Now, something struck me that you had used to describe. You said you didn't want to go into details about what exactly happened but you didn't believe that really any news outlet could actually publish what was happening at the time. [12:40:08] I do want to ask you about what makes her case unique, and

that may be the statute of limitations here. Do you think that she may be one of the rare cases here that could even get to the point of taking legal action?

KUVIN: She may be the only other one. And the significance of her case cannot be forgotten. Obviously, Miss Constand's case is important because that's what's making him accountable now in Pennsylvania. But my client's case, Miss Goins' case, is still ongoing. She met twice with the L.A. Police Department this past year, and she met once in a lengthy meeting with the L.A. District Attorney's Office.

And they've been keeping touch with us. They've been conducting their investigation. And the case is still open. They have not told us one way or the other at this time whether they're going to bring charges, but we're hopeful.

She's hopeful that they are now emboldened by the actions taken in Pennsylvania that they will take action as well.

KEILAR: Assuming this were to go to trial, the expectation from legal experts is that there would be essentially a parade of alleged victims who would come in and testify in the Andrea Constand case and that the prosecution would try to illustrate what is a pattern of behavior for Bill Cosby. If that were the case, is your client, is Chloe, willing to go before a judge, before a jury in this case?

KUVIN: Yes, in fact, since day one when she went to the police department and gave her account of what happened to her back in 2008, she told him -- even if you cannot prosecute my case, even if it's too late, I'm willing to be a witness in any other case anywhere in the United States.

And at that point, the police did tell us in L.A. that they had been in contact with the Pennsylvania authorities and that they were following that case out there and they told her that she could be a witness in other cases, even if they didn't bring hers. She said without a doubt she'd be willing to stand up and testify in any case. In fact, our case that we filed in federal court on her behalf, we have identified all of the other women and we hope to be able to bring them into our case as well and testify, to show that mode of operation he had, that signature, much like a serial killer would have a signature, the signature of drugging and taking advantage, sexual advantage, of women.

KEILAR: What was her process for deciding that she wanted to come forward? Was there something that she immediately decided she wanted to do or was this something that she thought about for a while?

KUVIN: Well, and I've represented a number of sexual abuse victims unfortunately in the past. And the pattern is the same, much like with the Catholic Church cases. Much like with many of the other delayed recognition cases.

When a young woman is abused by an older man, the first thing they do is blame themselves, unfortunately, regardless of what happens, regardless of the account. And they want to bury that memory. They don't want to remember it. They don't want to go through or relive the details of it. So they bury it deep down inside until eventually at some point in their lives when they finally become an adult and it starts to resurface and they see how it has affected them later.

And that's exactly what happened to Chloe. When she came into her 20s and became an adult and saw these other women come forward, she was emboldened and she wanted to speak out and say this happened to me too.

KEILAR: Spencer, we certainly appreciate you talking with us about this today. We know we'll talk more in the future as well. Thank you.

KUVIN: Thank you very much.

KEILAR: We do have some breaking news in the race for the White House. The two top aides to Dr. Ben Carson have resigned. We just received a statement from the now former communications director for the campaign. We'll have that for you coming up.

Plus, President Obama, is he now BFFs with Jerry Seinfeld? Maybe they're not that close, as Seinfeld said. But the two did have some coffee. They cruised around in a pretty cool Corvette.

That's some pretty candid conversation, too. We'll show you a clip of that next.

And then, as we go to break, some of the best photos from the White House for 2015.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:48:23] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KEILAR: We have some breaking news from the GOP presidential race. We just learned that the two top aides to candidate Dr. Ben Carson have resigned.

CNN's Chris Frates joins me now with the details. This is huge, Chris. We're talking about his campaign manager and his communications director.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is really big news coming just a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Brianna. I reached out to the now former communications director for Ben Carson, a gentleman by the name of Doug Watts. And he sent this statement to me. Let me read it to you and our viewers now.

"Barry Bennett and I have resigned from the Carson campaign effective immediately. We respect the candidate and we have enjoyed helping him go from far back in the field to top tier status. Having just announced raising $23 million for the fourth quarter, more than any other Republican candidate, and passing 1 million contributions and over 600,000 unique donors since March, we are proud of our efforts for Dr. Carson and we wish him and his campaign the best of luck."

Now, what that statement doesn't say, Brianna, is why exactly the campaign manager and spokesperson left the campaign. Ben Carson, if you remember, said last week that he was looking at a shake-up. He felt like his campaign wasn't being managed properly. That spending -- they were spending too much, not getting enough return on that investment. When CNN talked with him about those reports, he said they were overhyped, over-sensationalized.

But we see today this is a, in fact, pretty big shake-up, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, this is fascinating to me because he did say he raised this idea of a shake-up and then he backpedals on it.

[12:50:01] He says, no, I think my staff is spectacular. And then I look at this statement and -- hold on just a minute, stand by for me, Chris, because I'm actually learning that we have Dean Parker. He is the finance chairman for Dr. Carson. I'm going to bring him in.

Can you tell me, so, Dean, what's happening here?

DEAN PARKER, BEN CARSON'S FINANCE CHAIRMAN (via telephone): So, we'll be issuing a statement shortly you'll be able to work off of. But I can tell you Dr. Carson has appointed General Bob Deeds as his campaign chairman and Ed Bookover will be moving into the role of campaign manager.

We're going to be focusing on policy and moving Dr. Carson, continuing to move him forward, as he moves forward in the primary season as we focus on Ohio and what's moving forward. We'll have a statement coming shortly. But we can confirm that Bob Deeds will be the new campaign chairman, which we have not had in a while, and Ed Bookover will be our campaign manager.

