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Louisiana Shooting Sparks Outrage; Interview with Rep. Mick Mulvaney; Comey Testifies to Congress; Black Man Shot and Killed in Minnesota at Traffic Stop. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired July 07, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] NIC VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the chest.

SANDRA STERLING, ALTON STERLING'S AUNT: I was hoping that he died peacefully and instantly. No, he didn't. He suffered. He was reaching out and talking. That killed me inside.

VALENCIA: Moments later, another officer reaches down and takes what witnesses later say is a gun out of Sterling's right pocket. That gun, the reason why police say they were at the scene.

DISPATCH: He pulled a gun on the complainant and told them he couldn't be around there.

VALENCIA: A source close to the investigation tells CNN the witness who called 911 said Sterling was, quote, "brandishing a gun," not pointing it at someone.

CROWD: Hands up. Don't shoot. Hands up. Don't shoot.

VALENCIA: His violent death sparking protests across the country on Wednesday, from Ferguson --

CROWD: (INAUDIBLE).

VALENCIA: To Philadelphia.

CROWD: We must love and support one another.

VALENCIA: Some protesters arrested for blocking the entrance to a major freeway.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We must love and support each other.

VALENCIA: Sterling's family meeting with Louisiana' governor, who turned over the investigation to the Justice Department and the FBI.

GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D), LOUISIANA: I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least.

VALENCIA: Just hours earlier, Sterling's 15-year-old son Cameron weeping uncontrollably at a press conference.

VALENCIA: The teen crying out, "I want daddy."

CAMERON STERLING, ALTON STERLING'S SON: I want daddy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: Chilling just to hear that son react to the news of the death of his father. A source with knowledge of the investigation tells us that those two officers involved in the shooting death of Alton Sterling were interviewed at the request of the district attorney on Tuesday night. Both remain on paid administrative leave.

Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Nick Valencia, thank you so much.

We do want to get to some more breaking news that we are following.

Donald Trump is back in Washington today, wooing concerned Republicans with just weeks until he is officially named the party's presidential nominee. Trump meeting with lawmakers in both chambers of Congress this morning. And these are meetings that are taking place on the same day that some of his fellow Republicans are set to grill FBI Director James Comey. Comey appearing before the House Oversight Committee next hour. This in the wake of his decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her use of private e-mail while secretary of state, even as he called her actions, quote, "extremely careless." That is a quote.

And joining me now, a member of the House Oversight Committee, Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina.

Congressman, good morning to you.

I know you've called the FBI's decision outrageous. What do you want to hear today from Director Comey?

REP. MICK MULVANEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Why? Face it, I think regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on, something just doesn't feel about how this went down. It's outrageous. I think that the director of the FBI comes up and gives a presentation and says, look, here's all of the things that secretary Clinton did. Here's how they all break the law. But we're not going to file any charges. That just doesn't feel right. And I think it's incumbent upon Congress, members of both parties, to sort of drill down and find out why Director Comey came to the decision that he did. And that's what we'll be doing here in about 25 minutes.

KEILAR: Director Comey is someone who is known as really sticking to the letter of the law. He has a reputation that proceeds him. My question I guess is, are you doubting his objectivity in this, because I know a lot of people felt, knowing him, that if he found anything that was wrong to the point of where it should reach that threshold for prosecuting, that he wasn't going to let go of it. That he was going to pursue it.

MULVANEY: Yes, and I think that's what's so stunning for a lot of us is that he is a guy that we expect to follow the letter of the law. And when you go and look at the letter of the law, actually look at the statute that he was considering prosecuting her under, at least recommending prosecution under, she met all the letters. If the crime consists of a, b, c, d and e, he came out and said she did a, b, c, d and e, and then he said he's not going to prosecute. And again, there's something missing. There's something that doesn't sound right, feel right, smell right. And to have it come from this particular FBI director is even more stunning.

So I think it will be a very interesting hearing today. My guess is you may hear many, many new things today that haven't come out. I don't know if you heard yesterday, the Department of Justice said they're not going to pursue anybody now and the investigation is over.

KEILAR: What new -- what new things? What new things?

