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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Today The World Will Learn Robert Mueller's Findings, Most Of Them Anyway; Attorney General Bill Barr Is Expected To Hold A Press Conference This Morning; Pyongyang Is Demanding That Mike Pompeo Be Replaced In Any Future Talks; Sixty People Including Doctors, Pharmacists, Nurses Busted In The Largest Legal Opioid Operation. About Half A Million Students In And Around Denver Will Go Back To School Today With Heightened Security This Morning. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired April 18, 2019 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And a guy named the "Rock Doc." Good morning and welcome to "Early Start," I'm Boris Sanchez in for Dave Briggs.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: Nice to see you this Thursday morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is April 18th, 5:00 a.m. in the East. Get ready everybody. It's going to be a big day. The world will learn Robert Mueller's findings today, most of them anyway. Attorney General Bill Barr's redacted version of the special counsel's report goes public this morning.
CNN has learned the section on obstruction of justice is expected to have relatively few redactions. That's because the obstruction probe is based on investigative work, unlike the Russian interference probe which relied on secret grand jury testimony.
SANCHEZ: Yes, "The Washington Post" reports the obstruction section will also detail analysis of tweets, private threats and other incidents. A White House official tells us the president is, quote, "not worried, not fuming and that any attacks on Attorney General William Barr will backfire." Listen to President Trump.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I see a lot of very strong things come out tomorrow; Attorney General Barr is going to be giving a press conference. Maybe I'll do one after that. We'll see. But he's done -- he's been a fantastic attorney general. He's grabbed it by the horn.
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ROMANS: In the end, the public may see less of the report than Congress. There will be two versions; one for all of us and one that will eventually go to select members of Congress with fewer redactions. In a curious move, the Attorney General Bill Barr will hold a news conference today before the report becomes public. SANCHEZ: And he's going to be joined by Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein who you may recall famously wrote in his letter firing FBI Director James Comey making this accusation quote, "the director ignored another long-standing principle, we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation."
That may be a preview of what we will hear later today if there's any embarrassing details about President Trump or some of his allies in the administration and the campaign. Senior White House Correspondent Pamela Brown starts our coverage from Washington.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well good morning Christine and Boris. It is a very busy day ahead with the impending release of the redacted version of Robert Mueller's report. But before that happens, the Attorney General Bill Barr is expected to hold a press conference at 9:30 this morning; a couple of hours before the report goes to Capitol Hill around 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, raising the question of why the attorney general is holding this press conference with reporters who haven't even seen the report yet.
Now a person familiar with the matter says that the attorney general will be answering reporters' questions about his thinking, why he made certain redactions, an overview of the report, and so forth, but certainly, the reporters who will be asking him the questions will be informed on what's actually in the report because that comes later. The report is expected to be released around 11:00 a.m. Eastern time; 400 pages with redactions and we could certainly learn a lot in this because more than two dozen current and former White House officials were interviewed by Robert Mueller and their names could very well be revealed in this report.
Some are even concerned this could hurt their business. Some of the former aides who are out of the White House but their business model is about influence and access to the White House are concerned that they are going to be on the outs because of this report. So there is a lot of anticipation and anxiousness to learn more about it.
"The New York Times" also reporting there's been back and forth in the last several days between the White House and the Department of Justice about some of the report's finding and that has helped the White House and the president's legal team prepare for a rebuttal. Rudy Giuliani has said that he is expected to come out with a rebuttal after the report is released so we'll have to wait and see how this day unfolds. Back to you Christine and Boris.
ROMANS: All right Pamela, thank you for that. Some Trump aides who cooperated with the special counsel are having second thoughts now about their decision. They now believe if they had fought the request for an interview they would have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury anyway, and then that information would still be secret under grand jury rules. That secret grand jury testimony is something democrats desperately wants to see. Our Manu Raju has more from Capitol Hill.
MANU RAJU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Christine and Boris. House democrats are expecting this Mueller report to come back today heavily redacted and then expect a subpoena fight to intensify. They have not issued the subpoenas yet because they are trying to give the justice department come back in what they hope is limited redactions or the full report. Bill Barr has made very clear the full report is not going to be provided to Capitol Hill. There will be some redactions but nevertheless, democrats have subpoenas authorized by the House Judiciary Committee to ask for the full Mueller report as well as the underlying evidence that includes grand jury information.
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REP. JERRY NADLER (D), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Attorney General Barr is not allowing the facts of the Mueller report to speak for themselves but is trying to bake in the narrative about the report to the benefit of the White House. And of course he's doing this just before the holiday weekend so it's extraordinarily difficult for anybody who react. This is wrong. It is not the proper role of the attorney general.
