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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
First Official Report from Ethiopia Boeing Crash; Democrats Go For Trump's Taxes; Did Barr Go Easy on Trump?; Spurs Coach Ejected After 63 Seconds. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired April 04, 2019 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Officials in Ethiopia with sobering revelations in the second of two Boeing crashes.
[05:00:06] DAVID BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Oversight or overkill? Democrats now requesting six years of the president's tax returns.
ROMANS: Is there more to the Mueller report than meets Bill Barr's eye? Some of the investigators say their findings were more damaging than the A.G. let on.
BRIGGS: And is this teenager found in Kentucky the same boy who vanished from Illinois nearly eight years ago?
The latest in just a moment. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: Good morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is Thursday, April 4th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the east.
Did the attorney general go easy on President Trump when he summarized the Mueller report?
"The New York Times" is reporting some of the special counsel's investigators have been complaining to associates that Bill Barr did not fully convey just how damaging their findings were for the president. "The Times" quotes government officials and others saying investigators are concerned Barr was able to shape the public's initial views before any version of the report comes out. Those interviewed by "The Times" declined to fully explain what they believed was held back. It's unclear just how widespread this frustration is on Robert Mueller's team.
BRIGGS: Barr wrote in his four-page summary to Congress last month, Mueller did not establish anyone connected to the Trump campaign conspired with Russia. Barr also quotes Mueller saying he did not have sufficient evidence to prove obstruction of justice but did not exonerate the president, either.
Now, "The Times" reports the lack of a firm decision frustrated the attorney general and his team. Barr said last week a redacted version of Mueller's report will be released to Congress and the public by mid-April, if not sooner. ROMANS: The House Judiciary Committee voting along party lines to authorize a subpoena that would compel Attorney General Bill Barr to release the full and unredacted Mueller report.
Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler indicating he will give Barr time to change his mind about releasing only a redacted version, but Nadler says a subpoena will be served if Barr does not voluntarily comply.
Nadler making it clear there is no room for compromise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are you willing to negotiate any middle ground in terms of redactions --
REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: No.
RAJU: -- of the Mueller -- you're not?
NADLER: No. The committee must see everything. Not willing to let the attorney general -- who, after all, is a political appointee of the president -- make that -- substitute his judgment for ours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: One senior White House official calls Nadler's subpoena threat ridiculous, insisting it's not oversight. It's overreach.
BRIGGS: House Democrats angling for their next fight with the president. They're going after his tax returns. CNN first to report that House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal sent a letter to the IRS on Wednesday, citing a little known section of the IRS code to request the president's personal returns from 2013 to 2018, and tax returns from eight of Mr. Trump's business entities.
The president reacting with humor and a familiar excuse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Mr. President, the chairman of the Democratic House Ways and Means Committee moments ago asked the IRS for six years of your tax returns --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Is that all?
REPORTER: That's all.
TRUMP: Oh, usually it's ten, so I guess they're giving up. Until such time as I'm not under order, I would not be inclined to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The Democrats insist the request is about oversight. Republicans see it as political escalation. The ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Republican Kevin Brady says weaponizing the tax code sets a dangerous precedent. BRIGGS: Breaking this morning: Ethiopian officials have just finished
a news conference releasing their preliminary report on the deadly crash of a Boeing 737 MAX passenger jet last month.
Melissa Bell has the latest live from Paris this morning.
Melissa, good morning.
MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Dave.
Essentially what we have heard from Ethiopia's transport manager is that those pilots in charge of the Ethiopian flight on March 10th were exonerated of wrong doing. Many questions of course about whether the problems were with the plane or untrained pilots who hadn't managed to get the particular system under control. This is what Ethiopia's transport manager does have to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAGMAWIT MOGES, ETHIOPIAN MINISTER OF TRANSPORT: The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but was not able to control the aircraft.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: So many more questions for Boeing specifically, but also for the FAA in the wake of this, we're also hearing from what is a preliminary report, remember. This is the initial investigation into the contents of the plane's black boxes. Contents had been extracted a few weeks ago. These are the preliminary findings.
We are hearing crucially that the sensors that repeatedly pushed the nose of the plane down as it had done back in the Lion Air crash of October, that those sensors had not been damaged, which again speaks to another problem for Boeing which is there may have been a fundamental flaw in the design of a system that was triggered with a single sensor reading.
[05:05:12] So a lot more pressure as a result of this press conference on Boeing this morning, Dave, and yet, Ethiopian authorities keen to stress that their point was not apportion blame anywhere but simply to get to the bottom of this in order to ensure that this sort of tragedy never happens again.
BRIGGS: Those pilots followed procedure repeatedly. Melissa Bell with the breaking details in Paris -- thank you.
ROMANS: Let's talk more about this with CNN business editor-at-large, Richard Quest. He is joining us this morning from Oslo, Norway.