MULVANEY: Well, when we were actually prepping for the hearing yesterday morning, when we met with the lawyers on our staff, they said, well, look, he won't be able to answer this question, this question, this question, because the investigation is still ongoing. But now we find out as of I think late yesterday afternoon, the investigation is now closed.

KEILAR: So -- so what is it -- so what is it? So tell us what it is that you want to find out.

MULVANEY: Well, we want to know, who else was he talking to? What other aides? What other evidence did they have? We're going to drill down to some of his statements, for example. He says that, you know, they weren't able to find any real evidence. The information was leaked. Why is that? They weren't able to really determine what e-mail she had deleted because they've been deleted so thoroughly. Why is that? It's apparent that she apparently took more care in deleting the e-mails than she did in setting up the server in the first place. This just doesn't feel right. People who are innocent or people who are simply negligent and just don't know they're breaking the law don't lie about what they did. But the evidence, as presented by the FBI director, is that she lied about this again and again and again. So how do you -- how do you reconcile that --

[09:35:19] KEILAR: You -- you said information -- you said information was leaked.

MULVANEY: No, no, I said he -- he made very careful statements about whether or not this information was ever leaked out, was ever hacked into maybe was a better word.

KEILAR: OK. OK.

MULVANEY: And we want to know -- we want to know -- we want to know more about that today.

KEILAR: Whether it was accessed, because that was one of the big questions. Foreign hackers frequently target the U.S. government and U.S. government officials --

MULVANEY: Sure.

KEILAR: And were they able to. And it appears that they found no evidence of that. OK, I understand what you're saying about that now.

MULVANEY: Right, but they did find evidence that the people she was communicating with had been hacked. If I send you an e-mail and you've been hacked, doesn't that mean that the folks could also get access to what you and I are corresponding about. That -- that's a question that I think we'll get asked today. We might actually get an answer to that.

KEILAR: All right, I want to ask you about this shooting, because this morning we learned that a fatal shooting involving Minnesota Police and an African-American happened, and this was an incident. Have you seen this? Have you seen the video of this?

MULVANEY: As you know -- well, as I stand here and talk to you, I can't hear you, but I can't see you, so I was able to listen to the show earlier, but I've not seen the video.

KEILAR: OK. You haven't seen the video. OK. Well, it's horrific, quite frankly, to watch. It live streamed on FaceBook for minutes. And it's the second fatal shooting that involved police in two days. We've seen so many of these, including last year, Walter Scott, in your state of South Carolina.

MULVANEY: Yes.

KEILAR: What policies need to be enacted to work towards eliminating these -- these -- what seems to be a pervasive issue?

MULVANEY: I hope that Louisiana and Minnesota, should the facts be as they appear to be, and I always, you know, am cautious about reacting to the first view of a video or just listening to a videos, as I've done with in the St. Paul shooting. But I hope the folks, if the facts bear out as we think they are, or as they appear to be, do what South Carolina did, which is charge the guys with murder.

We did it right in South Carolina. We didn't have riots. We didn't have community unrest. We had a bad actor shoot a person in cold blood. And that person is going to jail for a very, very long time. That's the way it's supposed to work. As to whether what policies local police can put in place, I think that's a longer discussion for the day. I was disappointed it see that there were no police body cameras involved. It was -- it was -- it was sickening to listen to, and there's nothing good that can be said about it.

KEILAR: No, there certainly isn't. Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, thanks for joining us to talk about these multiple topics. We appreciate it.

MULVANEY: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: And we're going to have much more about both of these shootings after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just shot his arm off. We got pulled over on Larpenter (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had -- you told him to get his I.D., sir, his driver's license. Oh, my God, please don't tell me he's dead. Please don't tell me my boyfriend just went like that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just keep your hands where they are, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I will, sir. I'll keep my hands where they are.

CLARENCE CASTILE, VICTIM'S UNCLE: I've seen a -- a young man, helpless, shot, for no apparent reason. I saw my nephew shot by a man, clinging to his life, you know, and with no help. It was the most horrific thing I've ever seen in my life. We hear about things like this happening all the time around the United States and the world, you know, people being harmed and abused by people that we're supposed to trust with our lives. People that are supposed to --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Protect and serve.

