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No Charges Against Charlotte Officer; Trump's Conflicts of Interest; Trump Taps Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross; Steve Mnuchin's Background; Wilbur Ross' Background; Trump Tax Plan. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 30, 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] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no excuse for violence, and we implore everyone to protest, to protest peacefully, and to be respectful of everyone's rights.

JUSTIN BAMBERG, ATTORNEY FOR KEITH LAMONT SCOTT'S FAMILY: Again, I'm Justin Bamberg of Bamberg Legal.

Today is a -- it's a bittersweet day. You know, we've been saying from the very beginning that we wanted to know the facts. We wanted certain questions answered. I mean we did get some of those answers today. But like you've heard from both Chuck and Eduardo, we're going to continue to look into this matter.

But while I have you, I wanted to really speak to you today to kind of talk about something that is equally as important as this. And, you know, we have a problem across this country. And regardless of the specific facts of any of these officer-involved shootings, everybody has to remember one thing, and that's, at the end of the day, families are destroyed when these things happen, right? Ms. Scott, her children are innocent victims of a situation that should have never happened in the first place. This officer's family, they, too, are innocent victims of a situation that should have never happened in the first place. And it's important that we continue to work.

When we look at Eric Garner, when we look at Walter Scott in North Charleston, the officer of which is on trial right now for murder, when we look at Chase Sherman, when we look at all of these other incidents that are happening time and time and time again, when are we, as a country, from a societal level to a policy level, going to say, enough is enough, let's work to actually address the problem instead of reacting to tragedies that happen time and time again.

You know, through the course of my involvement in officer-involved shootings, you know, I've had the opportunity to work with prosecutors in different states and speak with individuals at the Department of Justice, speak with individuals at the White House under the Obama administration, and I've seen progress in the last year and a half, two years. But we've got to continue that progress. We have millions. You want to know why there's unrest in Charlotte? You want to know why people decided to take to the streets in anger. And it's not because they knew Keith or because they knew Raykia (ph), it's because they have this pent-up frustration. They have this feeling that justice is some esoteric, magical concept that only a select few people in this country have available to them. That is what we have to work on. We've got to change that.

And I'm going to take this time right now to issue a challenge to President-elect Donald Trump, because with a new regime coming in, we will see a change in the Department of Justice. We will see a change in the way that policies are shaped in this country from the White House to Congress. Sir, please --

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: You are listening to the lawyers for the family of Keith Lamont Scott, a man killed by police in September. We have just learned that no charges are going to be filed against the officer, Brentley Vinson. We learned that just a sort time from the D.A. of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Police.

Hello to you and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM as we continue this story. Thank you for joining me. I'm Brianna Keilar.

And we are following this breaking news of no criminal charges for a police officer in North Carolina who shot and killed a man back in September. You just heard those attorneys for the family of Keith Lamont Scott. A short time ago in Charlotte, the D.A. from Mecklenburg County, Andrew Murray, talked to reporters. He is talking about the shooting that happened September 20th. Office confronting Scott. They commanded him to drop a gun multiple times. A few seconds later, and captured on this video here, which we need to warn you is graphic, Scott is shot four times and he is killed.

CNN's Brian Todd is in Charlotte for us. We have our legal analyst Danny Cevallos with us from New York. And then on the phone our law enforcement analyst Cedric Alexander.

So, Brian, to you first. There were many reasons that the D.A. gave for not seeking charges. Break these down the us.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, a few bottom line reasons that the D.A. gave were that the officer in question, Officer Brentley Vinson, felt under immediately threat according to the D.A. from Keith Lamont Scott during that incident. The D.A. laid out in great detail, as you mentioned, the incident. But a few things that he mentioned really bear talking about right now.

