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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Bombing Suspect Freed; European Police Seek ISIS Suspects; Easter Bombing; Trump Foreign Policy. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 28, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

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[12:00:13] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We begin this hour with raids and arrests and criminal charges aimed at taking down interlocked terror cells across Europe.

Today, authorities in Belgium charged three suspects with participating in the activities of a terrorist group. They did not detail the alleged activities or identify the group.

Also, a half dozen other people were picked up by authorities in 13 separate raids yesterday alone. They were questioned at length and then they were released.

We have also just learned that authorities have released the only suspect to date who had been directly tied to the bombings in Brussels and charged with quote/unquote "terrorist murder." The federal prosecutor's office now says that the clues that had led to the arrest were just not conclusive. Frankly, the evidence wasn't there and they had to release him.

Earlier today, Belgium's ministry of health said that four people wounded in last week's attack on Brussels' main airport and metro have died. That brings the death toll now to 35. That does not count the three known suicide bombers.

Let's go straight to Alexandra Field. She joins me this afternoon from the Belgian capital of Brussels.

And I want to first get to this man that was charged with terrorist murder, Faycal Cheffou is his name. He was accused of direct involvement, Alex, questioned, now suddenly released.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, these weren't police holder (ph) charges. These are incredibly serious charges that this man was facing, attempted terrorist murder, terrorist murder, other terrorist related activities. These are the most serious charges we've seen as authorities pursue people who may have been involved with the attack on the Brussels' airport and the Brussels metro station.

Authorities never release much information about this suspect, identifying him publically as Faycal Cheffou and linking him, of course, directly to the Brussels attack, but they didn't explicitly define what his role in this may have been. Now, a lot of people are wondering, what evidence did authorities think that they had in order to slap him with such severe charges? These charges had to be presented to a magistrate, who found that there was not sufficient evidence to continue to hold Faycal Cheffou. So he has been released.

And we'll remind people that under Belgium law, being charged means that you are under investigation. But if authorities don't find there is sufficient evidence to proceed, the case does not go to trial.

HARLOW: Right.

FIELD: Of course, Poppy, we keep returning to the severity of these charges, attempted murder, terrorist murder, what did they think they had. Well, they brought him into custody on Thursday. We do know that after they executed the raid, they did not find any weapons. They did not find any explosives.

HARLOW: And what about the video, Alex, that was just released by the Belgian authorities. Video of that wanted airport bomber. Where does ta stand in terms of the hunt there?

FIELD: Right, keeping your eye on the ball. What's been happening in this city is this massive manhunt for the third bombing suspect at the airport. We had originally seen only a still picture of three potential bombers, two of them killed in the blast and then that man in the hat who authorities have been searching for. We're now seeing video of him in the airport, pretty chilling because it appears to have been taken just shortly before that bombing in the airport. He's one person that police have been looking for. They've also been looking for a potential second bomber at the metro station where so many people were killed. So that's why you've seen so many raids executed around this city. They're looking for people who were directly involved in these hideous attacks, but also looking for people who had knowledges that the attacks were going to happen or who could be planning future attacks.

Poppy.

HARLOW: Alexandra Field live for us in Brussels this afternoon. Thank you so much.

We've also learned that at least eight suspects believed to be linked to the ISIS attack in Brussels last week and the Paris attack last fall are being sought by counterterrorism forces across Europe.

Let's talk about all of this, the big picture, with CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank, who's with me in New York, and Phil Mudd is in Washington. He's a former counterterrorism official with the CIA.

Paul, to you first. Let's just talk about your reporting on this, the fact that now they're going after eight more.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Yes. Our understanding is that a day after the Brussels attacks there was a security bulletin which was shared amongst European security agencies and that bulletin lists eight individuals still at large, still wanted, wanted, the document says, in connection with the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels. And among those is an individual who is named as Naim al Hamed. Now, one possibility is that Naim al Hamed was that third airport bomber who ran away, but it's also possible that he was the man seen in the Brussels metro with the bomber there, or was involved in some other way.

[12:04:53] We are told by a source close to the investigation, he is suspected to have been operationally involved in the Brussels attacks. He is on the run. Now he's believed to have come through from Syria, through Leros, the Greek island where other of the attackers in Paris came through, and then was picked up in early October from a refugee center in Urm, Germany, by Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris attackers. But all of this trying him much more firmly than perhaps some other suspects that we mentioned in recent days to the Paris and Brussels conspiracy. And then another individual also believed connected possibly, Joni Patrick Miner (ph), a Brussels resident of Belgium nationality and Malian decent, who traveled to Syria with Abdel Hamid Abaaoud in early 2014. And then just a few months later posted - ISIS posted a picture of what appeared to be his dead body, but investigators now believe it's possible he faked his own death and may be involved in some way.

