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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Shooter Cased Disney; DNC Database Hacked; President Obama Addresses the Nation on National Security. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 14, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: But first before we take you to the location, at any moment now, the president of the United States is set to give remarks about that terror shooting in Orlando. He has been in an extraordinarily high level meeting with the National Security Council. And just so that you know, the players around this table, it is one of the highest level meetings that our executive can actually convene. The president, the vice president, the secretary of State, the secretary of the Treasury, the secretary of Defense, the attorney general of the United States, the secretary of Homeland Security, the director of National Intelligence. I am only a quarter of a way through this list. But he is about to convene to give comments about where we stand in light of what's happened down in Orlando and, of course, with the threat of ISIS.

CNN's Athena Jones is standing by live at the White House. She's been covering everything leading up to this meeting.

As I understand it, Athena, they are still convened around that table.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ashleigh.

That's right, the president meeting with his National Security Council, a list of over about 30 participants in this huge meeting. You read out some of the names. They're meeting right now at the Treasury Department just next door. We expect the meeting to wrap up any minute now.

But you mentioned the high level officials in that meeting. Several members of the cabinet, the CIA, the FBI, the director of National Intelligence. They're discussing the efforts to degrade and destroy ISIS. Not just in Syria, and Iraq, and Libya, but sort of worldwide. They'll be discussing not just battlefield operations and progress being made on that front, but also progress at trying to combat the propaganda, the ideology - the (INAUDIBLE) ideology we see groups like ISIS spreading on the Internet.

We've already heard the president talking twice about this shooting in Orlando. We expect him to touch on it again today. And one of the things he said yesterday in the Oval Office, in his most extensive remarks about the shooting so far, is that it is something - it is the result of a homegrown extremist. A shooter who was radicalized by ideology - extremist ideology he found online via the Internet. This is something that they're going to have to fight against, and that, we expect to be a big part of the conversation today, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Athena Jones, thank you for that.

And just to reiterate, the fourth name on that list is the secretary of the Treasury, and there has been so much made of the fact that part of this meeting today and part of the remarks that you're going to hear live any moment now on CNN have to do with cutting off funding for ISIS. All of the different arteries and veins that that terror organization uses to stay alive and stay dangerous.

My colleague, Chris Cuomo, is joining us live as well from Orlando. He's been with us throughout this entire tragedy and he will be throughout the day as well.

Chris, I'm going to hand it down to you with the caveat that we are watching that door. We expected the president be live seven minutes ago. It could happen at any time. But I want you to get us updated. There are a lot of new developments today.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Sure. As soon as you see that they're ready to make the statement, pull the string, Ashleigh. It's very important information.

There's certainly some big questions going on. Did the man who murdered so many here in Orlando act alone? That's a new question of specific focus. And what does this mean in terms of did somebody help him or did someone just know what was going on? In the air, there are these rumors that there's going to be more charges and they're becoming more and more frequent. So we'll be following that.

How long was he planning this situation and in what ways? So, we have a lot of new information that are promoting some answers to these questions. Let's bring in CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez. He has been covering this from jump and he's joining us now live from Washington.

Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Chris.

Well, what we're learning is that investigators have learned that the Orlando gunman visited a Disney entertainment complex known as Disney Springs, as well as the Pulse Nightclub, in early June. This is a period during which he was not only buying firearms, but also this coincides with a celebration there in Orlando known as Gay Days, which is observed at Disney theme parks, as well as other entertainment complexes there in the Orlando area.

Now the investigators believe that these visits might have been in order to - for him to do reconnaissance. To do some kind of preparation for this attack. Now, this is coming from - they are not only from some of the sources of their interviews, but also from some of the evidence that they've been able to gather.

Now they also have learned from Disney security that there was an earlier visit on April 26th that the gunman made with his family to Disneyworld. Disney security has told the FBI that they believe that this might have also been a surveillance or a reconnaissance visit for a possible attack. Now, the FBI is still investigating that possibility.