Richard, this is just devastating, this information. To think of these pilots and these two different flights, these pilots frantically trying to save these planes, and 346 souls lost.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Yes, indeed, and I think what is important in this one is that the pilots appeared to have done the very thing that Boeing said pilots should always do, should always have knowledge of, and switch off the stabilizes trend, switch off that motor. While the pilots did that in this case, and for some reason that we don't understand, then switched it off again. We believe it's to do with the hand crank wheel and the speed the plane was flying at.
But, you know, putting it crudely, it blows a hole through the whole theory that there was a workable way around doling with the MCAS problem, if only you knew what to do and the circumstances were exactly right, because remember in a previous case, someone had done that.
I think ultimately, this is worrying for Boeing because it goes to the heart of their design mechanism for this device MCAS. They have always said it was there, you didn't need to know about it. It was in the background. It was safety.
What we now learn from today and future reports that that's simply not the case.
ROMANS: Richard, do you expect increased oversight or is Boeing going to continue this self-assess and self-report here? I mean, obviously two big crashes. There should have been better oversight of this new -- it's the same plane but it's a new kind of a plane that we were familiar with.
QUEST: Yes, but Boeing has an exemplary record on this sort of things. But there are two recommendations we know of in the preliminary report, there needs to be further testing and the manufacturer needs to work on it. Both recommendations are already underway. We can put that to one side. The manufacturer of Boeing is doing exactly what this recommendation said.
On the wider, larger, more fundamental question, look, the reality is the FAA cannot, note I say, cannot have enough inspectors to do all the oversight that it is required on a new plane. It doesn't have the money. It doesn't have the resources. It doesn't seem the will to give it that.
So, Boeing has to have an element of self-certification as indeed do all manufacturers. That's the problem.
ROMANS: Yes.
QUEST: It's much deeper than merely saying Boeing should have done this or that. Ultimately now it's been revealed, I fully expect Boeing will solve the problem with the MCAS, and the FAA will have to get to grips with this wider, structural problem which has been identified.
ROMANS: All right. Richard Quest for us in Oslo, thank you, Richard, for that expertise.
BRIGGS: Yes, great stuff there.
All right. The FBI investigating the alleged security breach at Mar- a-Lago over the weekend as a possible espionage effort. A woman with Chinese passports, four cell phones and a thumb drive containing malware was able to enter the president's Florida retreat. A top House Democrat has asked for a briefing on security at the Palm Beach club. For his part, the president says the Secret Service and receptionist had it all under control.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: No, I'm not concerned at all. We have very good control. We have extremely good, and it's getting better, I think that was just a fluke situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Yujing Zhang told a federal judge she works as an investor and consultant for a Chinese company. Prosecutors call her a flight risk. The Chinese embassy in Washington has not responded to CNN's request for comment.
ROMANS: An Illinois boy missing for eight years has apparently turned up alive in Kentucky. A teenager identifying himself as Timmothy Pitzen told telling police he just escaped from his kidnappers by fleeing a Red Roof Inn where they were staying. Authorities say it appears the young man kept running until he ran across a bridge from Ohio into Kentucky. The teenager has not been positively identified.
CNN spoke to a woman who saw him outside her home and took these photos.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHARON HALL, RESIDENT, NEWPORT, KENTUCKY, WITNESS WHO SAW MISSING BOY: A boy was leaning against one of my neighbor's cars that -- we've been having some crimes here -- with crime here.
[05:10:02] So I called her to tell her but -- you know, hey, let's look out here. I took the pictures in case he did something and, you know, ran off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: This case has confounded law enforcement for years.
Timmothy was six years old when he went missing in May 2011. His mother took him out of his Aurora, Illinois school, citing a family emergency. She then took him on a 3-day road trip with stops at zoos and water parks. She was then later found dead in a Rockford, Illinois motel, and a suicide note was found saying Timmothy was safe with people who would love and care for him. The note adding: "You'll never find him."
ROMANS: His father always hoping he would be found alive. Hopefully, there's a reunion soon.
All right. Another day, another damaging headline for Facebook, security researchers found hundreds of millions of Facebook users records exposed to the public on Amazon's cloud services. Two third party companies were found to store that data without a password, without a password, allowing anyone to access it. In a statement, Facebook says once alerted to the issue, it worked with Amazon to take down those data bases.
This is just the latest example in an ongoing string of problems for the social network. It's struggling to protect data collected from 2 billion users. There's no evidence the data has been misused but Facebook is investigating.
BRIGGS: George Stephanopoulos will interview Mark Zuckerberg this morning. Perhaps some answers there.
Ahead, a battle between allegiance to the law and allegiance to God. One state legislature could demand priests inform police about sexual abuse reported in confession.
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[05:15:58] ROMANS: Former Vice President Joe Biden addressing the recent controversy over his touchy feely style of politics. He says he'll be more mindful in the future of respecting personal space.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: The social norms have begun to change. They have shifted and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset, and I get it. I get it.
I hear what they're saying. I understand it. And I'll be much more mindful. That's my responsibility. My responsibility, and I'll meet it.