HARLOW: Wow.

CRUICKSHANK: He's on the wanted list too.

HARLOW: And it shows just how interconnected this all is and the tight connections between the Brussels attack and the Paris attack.

Phil, to you. There is sort of a strange divide here, right? You've got ISIS really losing ground literally on the battlefield. They lost Palmyra over the weekend. Ash Carter came out on Friday and said the number two in ISIS, the finance minister, was killed by special ops on the ground in Syria. But yet in terms of Europe, they're having this success. This success, in their minds, of the attack in Paris, in Brussels. Can you parse that for us? What's going on if they're losing on the ground, on the battlefield, but they are executing these attacks?

PHIL MUDD, COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Well, there a couple of things to think about here. First, when you look at the growth and decline of a terror group, there's a couple of characteristics you need to focus on, that is the loss of leadership, which we've seen in ISIS, and the loss of geography. We've seen them lose space in both Syria and Iraq. They're looking to Europe and to the United States and saying the people who are helping remove us are not just the Iraqis and the Syrians, it's the British, the French, the Belgians, the Americans.

So when you look at these attacks in Europe, I wouldn't take them as a sign that ISIS is succeeding. I would take them as a sign that ISIS is lashing out against forces that are - that are trying to eliminate them.

The last thing I'd say is, terror plots are not that hard to hatch. You need three people, five people, ten people and one weapon and then you've got a terror plot. So regardless of how quickly they - they are damaged in Syria, building one of these plots, as long as they have any space in Syria, is not that hard to do.

HARLOW: As long as they have the motivation and the will to carry it out.

MUDD: Yes.

HARLOW: And what fascinates me, Phil, and it is just a very sad reality, is that in the last nine days alone, we have seen four separate terrorist attacks in four countries. Let's look at this, Belgium, Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan yesterday in Lahore. Not all carried out by the same terrorist group, but all terrorizing innocent civilians. What does this tell us about the changing nature of the state of terror and the global response that is needed? When you look at that, that's stunning. That's in the last nine days.

MUDD: Well, if you look at the - the attacks that are motivated, particularly coming out of ISIS, and that will be attacks in places like western Europe and also going over into Turkey, there's one thing that's changed in this world that's significant, and it's changed since the days of al Qaeda, and that is that - that the Islamic State is actually a state. They don't have to recruit a 17 year old to join a terror organization that's going to murder people. What they've done, and the real revolution they've sparked is to say, look, we own territory. We are a state. You're not joining just an al Qaeda organization that's shadowy and it's hiding. We're in plain sight. And if you want to live the pure life, a life according to the holy book, there's only one place you can go.

HARLOW: Right.

MUDD: I think that's really revolutionary.

HARLOW: And, very quickly to Paul. I mean do you agree with that? Is that how your intelligence sources see it?

CRUICKSHANK: What is happening is that ISIS is ratcheting up international territory, as Phil was saying, as it loses - ratcheting up international terrorism as it loses territory in Syria and Iraq. Lost about 20 percent of that territory over the last year or so. And I - I think we can expect that as it continues to lose territory, that terrorism will surge even more.

HARLOW: Phil Mudd, Paul Cruickshank, thank you very much for your reporting. Appreciate it.

MUDD: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, we will turn to Pakistan and that horrific Easter Sunday attack. An attack aimed specifically at targeting women and children, Christians who were celebrating Easter. Who are the terrorists behind this attack, next.

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[12:13:13] HARLOW: Within the past hour the prime minister of Pakistan announced that he has canceled his trip to Washington. He was set to come to this country for a nuclear security summit. That is supposed to get underway on Thursday. The reason he has canceled the trip, yesterday's bombing, horrific bombing at a park in the city of Lahore. At least 72 people were killed, a third of them children, more than 300 injured. A Taliban offset group specifically was targeting Christians, specifically on Easter Sunday. But Christians make up barely 2 percent of Pakistan's population. It appears that most of the victims actually turned out to be Muslims. Our Nic Robertson is following all of this for us.

And, Nic, not only were they specifically targeting children and women and Christians, they set off this blast right next to a children's swing set in the middle of the, you know, ideal soft target for them, a public park.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It couldn't have been an easier target and it couldn't have been more callous. We don't know particularly why they chose the swing set area, but it's an area where a lot of people would have been sitting down. It was a warm evening. They'd gone to take their, you know, food and enjoy their Sunday evening off with their families. It's typically what people would do. Perhaps there would be a few more people there because it was Easter Sunday evening.