[12:05:00] We know that they have - they have interviewed the wife, whose name is Noor Salman, and one of the things that they're looking at is what kind of information she knew ahead of time, whether or not there was anything that either her or some members of the family were aware of before the attack.

We also, Chris, are aware of some of the - some of the items that the FBI has been able to seize in some of their searches in the last few days. They were able to retrieve from his - from his apartment, or his - from his condo a Dell computer and smartphone, digital camera and related media. And there's - they've also been able to get some items from his parents' home, as well as from his sister and brother-in- law's house.

Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Evan, that is a real set of new information you have there. Thank you for that reporting. It really shows us which way this investigation is going and why they are taking such different routes as to whether or not to look at him as a straight terrorist radicalized person or as someone who was deranged and simply suffering through madness.

All right, so as they're trying to figure out what this was, they're trying to deal with what I'm calling this mixed picture. All right, let's discuss this. We have CNN military analyst Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. And we're going to, at some point, try to get Phil Mudd in from the hospital. He's at a different location.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Right.

CUOMO: He's not in the hospital. We have a different location there. But let's start with this. You were telling me yesterday, slow down. Let's see where the evidence leads us because everybody wants to fit this guy in a box of what we've seen before.

HERTLING: Right.

CUOMO: But it's not seeming that way because for all of his casing activity, he was also hanging out, according to patrons, in this gay bar, maybe others.

HERTLING: Yes.

CUOMO: He was online at gay sites. He didn't need to do that to case the place. So it's a mixed picture.

HERTLING: He didn't. But he might have been doing that to get a feel for it. Again, we don't know his mindset. Is it, I'm trying to get as much information about who I can contact at this particular club? Can they get me in there? Can they give me more details?

There was another report saying he was seen here all by himself -

CUOMO: Right. HERTLING: Sitting in the corner drinking. If he had been allowed in and someone had escorted him, could he have gotten a better feel for it? So, again, you don't know -

CUOMO: This hate also could have been self-hate.

HERTLING: It could have been. And that's the interesting piece of this. A lot of people claiming, hey, this guy was a closet homosexual himself and potentially had some problems with that based on his father and his background and his history.

Chris, you know it's interesting, having spent a good part of my time in the Middle East world, the repression is, as many have pointed out, the sexual repression, the guilt, it builds up and there's a lot of people that will act out on that repression. So -

CUOMO: And the acting against gays is some misplaced sense of macho.

HERTLING: Yes.

CUOMO: It's also pervasive in the culture. Well pointed out.

HERTLING: Yes.

CUOMO: And then you get to, all right, so we're going to figure out him investigativly. Now we're having a bigger discussion of going back into - whether it's the FBI or the political jargon that's used. Islamic - radical Islamic terror -

HERTLING: Right.

CUOMO: Or extreme Islamism, and the experts direct us to day.

HERTLING: Yes.

CUOMO: And what the president chooses to say, which is to keep the word Islam out of it.

HERTLING: Right.

CUOMO: I want to play something for you that happened with Rudy Giuliani today, where he was trying to make his case for why he wants those words said. And he tried to do it by way of analogy. I want you to hear it. Here it is.

HERTLING: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: The reality is that that is part of the story. But it's also part of the story that this was an Islamic extremist inspired murder. It would be like saying, Chris, that there was a mafia murder and then another murder two blocks away. And we wouldn't say the word "mafia murder" because Italian-Americans would get upset.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: See, I actually think that inadvertently he was making a different point than he intended.

HERTLING: I think so too. Yes.

CUOMO: I grew up with that. So did Rudy. Where every time they say Italian mafia or the Italian - it would hurt because you would feel that they were confusing all of us -

HERTLING: Right.

CUOMO: With these trash mafia guys. That's the analogy for not saying Islamic terror, right?

HERTLING: Look, that is exactly right. And that's what many of us who have dealt with this problem understand. You know, when you're talking - when I was in northern Iraq, we had 13 different terrorist groups all belonging to different organizations and you couldn't treat one the same way you treated another. You had to deal with them differently. So by lumping them all into the category of Islamist terrorists, it sometimes will ignore an element of them.

