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Feds Say Manafort Spent Lavishly on Homes, Cars, Clothing; Reports of Multiple Casualties After Incident in Lower Manhattan; Shots Fired in Manhattan, One Person in Custody. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 31, 2017 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Michael, thank you so much. Please watch his show on CNN 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning right here. Thank you so much.

Coming up next here the indictment against the former Trumps campaign manager Paul Manafort. Details of a lavish lifestyle funded by $18 million of allegedly laundered money. We'll tell you exactly what this man was buying.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Federal investigators laying out the case against Paul Manafort. They are now detailing how he spent millions opinion millions of dollars while living this lavish lifestyle. This indictment cites the spending as evidence of money laundering to the tune of $18 million in hidden overseas wealth.

[15:35:00] So with me now, CNN business correspondent, Richard Quest. Who has gone through all of this extraordinary spending. First of all, what was he doing?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Basically, he received the fees from Ukraine from Yanukovych and the others. And this money instead of being paid to him properly it was paid to him in offshore accounts, one in the Caribbean, one in Cyprus. And from there, of course, it wasn't declared to the U.S. government. Taxes weren't paid to the U.S. government. Nobody knew about it except Manafort and Gates and others. He didn't even tell his accountants according to the indictment. And then when the bills came in, these various banks, and not offshore companies paid the bill. It's as if you had a whole series of accounts overseas that paid all your bills.

BALDWIN: And what was he buying?

QUEST: Rugs, let's look at the rugs first of all. He spent the best part of 950 some odd thousand dollars. About a million dollars' worth of rugs. About a million and a half on clothes. Now that was in a store in New York, men's clothing store in New York, and clothing store in Beverly Hills. The Hamptons, this man spent in over three years basically, nearly $850,000 landscaping his property in the Hamptons.

BALDWIN: In Landscaping.

QUEST: And in terms of cars that he bought, he bought a Mercedes Benz, he bought a Range Rover and variety of other cars as well.

BALDWIN: What was this about?

QUEST: What was it about? It was about -- look, this money, once it was in these off short accounts, could never come on shore legally without paying tax on it. He didn't even file the FBAR form which is if you have over 10,000 overseas you got to file. So, this money could only be used to pay bills indirectly. And in doing so, nobody would have ever found out unless of course one of these companies had been audited and traced it back. But this is a very common form of tax evasion. Not avoidance. Remember, it's everyone's duty to avoid tax. It's nobody's duty to evade it.

BALDWIN: OK. Richard Quest, thank you. We're going to pull away to breaking news here. We'll getting some breaking news to CNN. New York Police Department is responding to very active scene. This is in downtown Manhattan. Reports of shots fired. We have a CNN crew on route to the scene. What we know when we come back.

[15:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are getting some breaking news into us at CNN. The New York Police Department is on the scene. They are describing it as active scene in lower Manhattan. If you know lower Manhattan, I'm being told this is the Tribeca area. And this is right around -- just a couple blocks from the Freedom Tower. If you've been to town and you know where we're all looking at these pictures together for the very first time. I've got Jason Carroll joining me with hopefully some information here. And I've got James Gagliano with me on site as well, CNN law enforcement analyst. But Jason to you first. Obviously, we are looking at, is that a truck, a smashed truck? Tell me what you know.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is there. And we are getting this information, Brooke, piece by piece. This a shooting that occurred not too long ago. Once again information coming in from the New York City Police Department. The department is telling us at this point that one person is in custody with no others outstanding at this point. So at least that is where they are in terms of this investigation.

Again, the shooting happening just within the past 20 minutes or so in downtown Manhattan. You saw there is a heavy police presence down there in lower Manhattan. You saw what appears to be a crashed vehicle at one of the intersections there. Once again, NYPD at this point saying one person is in custody with no others outstanding. At this point trying to get more information from detectives, from police, from New York City Fire, all there on the scene trying to piece together exactly what happened just within the past few moments -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Do we know anything on injuries or casualties -- Jason?

CARROLL: Still waiting for those confirmed specifics to come in from investigators who are down there at the scene. But as soon as we get it, we'll be sure to pass it along. BALDWIN: OK. Jason, thank you. I'll let you hop off TV and work

your phone to see what we can get. And James Gagliano to you, just working off of the few images we have, a crashed, looked like a truck or some sort of vehicle. What are police doing right now?

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: The fact that the NYPD has put out they have one in custody and they're not looking for anybody else. That's good. It would a lot more disconcerting if we had others that we were looking for. You got to remember, a city of 8.4 million people. There are 35,000 NYPD police officers, one of the safest cities in the country. I'm expecting right now that they are canvassing the neighborhoods. They're doing all of their logical investigation. Talking to human intelligence, meeting people that might have seen what happened, and working it out from there. It's good to know they have the suspect in custody.