But perhaps why they chose this area was because they wanted to cause an utter outrage by killing so many children. But because there were so many people there, that's why the casualty toll and the death toll we're seeing is so high. And the fact that it was an open park, a busy park, it's a park that attracts a lot of people in the evening in Lahore, that there wasn't strong security on the gates of the park. It would have been a very, very soft and easy target for this group, an utterly callous and cold-blooded and calculated attack.

[12:15:06] HARLOW: Also, when you look at this group, I mean this is a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban. Their name is Jamaat-ur- Ahrar. But what else do we know about them? Other attacks they've carried out?

ROBERTSON: They've targeted Christians in the past. One of the reasons that it appears potentially where they targeted in the city of Lahore is because this is where the ruling part, the Muslim league is strongest. And this is a message that they're trying to send to the Pakistani government as well because the government has been cracking down harder on terrorist organizations like this, since the horrific killing of 154 school children in Peshawar in December in 2014. The government has started hanging again terror suspects. This appears to be one of the reasons. There have been arrests, other reasons as well.

But this group hasn't just specifically singled out Christians in the past. In the past few weeks, in the early part of this year, they targeted two U.S. State Department officials, local nationals, working in the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, close to the tribal border region with Afghanistan. They targeted them in a roadside bombing that was a fatal attack. A very - this group not just going after Christians, but also clearly has an interest in attacking American interests inside Pakistan, as well. HARLOW: Absolutely, and carrying this out is Lahore sort of the home,

obviously, of the - of the prime minister there, sending a very clear message to the Pakistani government, as well.

Nic Robertson live for us in London, thank you so much.

Meantime, some delayed reaction to President Obama's historic visit to Cuba. It seems that while Cuban President Raul Castro was playing host to the first family of the United States, the former Cuban president was fuming. He took out a full-page ad, a full-page rant in Cuba's communist party, Fidel Castro writes that he almost had a heart attack listening to President Obama describe Americans and Cubans as friends, neighbors and family. Fidel goes on to say in that newspaper, "we do not need the empire to give us anything."

Another big story today, the race for the White House and politics. Up next, Donald Trump's foreign policy plan, including shaking up NATO. Does his world order really make sense? He outline it in a 100-minute interview with "The New York Times."

Also, by turning on each other, are Ted Cruz and Donald Trump also turning off voters? What happens if the math is rejected - who rejected the GOP establishment also gets fed up with their anti- establishment frontrunners? We'll discuss, ahead.

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[12:22:15] HARLOW: Welcome back.

Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz's battle has moved from Twitter to the debate stage. That's what will happen tomorrow night as both candidates join our Anderson Cooper live at CNN's town hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

It is already a bruising battle. One that has turned personal as the two candidates trade accusations that each has smeared the other's wife. Our Phil Mattingly looks at the Trump-Cruz feud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think America is a safe place for Americans if you want to know the truth.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump claiming Americans are unsafe. The day after laying out his controversial foreign policy world view in a lengthy interview with "The New York Times." He calls into question traditional U.S. alliances, including NATO, and describing his approach as, quote, "not isolationist but America first." He says, if elected, he might stop buying Saudi oil unless they commit ground troops to fight ISIS, and opening the door to the notion of Japan and South Korea developing nuclear arms of their own.

TRUMP: He started it. I didn't start it.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Attacking spouses and children is off limits. It has no place in politics.

MATTINGLY: This as he and rival Ted Cruz ramp up the war of words over their wives. Cruz slamming Trump for hitting below the belt.

CRUZ: He sends tweets attacks my wife, attacking Heidi. It is inappropriate. It is wrong. It is, frankly, disgusting.

MATTINGLY: The frontrunner accusing Cruz of knowing about a super PAC ad targeting his wife, Melania, first.

TRUMP: Don't forget, I call him lying Ted. I call him that because nobody that I've known - I've known a lot tougher people over the years in business, but I've never known anybody that lied like Ted Cruz.

MATTINGLY: Trump threatening on Twitter to quote, "spill the beans" on Cruz's wife Heidi and again on Sunday.

TRUMP: Well, there are things about Heidi that I don't want to talk about, but I'm not going to talk about them.

MATTINGLY: Cruz calling Trump's accusations a deliberate distraction and coming down hard on a salacious story in the tabloid "National Enquirer" which earlier this month endorsed Trump.

CRUZ: He's pushing these attacks. And by the way, he's been pushing them for many, many months online. These are complete, made up lies. They're garbage.

MATTINGLY: Trump also blasting Cruz for courting additional delegates in Louisiana's March 5th primary, issuing this threat on Twitter. Quote, "just to show how unfair Republican primary politics can be can, I won the state of Louisiana and get less delegates than Cruz. Lawsuit coming."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: We will watch. We will see if that lawsuit does come. Phil Mattingly, thank you.