You know, this guy came out the other day, this particular terrorist, and basically claimed he was a member of al Qaeda, and then ISIS, and then Hezbollah. Organizations that we know fight each other. So if you -

CUOMO: Now, people will say - you know what the critics will say, they won't say it to you especially (INAUDIBLE) -

HERTLING: Yes.

CUOMO: (INAUDIBLE), but he would - they would say to U.S. critics, that's weak. That's PC. You're afraid to call the problem what it is because you think you'll make them angry.

HERTLING: Yes.

CUOMO: We want strength.

HERTLING: Yes, and that's -

CUOMO: We want to call them what it is.

[12:10:00] HERTLING: And that's the point I would make back. No, you've got to be smart in how you deal with it. It's not just lumping them all together because as soon as you do that, you're going to make mistakes. This guy's a perfect example. Was he a terrorist? Was he a nut job? Was he a homosexual? Was he a homophobe? We don't know yet. And you treat each one of those differently. You attack those problems in a different way. And I'll be honest, I'm tired of hearing the word "political correctness" because truthfully, you know, sometimes you've got to have words to define what you're trying to do. And anybody that says, hey, I'm not going to be politically correct, they really are - are not tackling the problems in a very precise way and we've got to do that with these kind of challenges. We've got to come together on this and have an understanding of the different aspects of this particular problem without just limping it into one large group.

CUOMO: Sir, always a pleasure.

HERTLING: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: Thank you for your perspective.

HERTLING: Appreciate it.

CUOMO: All right, we're going to take a break here. When we come back, remember, as Ashleigh instructed you earlier, we're waiting to hear from the president. He just met with literally an exhaustive list of national security advisors to bring an update to you, the American people. As soon as it starts, you'll get it here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:01] BANFIELD: And just to let you know, we are still awaiting the president of the United States, who's about to give a public address at the microphone after one of the highest level meetings that the executives can hold in this country. There are about 30 of the nation's top leaders, not only cabinet secretary level, but just to inform you as well, the director of National Counterterror Center, the director of Central Intelligence, the director of the FBI, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There is an extraordinary meeting of the minds that's been ongoing for the better part of an hour and we're expecting the president to brief us, not only on what he knows about what's happened in Orlando, but also the effort to degrade and destroy ISIS and cut off funding. This is happening at the Treasury.

All of this, as we are just learning, and this is just in to CNN, that an official with the Democratic National Committee is saying that Russian government hackers have gotten into their computer network, breached the network of the DNC, and it is not small. Not in the least.

CNN's Phil Mattingly and Phil Mudd as well join us now with more on this.

Phil Mudd, stand by for a moment.

Phil Mattingly, what is the extent of this breach and what were they looking for?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a deep breach, no question about it. We've talked to DNC officials. We've also talked to the outside firm that the DNC brought in when they recognize that there was an issue here. That firm called Crowd Strike has kind of a rapid response operation that came in over the weekend and recognized this. There were two separate intrusions, one of which lasted over the course of an entire year. It was looking at chatter within the DNC. Also a second intrusion that deliberately targeted opposition research from the Democratic National Committee related specifically to Donald Trump. They removed some of those files.

Now, the Democratic National Committee say these intrusions have been basically buttoned up at this point but - and, most importantly, that no financial data, no intensive candidate data was breached during these breaches. But the idea that two entities aligned with the Russian government, according to this outside group, Crowd Strike, were inside the Democratic National Committee for more than a year in one case. Now, one of these two entities that had targeted the DNC was the same entity that had infiltrated the networks of the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department. So they have a lot of experience going after U.S. entities, U.S. government entities like this.

But, Ashleigh, as you noted from the very beginning, the DNC is acknowledging that this occurred. This was first reported by "The Washington Post." We have since reported this same exact thing. But there's a recognition here that for more than a year inside one of the two major political party operations, Russian affiliated hackers were inside their network and I think there's kind of the rational here, or at least the recognition, on both the DNC's part and on Crowd Strike's part that this is a very real problem. One that they have moved to address quickly, but that still occurred for a very long period of time. And, of course, the very interesting wrinkle here, as we've all know, the relationship between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, deliberately targeting opposition research on Donald Trump held by Democrats, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So let me just reiterate the significance of this. The fact that these are Russian government hackers. Just like we've heard before, Russian spies.