[12:05:05] He said that Scott ignored repeated commands, at least ten commands, for him to drop the gun. That Scott was inside his car when he first drew the gun. And the officers at that time saw him draw the gun inside his car, commanded him to drop the gun, yelled that he had a gun. At that point, the D.A. says that Keith Lamont Scott took a deep breath, then exited his vehicle with a gun and started to back away from it. And here's a key thing that the D.A. asserts, that Keith Lamont Scott, he says, assessed the officers. That he looked at Officer Vinson, then he looked at other officers, and then looked back at Vinson and Vinson felt at that moment that he was under immediate threat of being shot by Keith Lamont Scott. Here is the D.A.'s announcement of what he concluded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW MURRAY, CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG COUNTY, NC DISTRICT ATTORNEY: After a thorough review and given the totality of the circumstances and credible evidence in this case, it is my opinion that Officer Vinson acted lawfully when he shot Mr. Scott. He acted lawfully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And, therefore, no criminal charges will be brought against Officer Brentley Vinson. I asked the D.A. if during that incident whether Keith Lamont Scott actually raised his gun towards the officers. He said, as far as everything they have been able to sees is concerned, he did not raise his gun. But, still, Officer Vinson felt under immediate threat and he thought that he was going to be shot by Keith Lamont Scott at that moment, so he opened fire.

Also, the D.A. sought to quell any speculation that other officers, the white officers on the scene, also fired at Keith Lamont Scott. He said they did not fire. That every piece of evidence shows that it was only Officer Brentley Vinson who fired. That there were four shots were fired, three of which hit Scott. And all four of those bullets came from Officer Vinson's gun.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, that was a very important question that you asked, if he had raised the weapon, and the D.A. saying that based on all of the interviews and also on the photo evidence, they did not believe that to be true.

All right, Danny, so you've heard this announcement. We knew that an announcement was coming. Was this decision at all a surprise, or was this what you and other legal analysts were expecting?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's hard to say whether it was a surprise or not. But this really comes down to how the D.A. in this case looked at really what should be divided into two issues. And the first initial decision to approach Mr. Scott, and then, secondly, the decision ultimately to fire upon Mr. Scott. And if we can even narrow it down more, this case really comes down to whether or not, in an open-carry state, holding a firearm out of the holster and down by your side is considered brandishing, such that police have the -- have reason to fear for their safety.

And that's sort of the quandary that open-carry states put us in because it raises the question whether or not a gun must be in the holster, or it can be down by your side, so long as you're not waving or being aggressive with the firearm. Other states require, with open- carry laws require the firearm to be in the holster, but North Carolina doesn't have that requirement. So this is an issue that reasonable minds can and do differ on in the law.

KEILAR: It seems like you have two issues that are coming up against each other, because we hear the D.A. saying, Danny, that all of the research, there's a lot of research on reaction time or being able -- for an officer shooting or someone who has a weapon at their side and it being raised. And he said that the evidence shows that there is a tie, which means that there was this reasonable assumption on the part of the officer that he was in danger. But at the same time, what you're saying about how you can hold a weapon in this state where the laws are as they are, these seem to be coming up against each other where you could have an officer feeling threatened and you could also have someone being within the bounds of the law and how they're handling a weapon.

CEVALLOS: Right. Well, the second stage of the analysis, when the police shoot, there's more than simply having a firearm on his person, in the holster or holding it outside. You also have them saying that he's non-compliant. They also, by that point, are aware of the presence of marijuana, which is -- does give more rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause. So, I mean, we're not looking -- at the time to shoot, we're not looking at simply whether he's holding the firearm outside of the holster or inside of holster. I think that analysis is relevant when we talk about the initial contact, and that is such a highly scrutinized area, that initial reason that police make the decision to approach and in this case disarm somebody, especially in an open-carry state, where the mere presence of a firearm without any other information, it does not necessarily give rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

[12:10:02] KEILAR: I want to bring Cedric in because, Cedric, there were, as we understand, five officers who told -- who told this man ten times to drop the weapon, right? We see in the video that all of this moves very quickly, though. So what do you make of this announcement as we know now the facts and we've seen some of it on video of what transpired?