Let's talk more about Donald Trump's world view, his words for it, "America first." He sat down for this 100-minute interview with "The New York Times" and he said, look, I'm not an isolationist, but my strategy as commander in chief would be to put America first always. He said he'll largely accomplish that through economic bargaining chips.

[12:25:07] MJ Lee is with me, CNN politics reporter. Also with me, David Gergen, our senior political analyst.

And, MJ, let me begin with you. Two things that stood out to me, Saudi Arabia, what he would do with Saudi Arabia on the oil front, and Israel, because he said one thing in the first half of the interview with "The New York Times" then comes back and says something else when it comes to a two-state solution with Israel. MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Right. I think, first of all, it is so

striking that he even sat down with "The New York Times" for almost an hour and a half or more than that. This is a candidate who is wanting so badly to be taken seriously. He has gotten a lot of criticism for not having specific foreign policy positions, for not naming foreign policy advisers. And I think by sitting down for this interview, he wanted to make the case that he is ready.

HARLOW: He named three generals.

LEE: That's right. And what you pointed out, some of the big headlines. On Saudi Arabia he basically said, the United States, if he were president, may stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries if they are not willing to put ground troops in to fight ISIS, or the other alternative is that they start paying the United States for its effort in fighting ISIS. So basically this idea fits into his broader world view, which is that the United States is being ripped off. That, you know, the country is always on the hook to help other countries and that he doesn't want that to be the system that's in place anymore. And it's a way of looking at foreign policy strictly through the lens of, you know, a businessman, business negotiations than interactions. I give you something. You give me something back.

HARLOW: And he also said, David Gergen, on Israel, two things. I mean, first he came out and said, I don't want to give away what I would do on Israel, so I'm not going to say anything. He comes back later in the interview and says actually what he said at the AIPAC conference which is, you know, yes, I'd be in favor of a two-state solution. He also expanded his sort of broader thinking on foreign policy. Here's a quote. "We're not going to be ripped off anymore. We're going to be friendly with everybody but we're not going to be taken advantage by anybody." When you look at that, is that a concrete foreign policy that will play out, will resonate with voters on the campaign trail, or do we just see more of the same, that his loyal supporters don't care?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it will play out with voters on the trail for a while, but it's rattling the windows of foreign ministries all the over the world. In fairness to Donald Trump, Poppy, it's worth pointing out that the - the major piece about President Obama's foreign policy thinking by Jeffrey Goldberg that just appeared in "The Atlantic" and has everybody buzzing, in that interview, very importantly, Barack Obama makes something of the same argument. He says, I'm tired of free riders. People who are basically riding on the coat tails of the United States and not paying up. And he really angered - President Obama angered the Saudis in particular by making - I just came back from the Middle East and that's what they're talking about is they're being accused of being free riders. So a lot of times Donald Trump with much the same sentiment, much cruder, you know, lacks the nuance, it just is brick (ph) (INAUDIBLE) and that has people really concerned about, does the - is the United States sort of going off the tracks? re we going to continue to be a thoughtful leader of the world?

HARLOW: And, MJ, you just came back from the critical rust belt states, right, for the voter and they were talking a lot about this. What were they saying?

LEE: Yes, it was interesting. I was traveling in the rust belt when the Brussels attacks happened. So it gave me an opportunity to sort of feel out these Trump supporters and how they view Trump's foreign policy views. And I think the most striking thing was that - for a lot of these people, they don't really care what the details of his foreign policy views are. I think they care sort of the strength that he exudes, that he goes out there and says he wants to make America great again. I mean literally that slogan is what resonates with them.

HARLOW: Over and over.

LEE: And I think for a lot of these people, sort of the local issues, you know, are they - are they paying - not been getting back from their communities. You know, are the potholes on their roads being fixed.

HARLOW: Right.

LEE: Are there enough jobs in their - their small towns? I think those are the issue they care about and that they feel like Trump can really make a difference on.

HARLOW: David Gergen, to you. Just one more thing that really struck us in "The New York Times" interview, and that is what he said on nuclear arsenals. That he would be in favor of seeing Japan, South Korea build up their own rather than depend on the United States as sort of umbrella protection against China and North Korea. The ramifications for that globally, diplomatically?

[12:29:38] GERGEN: Well, you remember, President Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize early in his term. Many thought too early. But because he was fundamentally against nuclear proliferation and seeing other nations get the bomb. And, you know, frankly, that's been the policy of the United States going back to the end of World War II when we first got the bomb. We didn't want to see bombs proliferate. We wanted to have atoms for peace. So I think that the fundamental problem area probably is - and he's spouting off about foreign policy, making states that are wildly inconsistent with past