You know what, I'm going to interrupt right now. President Obama's about to make his live address.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just met with my National Security Council as part of our regular effort to review and intensify our campaign to destroy the terrorist group ISIL. Our meeting was planned before the terrible attack in Orlando, but obviously that tragedy, the awful loss of life, shaped much of our work today.

In all of our efforts, foremost in our minds is the loss and the grief of the people of Orlando, those who died, those who are still recovering, the families who've seen their loved ones harmed, the friends of ours who are lesbian and gay and bisexual and transgender who were targeted.

I want to remind them that they are not alone. The American people and our allies and friends all over the world stand with you and are thinking about you and are praying for you.

As Director Comey has said, we currently do not have any information to indicate that a foreign terrorist group directed the attack in Orlando. It is increasingly clear, however, that the killer took in extremist information and propaganda over the internet. He appears to have been an angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalized.

[12:20:03] As we know all too well, terrorist groups like ISIL have called on people around the world and here in the United States to attack innocent civilians. Their propaganda, their videos, their postings are pervasive and more easily accessible than we want.

This individual appears to have absorbed some of that and during his killing spree, the shooter in Orlando pledged allegiance to ISIL.

As I've said before, these lone actors or small cells of terrorists are very hard to detect and very hard to prevent.

But across our government at every level, federal, state and local, military and civilian, we are doing everything in our power to stop these kinds of attacks.

We work to succeed 100 percent of the time. An attacker, as we saw in Orlando, only has to succeed once.

Our extraordinary personnel, our intelligence, our military, our homeland security, our law enforcement have prevented many attacks and saved many lives and we can never thank them enough.

But we are all sobered by the fact that despite the extraordinary hard work, something like Orlando can occur.

In our meeting today, Director Comey updated us on the investigation in Orlando. Secretary Johnson reviewed the measures we continue to take on behalf of our homeland security.

Secretary Carter and Chairman Dunford reviewed the military campaign against ISIL and I want to thank Secretary Lew and his team here at treasury for hosting us and for their tireless efforts to cut off the money that ISIL relies on to fund its terror network.

At the outset, I want to reiterate our objective in this fight. Our mission is to destroy ISIL. Since I last updated the American people on our campaign two months ago, we've seen that this continues to be a difficult fight, but we are making significant progress.

Over the past two months, I've authorized a series of steps to ratchet up our fight against ISIL. Additional U.S. personnel, including special forces in Syria to assist local forces battling ISIL there, additional advisers to work more closely with Iraqi security forces and additional assets, including attack helicopters and additional support for local forces in northern Iraq. Our aircraft continue to launch from the U.S.S. Harry Truman, now in the Mediterranean. Our B-52 bombers are hitting ISIL with precision strikes. Targets are being identified and hit even more quickly. So far, 13,000 airstrikes.

This campaign at this stage is firing on all cylinders and as a result, ISIL is under more pressure than ever before. ISIL continues to lose key leaders. This includes Salman Abu Shabib (ph), the senior military leader in Mosul, (inaudible), who plotted external attacks, Shaker Wahib, ISIL's military leader in Iraq's Anbar Province, and Maher al-Bilawi, the top ISIL commander in Fallujah.

So far we have taken out more than 120 top ISIL leaders and commanders. And our message is clear, that if you target American and our allies, you will not be safe. You will never be safe.

ISIL continues to lose ground in Iraq. In the past two months, local forces in Iraq with coalition support have liberated the western town of Rutba and have also pushed up the Euphrates River Valley, liberating the strategic town of Hiit and breaking the ISIL siege of Haditha.

Iraqis forces have surrounded Fallujah and begun to move into the city. Meanwhile in the north, Iraqi forces continue to push up the Tigris River Valley, making gains around (inaudible) and now preparing to tighten the noose around ISIL in Mosul.