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (via telephone): Well, I -- well, let me say this first. Certainly our hearts, prayers go out to the family. And my heart and prayers also go out to the officers on that particular day, who fired that deadly shot, and to his fellow officers that were there with him, I know that was a very difficult situation for them.

But here's what we have to consider here, and we need to simplify this a little bit, Brianna, as well, too, because it's becoming way too complicated. This was an incident where he had a gun in his hand. You had a number of officers saying to him, "drop the weapon. Drop the weapon." They don't know his mental health condition. They don't know his physical condition. They know that they have someone standing there with them with a gun to their side. And the fact that you have been repeatedly told, "drop the weapon," any one of those officers sense a flinch, sense that they become threatened at that point after repeated, repeated "drop the weapons" and then he ends up getting himself killed.

Now, let's remove this whole notion about open carry. That is something entirely different. He may have had the right to have that open carry in that state. But the moment he engaged police with a gun at his side, that created a whole different scenario. It is unfortunate for the victim. It's unfortunate for the families involved.

But here's another important piece. The state of North Carolina, and that D.A., did an extraordinary job in going outside of themselves, going outside of the department. They brought in outside state investigators, a large number of them, as you heard stated earlier, who looked into this case. They didn't take six months or a year to review this case. They did it in an adequate amount of time that would take to do a very good, thorough investigation, because not only are there community is watching, the entire world is watching. So the facts end up being what the facts are. We certainly do understand the climate in which we live in and the things that have been happening across this country with police-involved shootings.

KEILAR: Well, and that's -- and, Cedric, that's -- I'm that's really --

ALEXANDER: But we have to look -- but we have to look at each case very much individually.

KEILAR: Sure.

ALEXANDER: We can't lump them all together.

KEILAR: Sure. Of course. And I hear you on that.

But, Brian, part of this isn't just about this shooting individually. It is about frustration. And we saw that in Charlotte in the days following this shooting where there were protests. Someone was actually killed. And, of course, there's concern. We know that police have taken precautions. They're concerned that there are going to be demonstrations that could turn violent following this announcement from the D.A.

And there's also another storyline that I think many people are familiar with, and that is that there was speculation that Keith Lamont Scott was unarmed and that he was actually carrying, according to an initial report from a family member, that he was holding a book. What we now know from the D.A. is they're saying that's untrue and they're also saying there were people who gave accounts on camera and later said to law enforcement that actually they did not witness the incident. So essentially what they were saying on camera had no place in truth. Brian, yes, I know you were following this.

TODD: That's right, Brianna. They laid out several witnesses who said that they saw -- yes, they laid out several witnesses who they say said that they saw him with a book, that they did not see him with a gun. And the D.A. said that those witnesses later basically recanted their testimonies where they found that they didn't have a good view of the situation.

You talked about what the family has claimed, that he did not have a gun. That he had a book. The D.A. just said that there was no reading book found in the car or near the scene, but that a composition book was found near the consol. So, again, that is -- that has fueled a lot of the, you know, the back and forth here, the claims and counterclaims.

But, also, you know, as far as the -- you know, whether Keith Lamont Scott had a gun, you know, the D.A. lays out everything that he has found, in his investigation has found, saying that Scott did have a gun. But the D.A. himself said that none of the video actually shows his hands at the time. So that has also fueled some of the conjecture that maybe Scott did not have a gun when the video doesn't show his hands, doesn't show the gun in his hands, that fuels a lot of the back and forth and a lot of the -- the claim and counterclaim. And he said even today, they still can't tell from the video, from the video, that he had gun. But, again, they say every other piece of evidence they have basically says that he had a gun. All of the officer who saw him said he had a gun, that he did not drop the weapon.

[12:15:08] KEILAR: All right, Brian Todd, Danny Cevallos, Cedric Alexander, thank you to all of you. This story developing. And we're waiting to see how the community does respond to it.