BALDWIN: My first thought is it's Halloween. Looking at the clock, this is right around the time when kids are getting out of the school. I was up early this morning, and saw my neighborhood, which isn't too far from this one, you know, kids heading in, in their parents in costumes. All excited with their parents. So, my worry just instantly goes to obviously, people along the sidewalks, people in the area who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

GAGLIANO: So, it's Tribeca. So, we know that means for non-New Yorkers the triangular, the three streets below Canal Street. I worked in Federal Plaza which is just below that, like you said, near the Freedom Tower. That is a heavily congested area at this time of year, people are out shopping. Obviously, we're getting closer to rush-hour commute time. So, it's going to be interesting to see what spurred this. Whether or not this was a planned attack or something spontaneous.

[15:45:00] BALDWIN: Quick break. More coming up next here on CNN.

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BALDWIN: We are getting just a little bit of information here into CNN on the breaking news in lower Manhattan, and downtown Manhattan in the Tribeca area here. This incident happened just about 20 minutes ago there in downtown Manhattan. And I can confirm just being in touch with my New York police source during the commercial break that people have been killed. That will are multiple casualties. That said, I have Jason Carroll who has also been getting a little bit more information here. Jason, what were you learning?

CARROLL: We are hearing that multiple people have been injured. Still no confirmation from our sources, Brooke, the extent of those injuries and how those people were injured.

[15:50:00] As you know, we did get -- I did start hearing about reports of shots fired just within the past 20 minutes or so. All of this happening near the west side highway in downtown Manhattan. In an area near West Street and Chambers Street. Just a short distance from the World Trade Center, from the memorial that's down there. There's a college down there, as well as a high school down there as well.

You can see from some of the video that there appeared to be a truck, a vehicle there that appeared to have crashed at one of those streets down there. Unclear how that might be connected to the reports of shots fired that we heard about just a short while ago. I can also tell you that the mayor has been informed about what's going on down there. We at this point are just trying to get more specifics from the police department in terms of exactly what happened. But once again, we're hearing at this point shots fired. One person in custody. NYPD says with, quote, no others outstanding -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Jason, thank you so much. James Gagliano is here with me. You see the crashed car there on the screen and you have to appreciate in Manhattan, right, it's afternoon, it's Tribeca. There are a lot of people out and about on a beautiful fall afternoon, and when you have something happening it looks like in the street, there are people inches away on the sidewalk. That's where my mind is going.

GAGLIANO: Absolutely. And I worked at 26 Federal Plaza, which is --

BALDWIN: Right there.

GAGLIANO: -- just within the bows of the Freedom Tower. And my commute home took me on West Street into Chamber Street. That area down there, as you pointed out, Brooke, right now lots of pedestrian traffic and a lot of people trying to get to the west side highway to get home. So, I can tell you right now what the police are doing. They've probably blocked this off right now.

BALDWIN: You can see the blue crime tape.

GAGLIANO: Interviewing witnesses and there is probably not a square inch of Manhattan right now that is not covered by a camera. So, I guarantee they're going back right now and trying to piece this together and figure out what precipitated it.

BALDWIN: OK. And, again, just to reiterate Jason Carroll's key point, one person is in custody. When the police say there are no others outstanding, that means essentially, they've got who they want. Actually, hang on -- are we getting some sound? Let's listen in.

RAMONE CRUZ, WITNESS: OK. What I saw was that the driver, he didn't look like he was bleeding or anything, per se, but he did have a noticeable limp as he was getting out of his car. He did looked like he was dragging his foot a little bit and he was screaming in the street. He looked frustrated, panicked, confused. From there, a whole bunch of customers started running past me. A whole bunch of people came running past my way yelling he's got a gun, he's got a gun.

CARROLL: Did you see the gun?

CRUZ: I did not see any gun. I did not see any blood. I did not see that there was anything of a gun on the driver of the white pickup truck who was injured. Maybe that was another person. But, Yes, he was -- he looked pretty bad without, you know, bleeding -- without looking for bleeding or anything like that.

CARROLL: Could you see any of the victims at that point?

CRUZ: Victims?

CARROLL: Did you see him hit anybody as he was coming down?

CRUZ: No, from what I -- from what I saw at that moment, I didn't see him hit anybody. I didn't see him drive in. All I heard was the impact of a crash and I turned around to see where that came from and I saw the white pickup truck.

CARROLL: Then you saw him stumble out, you say, with a noticeable limp. Did any police officers respond at that time to try to apprehend him?

CRUZ: By the time I was getting myself to safety at over at Rockefeller Park, I already heard the chopper doing its job. I spoke to an officer briefly. They were asking me am I OK. I told them, yes, I'm fine. I'm just running. There was a huge accident, and somebody's been screaming gun and I assumed the cops did the rest of their job from there.