(Inaudible) told ISIL has now lost nearly half of the populated territory that it once controlled in Iraq and it will lose more.

ISIL continues to lose ground in Syria as well. Assisted by our special operations forces, the coalition of local forces is now pressuring the key town of (inaudible), which means the noose is tightening around ISIL in Raqqah as well.

In short, our coalition continues to be on offense. ISIL is on defense and it has now been a full year since ISIL has been able to mount a major successful offensive operation on either Syria or Iraq.

As ISIL continues to lose territory, it also continues to lose the money that it is -- that is its life blood.

[12:25:03] As a result of our strikes against its oil infrastructure and supply lines, we believe that we've cut ISIL's revenue from oil by millions of dollars per month. In destroying the storage sites where they keep their cash, we've deprived ISIL of many millions more.

Thanks to the great work of Secretary Lew and many others here today and working with nations and financial institutions around the world, ISIL is now effectively cut off from the international financial system. Cutting off ISIL's money may not be as dramatic as military strikes, but it is critically important and we're seeing the results.

ISIL's cash reserves are down, it has had to cut salaries for its fighters, it's resorting to more extortion of those trapped in its grip. And by ISIL's own admission, some of its own leaders have been caught stealing cash and gold. Once again, ISIL's true nature has been revealed. These are not religious warriors, they are thugs and they are thieves.

In continuing to push on this front, I want to mention that it is critical for our friends in the Senate to confirm Adam Szubin, my nominee for under secretary of Terrorism and Financial intelligence. Adam has served in Democratic and Republican administrations. Everyone agrees he's eminently qualified. He has been working on these kinds of issues for years.

It's now been more than a year since I nominated him. More than 420 days and he still has not been given a full vote. There is no good reason for it. It is inexcusable. So it's time for the Senate to do its job, put our national security first and have a vote on Adam Szubin that can lead our financial fight against ISIL and help keep our country safe.

ISIL's ranks are shrinking as well. Their morale is sinking. As one defender -- as one defector said, ISIL is not bringing Islam to the world and people need to know that. Thanks to international efforts, the flow of foreign fighters, including from America, to Syria and Iraq has plummeted. In fact, our intelligence community now assesses that the ranks of ISIL fighter has been reduced to the lowest levels in more than two and a half years.

Even as we continue to destroy ISIL militarily, we're addressing larger forces that have allowed these terrorists to gain traction in parts of the world. With regard to Iraq, this means helping Iraqis stabilize liberated communities and promote inclusive governance so ISIL cannot return.

With regard to Syria, it means our continued support for the fragile cessation of hostilities there. The cessation of hostilities has not stopped all or even most of the hardship on the Syrian people, the hardship on civilians. And the Assad regime has been the principal culprit in violating the cessation of hostilities.

ISIL and al-Nusra, which is Al Qaida's affiliate in Syria, also continue to terrorize Syrians. But as fragile and incomplete as the cessation is, it has saved lives and it has allowed the delivery of some life-saving aid to Syrians who are in desperate need. And as difficult as it is, we will continue to push for a political process that can end the civil war and result in a transition away from Assad.

Beyond Syria and Libya -- beyond Syria and Iraq, ISIL is also losing ground in Libya. Forces of the Libyan Unity Government are going after ISIL in their stronghold in Sirte and we'll continue to assist the new Libyan government as it works to secure its country.

Lastly, here at home, if we really want to help law enforcement protect Americans from home-grown extremists, the kind of tragedies that occurred at San Bernardino and that now have occurred in Orlando, there is a meaningful way to do that. We have to make it harder for people who want to kill Americans to get their hands on weapons of war that let them kill dozens of innocents.

OBAMA: It is absolutely true, we cannot prevent every tragedy. But we know that consistent with the Second Amendment, there are common sense steps that could reduce gun violence and could reduce the lethality of somebody who intends to do other people harm. We should give ATF the resources they need to enforce the gun laws that we already have.

People with possible ties to terrorism, who are not allowed on a plane should not be allowed to buy a gun.