CASTILE: Serve and protect us. And they -- they tend to be our executioners and judges and murders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: You just heard from the family of Philando Castile. He was shot and killed overnight by a police officer during a traffic stop. And his death comes on the heels of another police shooting that killed this man, Alton Sterling.

Hillary Clinton is calling Sterling's death a tragedy. And she went on to say, "we need to ensure justice is served. That begins with common sense reforms, like ending racial profiling."

I want to bring in CNN political commentator and policies anchor for New York 1 News, Errol Louis. And joining us in just a minute, we'll have Cedric Alexander. He is a CNN law enforcement analyst and chief of police in DeKalb County, Georgia. And then last but not least, we have Mayor James Knowles. He's the mayor of Ferguson, Missouri, a town that certainly knows this kind of tragedy all too well. Michael Brown, of course, was fatally shot by Ferguson Police. The mayor also the author of "The New Guardians."

So, I want to -- I want to talk to you, Errol, about this. We've heard right now from Hillary Clinton. She's weighed in on the first shooting. This is essential, right, that these candidates weigh in, and we have not heard from Donald Trump. So what should we -- what should we be expecting from these people running for president? Has Hillary Clinton done what she should, and should Donald Trump weigh in?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What we should expect is that the candidates will rise to the level of the questions that are put to them. If you ask them simplistic questions, they will give you simplistic answers and they'll tell you as little as they can get away with, because that's what candidates do in campaign season. What we should be asking them, and this is a question I actually put to Secretary Clinton during the final Democratic debate, is, the 1994 crime control bill that her husband signed into law, it includes a provision that often doesn't get discussed. I couldn't get it in during the debate, as a matter of fact. But there's a provision that for 20 years that has been ignored. It says that the attorney general of the United States shall, not may or should, but shall publish annually a record of police killings nationwide. That provision of the crime control bill law has never been enforced. Congress has screwed around with the funding for it. The implementation of it has been made voluntary by the 17,000 police departments around the nation. And so we actually don't have a clear picture of what is going on.

[09:45:33] The media has tried. Some community organizations have tried. "The Guardian" newspaper is keeping its own count. I think "The Washington Post" is too. But we really don't have a comprehensive look at a really important topic. And if we did nothing else but get the next president to vow to actually implement that very key provision, we'd have a starting point so that we could understand what's going on and then how to address it.

KEILAR: Ferguson Mayor James Knowles on the phone with me now.

Mayor, what is your reaction to this shooting, both of these shootings. You've seen this. It's horrific video. Both of them are horrific. The newest one coming out of Minnesota. And what does this mean for governance, for what these presidential candidates should be proposing? You've certainly had to deal with a lot of issues of community policing. What do you think we need to hear from them?

JAMES KNOWLES III, MAYOR OF FERGUSON, MISSOURI (voice-over): Well, I think we need to hear a nationwide discussion -- continue on nationwide discussion on how we should be policing into the 21st century. There's a lot that we've done here in the city of Ferguson over the past couple years now to put safeguards in place to ensure that people's rights and liberties are protected. We've implemented body cameras, which is an excellent tool in helping with transparency and accountability. But, you know, there's, nationwide, we have police departments who are still, some of them, doing things the old- fashioned way and, as we move into the 21st century, we need to have a discussion, continue the discussion as to how police officers should be interacting in the community and tools that we can bring to bear to keep law enforcement accountable and transparent.

KEILAR: Cedric, I want to ask you about that because you hear the mayor saying that in Ferguson they've now implemented body cams. That was not the case during the shooting of Michael Brown. Now they have body cams. But it seems, of course, if a police department, and as I -- as I recall, actually, they had the funding for body cams, it hadn't been implemented. So why does it take in some of these cases a terrible shooting before police departments and municipalities realize these things need to be in place?

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Look, almost a year and a half ago, President Obama enacted a 21st century task force, which I was grateful to be part of, headed by Chuck Ramsey and Lori Robinson. What came out of that report, and I'm quite sure everyone is -- many people are very well familiar with, are a lot of the same issues that we're discussing today, building trust and legitimacy, right along to developing community relationships. We talked about technology and body cameras and the importance of body cameras. The funding has been a real serious issue for many departments across this country. But at the same time, we all understand the importance of having that piece of technology as part of our repertoire today as we engage and continue to engage our community the way that we do.