But I'll always believe governing, quite frankly, life for that matter, is about connecting, about connecting with people. That won't change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The Biden camp has been in damage control since former Nevada lawmaker Lucy Flores said then vice president smelled her hair and kissed the back of her head during a 2014 campaign event. Flores is glad Biden acknowledges making women feel uncomfortable but says he still has not apologized. Biden alluded to his 2020 plans in that video saying he'll be talking to Americans about a whole lot of issues in the coming months.
BRIGGS: Colorado Senator Michael Bennet revealing he has prostate cancer. He says plans to have cancer surgery during the congressional recess that begins next week. He called himself fortunate the cancer was detected early and says his diagnosis is good. The 54-year-old Democrat has been teasing a possible presidential run for months. He says the diagnosis, quote, only reinforces how strongly he feels about contributing to the future of our country.
ROMANS: Prosecutors in the college admission scandal say they plan to seek jail time, jail time, for every one of those defendants, that includes actresses, Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. They're facing between six and 21 months in prison. They're among a dozen people that appeared in federal court on Wednesday in Boston, all of them implicated in Operation Varsity Blues -- parents allegedly paying a college prep business to cheat on standardized tests and bribe college coaches to help get their children into highly competitive universities.
BRIGGS: California lawmakers are hoping to reverse centuries of tradition in the Catholic Church by forcing priests to report confessions of child sex abuse. Senate Bill SB-360 would make it required by law that California Catholic Conference of Bishop claims the measure would put clergy in an impossible position. They say it would force priests to violate the law or their oath to God.
There are concerns the measure would put clergy at risk of being excommunicated from the church. Current law exempts clergy from reporting crimes they hear about in confession.
And we'll talk a little sports. The reigning Cy Young winner will take it to a new level on the mound and at the plate as well. Coy Wire has that story in the "Bleacher Report".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:23:14] BRIGGS: Spurs coach Gregg Popovich set an NBA record last night but not the one he was intending to.
Coy Wire has more in the "Bleacher Report".
I don't know, Coy. Pop is a genius, if you're going to get kicked out of a game, do it quick. Go get dinner, go get a nice bottle of wine.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: That's a good point. Yes, if that movie gone in 60 seconds ever does a remake, he can star in it. Pop is known to get after the refs and this is the 20th time he has been ejected in his career. But we haven't seen one late last night.
Just 63 seconds into their game at the Nuggets, Popovich was given a technical for arguing a non-foul call. He called a time-out to have a bit of a discussion with the ref. Got a bit too heated and that's when the ref showed him the door. Sixty-three seconds is the quickest a coach has been ejected in NBA history.
Pop was baffled so much so that he crashed the Nuggets coach Mike Malone's interviews after the game to ask about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREGG POPOVICH, SPURS COACH: What was the record? What happened?
MIKE MALONE, NUGGETS COACH: Somebody got thrown out in 63 seconds.
POPOVICH: Are you serious? That person must have, I mean, he must have hit somebody. Did somebody get hit tonight? Am I going to get cursed at or anything? MALONE: It's part of the game in my book.
Anything else, guys?
POPOVICH: I got to go. Continue with Mikey.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: I don't know how I top that. Nuggets blew out the Spurs by 28 points.
Rocket facing the Clippers, and it was an eventful night for Chris Paul. Known as a fierce competitor, watch him make fun of how the refs explain a foul call to James Harden. He didn't like it so much, he get to see his face.
Paul would go on to make the highlight of the game a 3/4 court shot, end of the third at the buzzer.
[05:25:06] Oh, my goodness.
Did you know that Chris Paul owns his own pro bowling team? That's a true story, and that was a perfect strike. Rockets roll CP3's former team, the Clippers, 135-103.
Mets pitcher, Jacob deGrom, had a night for the ages. The first player in 15 years to have 14 strike outs and hit a home run, the reigning Cy Young winner was dominant, not allowing one Marlin to hit second base, and then this, monster homer at the third as well. That's the second home run of his career. They're now 5-1 on the season.
Inspiration, check out former NHL winner Chris Cunningham's miraculous return to ice, skating on a prosthetic limb. Two years ago, Cunningham had the lower part of his leg removed after complications during heart surgery. Chris had collapsed moments before a Minor League game when his heart stopped beating, full cardiovascular arrest. After numerous surgeries and rehab, he's back on the ice where he loves to be.
Cunningham says his professional playing days are likely over, but after seeing this, man, I guess anything is possible.
BRIGGS: Yes, I'll tell you what, skating on that prosthetic better than 99.9 percent of the rest of the world. That is incredible.
Coy Wire, thank you, my friend.
Romans, what's coming up?
ROMANS: That's really inspiring.
All right. Here's what we've got next, did the attorney general's summary of the Mueller report fairly represent its findings? Some of the investigators say no. And who is Tricky Dick? The four-part series explores Richard
Nixon's, rise, fall, comeback, and destruction, featuring never before seen footage. The series continues Sunday night at 9:00, only on CNN.
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