CARROLL: Ramon Cruz within the area at the time. Thank you very much. Appreciate it very much. Thank you. If I could also show you --

BALDWIN: OK. So, there you have just a little bit from an eyewitness there on the scene referring to a crash and the driver coming out of that white crashed truck. Sort of dazed and confused. Someone shouting gun. Alison Kosik is one of our CNN correspondents who is there on the scene. Alison, what's the story?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Brooke, we are -- I am standing right on the corner of Greenwich Street and Chambers. And I'm looking at a heavy police presence. There are emergency vehicles, at least by the half dozen if not by the dozen. There are police vehicles in the same numbers. You've got -- you've got a lot of -- you've got a lot of crime tape up. In fact, I almost just tripped on some that they just put up. They are cordoning off this entire area. Down the street is a school, an elementary school, and a few blocks away from here is the 9/11 memorial. Just sort of setting the scene.

[15:55:00] On either corner of the street -- there are four corners here -- we've got crowds of people building, watching what is happening with helicopters flying overhead -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, let me take you back. You probably couldn't hear the eyewitness who was on just before you, and he was describing this driver coming out of this crashed, you know, white truck. Do we even know -- was there a crash that involved two cars? Do we know what the white truck crashed into? And there are reports of somebody shouting gun. Were shots fired?

KOSIK: I can't confirm any of that. I just know that this is -- the New York police have definitely cordoned off the area far away from the actual scene here. Literally down the block so I can't see the actual crime scene. But now actually they've pulled out a couple of NYPD vans just to block the street, so you can't even really see from our vantage point what the crime scene looks like down the street. As the crowds build and the curiosity builds about what has happened here.

BALDWIN: How about telling me this, Alison, you know the neighborhood. It's a beautiful fall afternoon in Manhattan. Schools are getting out. You mentioned a school just a couple of blocks away. How busy is this part of town when this would have occurred?

KOSIK: It is an extremely busy time of day. You also have to realize Halloween is tonight. A lot of people get off work early to get home. So, the streets are probably more crowded today than they would be on any other day. A lot of young people are out. It looks like school has gotten out as well. I see a lot of young faces on these corners watching these -- these red, white and blue lights flashing down the street.

BALDWIN: Do you see ambulances? Do you see stretchers? Do we have any concept of, you know, how many people have been injured?

KOSIK: I do not have any of the -- I don't have any of those facts, but I do see an ambulance or two down the street. And just more sirens on the way. I can hear them in the distance. Just more and more sirens of police vehicles on the way -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I know it's so tough to know anything that's really going on. We've got to let NYPD do their job and we try to fill in the gaps with the facts as time passes on. Alison Kosik there for us in lower Manhattan there in Tribeca where this incident, that's really all we can say, there are a couple of stretchers there. This incident has happened presumably involving that crashed vehicle and, again, reports of multiple casualties here. But there is just so much at this point in time we don't know.

GAGLIANO: I think what's interesting, too, Brooke, is, you know, from the FBI perspective with this proliferation of active shooters it appears over the next couple of years, you remember New York City was just -- is it last June 30th at Bronx Lebanon Hospital where there was a shooting similar to this where several people were wounded, and I think one person killed. What you heard that --

BALDWIN: We don't know if this was a shooting.

GAGLIANO: We don't, but you heard that on-scene witness say --

BALDWIN: Say gun. Somebody was saying gun.

BALDWIN: Right. As well as saying I ran first and once the scene was secured came back. We teach people run, hide, fight, tell. In that order. And it looks like that's what some of the people at the scene have done.

BALDWIN: We are also being told just as we're getting this information in dribs and drabs that there are pictures surfacing on social media of bikes crashed, like smashed bikes. So, you know, perhaps connected to whatever happened here in lower Manhattan. You think about it, there are a lot of people on bikes in this city. I think it's city bike and how many people do that each and every day just to get around town.

As Alison pointed out, it's a busy time of day. It's Halloween. It's right around, you know, a couple of schools in the Tribeca area and mere blocks from that beautiful 9/11 Freedom Tower, the memorial there, where there's two fountains are in lower Manhattan. I've got a minute to go. What are some of the key questions that police are asking for right now?

GAGLIANO: Well, clearly what they're looking for is what caused this to happen? What was the motive? Was this simply a fender bender, a road rage incident or was this something planned? Did somebody drive into a crowd as we've seen in Europe with the recent terrorist attacks, that's what happens. Somebody drives in the crowd and he jumps out at you. We don't know that. As you've cautioned, we heard somebody say that somebody yelled gun, but none of the eyewitness that we've heard and other reporting we've heard said somebody actually identified a gun. It's very, very early. We don't want to speculate. The police want to do one thing, and that's to stop the crisis that's happening right then and then try to sort it out and figure out what happened and worry about prosecutions and things like that later on down the road.

BALDWIN: We are going to leave you here with these images as hopefully we begin to get more information as far as what happened in lower Manhattan on this Halloween afternoon here in New York City. Who was injured? Who might have been killed and what was to blame. I'm Brooke Baldwin, "THE LEAD" starts now.