I want to move on now to politics. The latest edition to President- Elect Donald Trump's team and the big impact they could have on the economy. Plus, Trump's announcement about his business.

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KEILAR: Breaking news from Washington today. We're looking at Capitol Hill. House Democrats deciding to stay with California's Nancy Pelosi as their party's leader in the House of Representatives. Pelosi easily keeping her title of minority leader after a closed door election today. Her closest challenger was Ohio's Tim Ryan. The final vote tally, 134-63.

More names as well for more posts. More meetings and job interviews. More questions and, yes, more drama as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office and to leave his corporate job, 51 days from today. Trump has chosen two corporate titans, Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross to head the Treasury and Commerce Departments. But the morning after his posh dinner out with Mitt Romney, aides let it be known that four candidates remain for secretary of state. Whether Romney is one of those of those, unclear, though many say he is.

[12:20:09] Overnight, Trump tried to put to rest festering questions about his own global business ties. And I want to bring in my CNN colleague, Phil Mattingly, with more on all of this.

Tell us about what he's trying to put to rest here, and if he really can.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's conflicts of interest. And if you look at the president-elect and obviously the Trump Organization, we're dealing with something that doesn't have a lot of precedent when it comes to elected office at this level. He has a massive organization with serious international ties. And what we've seen since November 9th, the day after he was elected president, is opportunities for a rife number of conflicts just based on calls with foreign leaders, on business partners in foreign countries. The types of things that make ethics lawyers cringe.

Now, what the president-elect did this morning is, he started tweeting out in a series of four tweets stating that in December, in a couple weeks, on December 15th, he will hold a press conference with his children to talk about removing himself, quote, "in total from his businesses." Why does he want to do that? Because he wants in no way to have conflicts of interests.

Now, these tweets, granted they answered zero questions about what he might actually do. And I think it's important to note, when he says removing himself in total, does that mean he's taking himself out of the operations or does that mean he's selling his entire stake in all of this companies? Those are two very different issues here. The former wouldn't be actually doing that much as all. And I think in terms of removing himself from conflicts of interest, the big question has been, if he wants to hand it off to his children, which he has always said he's going to do. He's clearly implying he's still going to do that. And his kids are, a, sitting on his transition team currently, b, involved in various ways on calls with foreign leaders, and, c, still going to be close advisors to him in the White House, is there actually any type of removal of conflict of interest at all?

Now, just to kind of get some behind the scenes here. Trump advisers say they are working very hard on this. They have a lot of ethics lawyers trying to untangle what is a pretty nasty thicket here. They're not totally sure how they're going to end up doing it. So they don't have answers on the specifics yet, Brianna. But I do think it's worth noting, if you talk to the advisers they say repeatedly, look, voters knew that this existed before they put him into office. It's kind of a hint that if we're expecting some wholesale reduction of his role, we probably are going to have to keep waiting for that.

KEILAR: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Now, one more quick thing, and you noted it, Brianna. I think it's important. The economic team that was announced this morning kind of following the health care team from yesterday and why that's important. While the shiny object has been the secretary of state, we've been paying a ton of attention to that, for good reason. The president-elect has kind of gone through quietly and announced the key point people on all of his crucial policy pronouncements, at least domestic, over the course of the last couple of days. And, today, that's on the economic side. You mentioned Steve Mnuchin. Obviously former partner at Goldman Sachs. Ran a hedge fund as well. Was the national finance chairman for the president-elect. He will be the point person on the tax overall that the president-elect talked about repeatedly on the campaign trail.

And the other thing, Brianna, and talk about Wilbur Ross. He'll be spearheading a lot of the trade issues. So keep a very close eye on these two individuals.

KEILAR: Yes, will be very important.

Phil Mattingly, thank you so much.

And now I want to talk more about the men who are in line to help run the U.S. economy with CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans.

We just heard from Phil Mattingly who Mnuchin and Ross are, but clearly this is Donald Trump, who obviously voters knew, you know, they considered his business acumen to be a benefit. CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right.