KEILAR: OK, was this a forced resignation, was this a firing? Was this the campaign manager and the communications director stepping down?

PARKER: It was a choice that they resigned. But we will be going through the details here shortly. I can just give you that and we'll be having a statement shortly for you.

KEILAR: OK, Dean, how do you deal with the perception of this, that it looks like this Carson campaign is in this chaos freefall situation just weeks before the first contest in the nominating process?

PARKER: Well, we're not in a freefall. We're not in chaos. Dr. Carson took a good look over the holidays and made some ideas and spoke with his leadership team.

And did it like any president would. He brought in all the influence. He brought in all the information he needed.

And you have to remember, Ronald Reagan, when he was running for president, shook his campaign up right before the New Hampshire primary, so this is not unheard of. It's unfortunate. Barry Bennett and Doug Watts are great gentlemen, had been a strategic part of our team.

But our focus right now is Dr. Carson wanting to work on the efficiencies of the campaign and focus on the campaign leadership, and so, he has appointed General Bob Deeds as campaign chairman.

KEILAR: Make sense of this for us. He sort of previews this idea of a campaign shake-up to Bob Costa of "The Washington Post." Then he back pedals from it and says his team is spectacular. And now a week later, we have the two top aides leaving the campaign.

PARKER: Well, there's many top aides, number one, you have to remember. Number two, he didn't backpedal at all. He had 100 percent confidence in his team. Somebody chooses to resign and Dr. Carson is moving forward his mission and a vision of where he wants to go. That is not backpedaling at all.

KEILAR: All right. Dean Parker with the Carson campaign, finance chairman, letting us know that there's been a new campaign chairman put in place, different from the campaign manager who resigned and also a new communications director.

We're going to continue to cover this story of a massive shake-up in the Carson campaign.

President Obama says a pretty sizable percent of world leaders are completely out of their minds. That's what he said. It's one of the tongue-in-cheek things you'll be learning in a really fascinating new episode of Jerry Seinfeld's web series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. Seinfeld says the president falls into the category of comedian since he's gotten off just enough funny lines to qualify.

The president's episode went live yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JERRY SEINFIELD: Are these washed?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Come on, let's go. Let's go get some coffee. Come on.

This is a sweet car.

SEINFELD: Check this out.

OBAMA: This is beautiful.

SEINFELD: Do you ever think about every person you talk to is putting on an act, a total show?

OBAMA: It's a problem.

SEINFELD: Don't you think every American child is a president fan? You grow up loving the president.

OBAMA: I do really well with the 0 to 8 demographic.

SEINFELD: Oh, really?

OBAMA: Yes, they love me. Partly because I think my ears are big. And so I look a little like a cartoon character.

SEINFELD: Right.

OBAMA: And then little kids love saying my name.

SEINFELD: Right.

OBAMA: But it's all one big name. It's Barack Obama.

SEINFELD: It's one of those names you could compress into one word.

OBAMA: Into one word.

SEINFELD: Yes, that's good.

OBAMA: BarackObama. It's like a Nickelodeon thing.

SEINFELD: If I slid open your underwear drawer, one brand or a number of brands?

OBAMA: You got to go with the one brand.

SEINFELD: One brand, one color?

OBAMA: Yes, of course. This is a critical concept.

SEINFELD: How many suits do they put out in the morning?

OBAMA: They don't put out suits. I have a closet like normal people do.

SEINFELD: You pick the suit?

OBAMA: I do, yes.

SEINFELD: Really?

OBAMA: I do, I do.

SEINFELD: I would have a guy just leave the -- same with the lunch. Here's the suit, here's the lunch.

[12:55:00] OBAMA: Well, with the suit, I only have blue and gray suits.

SEINFELD: No black?

OBAMA: I have one black suit.

SEINFELD: Black's too rough for a president. You got to soften --

OBAMA: Well, but I'm a cool president.

SEINFELD: Right, that's true.

If you're one of those guys, even though you seem very relaxed, you got to go off at some point with foot. What's your thing --

OBAMA: Nachos.

SEINFELD: Nachos.

OBAMA: That's one of those where I have to have it taken away. I'll have guacamole coming out of my eyeballs.

SEINFELD: Yes.

OBAMA: That was fun.

SEINFELD: I want to give you a shot to drive this car.

OBAMA: You know what, this is a childhood dream. This is outstanding.

SEINFELD: Yes.

You ever go on eBay?

OBAMA: No. Let's do this thing.

Watch out, people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Watch out, they're going like, what, 15 miles per hour on the South Lawn of the White House.

Well, there are just now about 11 hours until midnight on the East Coast. But it's already 2016 around the world. Earlier this hour, they celebrated in Bangkok, Thailand, with a huge fireworks show, so beautiful.

As you were waking up this morning, it was already the New Year in Australia.

I must give a shoutout to Aussie Keilars there in Sydney and in Australia.

Also, a spectacular fireworks display lit up Sydney Harbor earlier today as you see here, the bridge. Gorgeous. And at one point actually, fireworks rained down from the bridge. Very beautiful.

Thank you so much for watching.

"WOLF" and thank you much for watching I should. "WOLF" and I'll be back for that, will start right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar, in for Wolf Blitzer. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 7:00 p.m. in Paris and 9:00 p.m. in Baghdad. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks so much for joining us.

In just 11 hours from now, probably the most iconic of New Year celebrations takes place in New York City.