KEILAR: Yes.

ALEXANDER: But, look, the issue is here is that we have a community today across this country and that is crying out to find answers to what has happened in two communities across the country, Baton Rouge and there in Minnesota, over the last couple of days. And one case you had body cameras that reportedly fell off the officers during the fight in Baton Rouge, and another case in Minnesota were there were no body cameras whatsoever. So these are going to be issues that are going to certainly -- the American people are going to question.

KEILAR: Yes.

ALEXANDER: But it's a piece of technology that we've got to have. We've got to utilize it. We've got to find funding for it. And every community has to do it. But let me say one more thing.

KEILAR: Cedric, Cedric, no, I just -- I'm sorry, I have to get Mayor Michael Nutter in --

ALEXANDER: Yes.

KEILAR: And I won't even get him in unless I wrap you right there.

ALEXANDER: Got you.

KEILAR: I do want to ask you, former Philly mayor and also Hillary Clinton supporter, I know where you come down on this politically as we shift this back to politics here. Obviously, you support Hillary Clinton. But what is she going to do to try to provide, assuming she gets into the White House, some sort of national leadership on this issue that is not going away?

MICHAEL NUTTER, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, in all of these matters -- and this is a disgusting situation. I've seen both of the videos and we've seen so many of these other cases over time. I think Secretary Clinton's statement -- early -- early on statement, right in the aftermath of these two, is very, very clear. She has been very focused on the issues of profiling, of preventing crime, but also the training that is necessary.

[09:50:15] I agree with the police chief, certainly on the one hand body cameras are very important and they're expensive on the back end, but the camera is only going to tell you what is taking place or has taken place. Training is critically important and there's no question that Secretary Clinton will also provide the necessary funding for training for the officers all across the United States of America.

I think we're at a point where the Department of Justice literally needs to call in the police chiefs across America to really have a serious discussion about what is going on all across this nation with officers --

KEILAR: Sure, it's a -- it's a big conversation that needs to happen. Do you think --

NUTTER: In some instances frightened by black men.

KEILAR: Is she going to push, as Errol said, there doesn't exist at this point in time that there's been a proposal for it, a record of police killings nationwide so that we have a better picture of what's going on?

NUTTER: I would certainly expect that she should and would.

KEILAR: Yes.

NUTTER: There's no reason that the uniform crime reports should not be able to capture and gather that information, as much as we gather homicide shootings, part one crimes, et cetera, et cetera. We have to have the ability to analyze what's going on across America with officer involved shootings. There's no debate about that.

KEILAR: Michael Nutter, thanks so much. Mayor James Knowles, Errol Lewis and Cedric Alexander, thanks to all of you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still to company, FBI Director James Comey about to be grilled by House Republicans over his recommendation not to charge Hillary Clinton over her private e-mail server. Wolf Blitzer will be taking over special coverage after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world for our special coverage of FBI Director James Comey's testimony before the House Oversight Committee, set to start in just a few minutes. You're looking at live pictures right now.

Comey coming under very sharp criticism from top Republicans after refusing to prosecute -- recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for using private e-mail servers during her tenure for four years as secretary of state. Many lawmakers slamming the decision, especially after the FBI director described the actions of Clinton and her aides as, quote, "extremely careless." Comey is just the first of the government officials set to testify

before Congress on this very sensitive issue. Next week, the attorney general of the United States, Loretta Lynch, she will be in the hot seat.

[09:55:00] Earlier this week, Comey's words seemed like a gift to Donald Trump, but instead of capitalizing on the stunning denunciation, he slammed the news media among other issues. He's been getting some criticism for that. Now Trump is back here on Washington this day, wooing concerned Republicans with just weeks until he's officially named the party's presidential nominee. Trump has been meeting with lawmakers in both chambers of congress this morning, members of the House and members of the Senate.

Let's talk about all of this. Let's bring in our panel this morning to cover the breaking news. Our chief national correspondent John King is here, our CNN political director David Chalian is joining us, our senior political analyst David Gergen, our justice correspondent, Evan Perez, and our senior political reporter, Manu Raju, is up on Capitol Hill.