KEILAR: I'm assuming that many of the folks who helped elect Donald Trump are going to see the same thing with these two gentlemen, but at the same time there's going to be some serious pushback, especially on the left.

ROMANS: There's already some pushback on the left. Quite frankly, Elizabeth Warren out there saying basically that Steve Mnuchin is just a terrible idea for a treasury secretary. That he has profited from the financial crisis. He's somebody who worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years. And, in fact, you know, the Trump team, you know, had been really kind of slammed Goldman Sachs a bunch of times during the campaign, you know, saying that it was people like -- you know, people who worked at Goldman Sachs who were, you know, gutting the middle class.

Look, who is Steve Mnuchin? This is really important. A 17-year career at Goldman Sachs. Then he went on to do other investment banking. He moved -- was a Hollywood producer and investor there and he was a Trump campaign finance chair. So he has a more diverse portfolio than just a Goldman Sachs banker, to be clear. This morning he was telling reporters that he is really knee deep in this tax reform. That will be issue number one. And he and Wilbur Ross at Commerce, they have been advising this president for some time. They've ben already working on ideas and priorities for the economy. So they are already in the thick of it.

Wilbur Ross is someone who I've covered for a very long time. You know, he's known as the bankruptcy king. When an industry or a company implodes, he sits back and steps in, in the wreckage, and picks up the pieces and finds value there. And he's been, you know, criticized as sort of a corporate vulture at times for that, but he's also found value in some really beaten down industries, like coal and like steel. And, in fact, he was the bondholders -- he represented the bondholders in the Trump casino disaster, you know, a decade or two -- two decades ago that, you know, when Donald Trump was really on the brink.

[12:25:13] So he is -- both of these men have the trust and the ear of Donald Trump, and it will be on trade that Wilbur Ross will be a real point person for this administration. And Wilbur Ross is somebody who has -- who has extensive international experience. This is somebody who knows how the international trade deals go. He has said, we've made some stupid trade deals and he wants to get that fixed.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Can I ask you real quick, Christine, about Mnuchin, because he has said there's going to be -- I mean he's someone who's talking about, obviously, taxes and tax reform and a lot of that is reducing the seven different tax brackets down to three.

ROMANS: Yes.

KEILAR: And he said that this is, because some people who have analyzed Donald Trump's tax plan say this isn't going -- this is going to help the wealthy.

ROMANS: Right.

KEILAR: This is going to help corporations. And he's saying actually there's not going to be --

ROMANS: Yes.

KEILAR: They're going to reduce basically mortgage deductions, maybe charity deductions and there's not going to be an absolute drop in taxes for the wealthy. Is that really something he can guarantee when you look at the math?

ROMANS: So that has been the criticism, right, from some of these tax scorers that when they look at Donald Trump's tax plan, as it stands, that, sure, everybody's going to get a tax cut, but the rich would get the biggest tax cut. And he pointedly today said, no, they're not going to design it that way. There won't be an absolute tax cut for the very rich because he wants to limit deductions on things like mortgage interest and he wants to preserve some charitable donations. Remember, I mean, you want people who are rich to be giving money away, and in many cases they get a big charitable deduction for that. I mean just the early review from the tax folks that are in and from sort of the budget experts as they like to see exactly how they're going to do that, they don't know -- they don't know if you can really -- there are enough deductions, quite frankly, to offset those big tax breaks.

But that is what he is saying. He is saying, this Treasury secretary- elect, of course he has to be confirmed by the Senate, but he says that he will make sure that the rich do not get a big tax break. That it's the middle class that gets the biggest tax break.

KEILAR: All right, we'll see if that's a promise he can keep.

Christine Romans, thank you so much.

ROMANS: You're right.

KEILAR: And, next, President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that he's cutting ties with his business, is that claim -- will that calm some of the fears, I should have said, over conflicts of interest? Maybe not. We're going to discuss that, next.

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