Manu, set the scene for this very important, and it's going to be, I'm sure, very lively hearing this morning.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely, Wolf. And, in fact, it will be actually a very long hearing potentially. We're thinking at least three to four hours of questioning. We're expecting Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of this oversight committee, who's actually called this hearing, to begin his opening statements and really to raise some serious concerns in his view about why charges were not -- are not going to be brought against Hillary Clinton. He believes that she clearly violates the federal law and the fact that James Comey did not recommend prosecution to go forward is going to be a major subject that Chaffetz and other Republicans plan to press during the course of this hearing.

Now, on the Democratic side, expect a pretty spirited defense of James Comey. They're going to try to paint this as nothing more than a partisan witch hunt. They say that, look, this is a man who is widely respected, James Comey is, and the only reason why he's being criticized right now is because Republicans did not get the outcome that they wanted. So that is going to be the broad picture going forward.

The question's going to be on the details. How much more does James Comey reveal about the investigation into Hillary Clinton -- Hillary Clinton's e-mail server because this investigation went on for a year and there are a lot unanswered questions. And James Comey, when he made that statement earlier this week, he did not take any questions. So it will be the first chance for members to really draw him out.

Now, behind me is where the hearing's taking place, Wolf, and it is jam-packed. People are streaming in right now. So expect a pretty lively contentious hearing over the next several hours, Wolf.

BLITZER: And we certainly expect that. Manu, stand by. John King is with us.

John, we've covered these kind of hearings in the past. The chairman, Jason Chaffetz, of this House Oversight Committee, he'll make an opening statement. Elijah Cummings is the ranking Democrat. I'm sure he'll make a statement. Then there will be questions by the chairman, the ranking member, and all the other members. And as Manu points out, this could go on.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It could go on. And the question in my mind is, there's no question. If you listened to Director Comey the other day, there's no question, Republicans and any American has every right to ask questions. Where did you draw the line? If it was so reckless, so careless, it happened so many times, why is it? Conservatives are saying, you know, she's too big to jail. That there's some double standard. That if this were any of us at this table, we'd be being prosecuted. Because it's Hillary Clinton, she's not. They're going to press Jim Comey to explain that, why she and her top aides not prosecuted? Were they treated differently than anybody else?

The question in my mind is, how much do they go after Comey, who has a Republican pedigree, who is known as a very straight arrow and a straight shooter, and how much do they try to make this about Hillary Clinton's character, her judgement and her management style? And the second question, to Manu's point is, how aggressive is the Democratic defense? Are they defending Jim Comey, saying if he came to this conclusion it's a good one, or are they defending Hillary Clinton, because a lot of Democrats will tell you privately, what she did is indefensible.

BLITZER: Let me bring Evan Perez into this, our justice correspondent.

Evan, take us behind the scenes right now. You've been speaking to your sources at the FBI, at the Justice Department. What's been going on since this bombshell announcement the other day?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the last five day, frankly, have been unlike anything we've ever seen at the Justice Department or the FBI maybe ever. You know, that announcement by Jim Comey on Tuesday was unprecedented simply because not only was he saying publicly that he's -- what he's recommending to the prosecutors, but he's also saying all the different ways Hillary Clinton did wrong things in her handling of this e-mail case.

And then, not -- barely 24 hours after Comey makes his recommendation public, we hear from Loretta Lynch, the attorney general, what her final decision is after she met with prosecutors and with Comey to announce that she was going to accept the recommendation and that this essentially was over, the prosecution threat for Hillary Clinton was over.

What I -- the sense I get is Loretta Lynch is essentially running the Justice department in a bit of panic mode. All of this happening a week after she had this really terrible debacle on the tarmac at a Phoenix airport in which Bill Clinton charges aboard her plane and talks to her for 30 minutes and helps, frankly, taint this -- the entire way this investigation was going on.

[09:59:56] And, obviously, the is not just the first thing. I mean the president and the White House are also responsible. The president has been commenting on this investigation for months inappropriately. And, of course, the Republicans on The Hill, you know, they're not blameless either because they kind of set the table in some of the political overtones.