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[05:05:00]
RAJU: The House Intelligence Committee moving on a different front trying to look into the classified information that they hope will be provided as a road map to look into potential areas of compromise that the president has with foreign governments. The question is will they get any of this? Will this end up in court? There's an expectation that some of these subpoenas could end up in court, and how long will those court fights take and will they ultimately get the information back to Capitol Hill. Christine and Boris.
SANCHEZ: All right, Manu Raju, thank you.
The following breaking news overnight, a big red flag in talks with North Korea. Pyongyang is demanding that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo be replaced in any future talks. Earlier in the day, North Korea's state-run news agency reported the test fire of a new tactical guided weapon. CNN's Will Ripley is monitoring developments. He joins us now live from Hong Kong. Will, why did the North Koreans sour on Mike Pompeo?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It seems as if tension has been building for quite some time. We know the North Koreans blame Secretary Pompeo, and National Security Adviser John Bolton for the collapse of talks in Hanoi. They think President Trump wanted to make a deal but that he was talked out of it by his more hawkish advisers. What tipped, I guess, North Korea over the edge in terms of Secretary Pompeo was his Congressional testimony and his testimony to the Senate where he talked about North Korea and the denuclearization process in a way the North Koreans felt was demeaning to their leader Kim Jong- un.
This is a significant diplomatic setback because Pompeo has invested a lot of time in trying to build trust and build a relationship with the North Koreans. He has traveled to Pyongyang several times. He's met with Kim Jong-un a number of times. He's hosted the North Korean delegations when they've come to the United States and now the North Koreans are saying they're not willing to work with him anymore.
It puts President Trump in a very difficult position. Does he acquiesce and move the talks forward or if he insists on keeping Pompeo as the lead negotiator, does that mean the North Koreans will refuse to sit and talk with the U.S. And where do the talks go from here especially given the fact that North Korea seems to be leaning towards more militaristic posture as of late.
Their state media announced a tactical weapons test, most likely some type of long range artillery, not a threat to the mainland United States but a signal, no doubt, a signal that they could launch something even bigger in the future if diplomacy continues to go down this road, which is not a good road, Boris.
SANCHEZ: Yes well despite what we have heard from the White House lately from President Trump saying that the two of them, him and Kim Jong-un fell in love, it appears that progress is now receding. Thank you so much Will.
ROMANS: A 37-year-old man is in police custody for bringing gas cans into St. Patrick's Cathedral last night. The suspect described as emotionally disturbed. Media reports identify him as Mark Lamparello of Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Police say he was carrying two containers of gasoline along with lighter fluid and lighters when he was stopped by a security officer at the cathedral. Authorities tell us they are not sure of his intentions but there was great concern given the recent fire of course that devastated Notre Dame Cathedral. No one was hurt in this incident.
SANCHEZ: Bells ringing across France yesterday afternoon marking two days since the Notre Dame inferno. French police are back at the iconic gothic cathedral stepping up their investigation into the exact cause of the fire. French media report that investigators are looking at the electrical systems as a possible cause. Meantime, we're learning more about how firefighters managed to get ahead of a fire that threatened to bring down the whole building. CNN's Michael Holmes is live for us in Paris this morning. Good morning to you, Michael, considering how intense that fire looked, it's really impressive what firefighters were able to achieve.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they were very smart about how they went about it, Boris. The fire chief actually said it was the most complicated blaze he has encountered in his career. What they did when they realized that the roof was unsaveable, as it was engulfed in flames, those 800-year-old timbers supporting the roof going up, they concentrated on the towers, the bell towers, the belfries, because if support had caught ablaze, probably the whole cathedral would have come down.
They focused on that. They were successful and so the walls are still standing. Investigators, forensic investigators, have been inside the cathedral over the last couple of days. They're back in there again today, looking for clues, also engineers and architectures have been in there looking for any weak spots structurally as well. When it comes to the investigation, dozens of people have been interviewed, contractors and employees of the cathedral just to try to pin down what happened and how.
There is no electrical system at the top of the cathedral where the fire broke out in a permanent sense but because of the restoration work that was about to get underway, there had been some temporary electrical system put up there for welders and also an elevator to get materials and people up there.
[05:10:00]
So they're looking into whether they may have played a role into how the fire started. At the moment still saying likely accidental Boris.
SANCHEZ: All right, Michael Holmes reporting from Paris. Thank you.
ROMANS: All right drug dealers in white coats, 60 people including doctors, pharmacists, nurses busted in the largest legal opioid operation ever conducted by the Justice Department. The crackdown taking place across eight states: West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Louisiana. All the medical professional charged with illegally prescribing and distributing opioids and other dangerous narcotics.
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BRIAN A. BENCZKOWSI, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION: As charged, these cases involve approximately 350,000 opioid prescriptions and more than 32 million pills.
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ROMANS: The Justice Department says one physician who branded himself the "Rock Doc" prescribed powerful and dangerous combinations of opioids and other drugs in exchange for sexual favors and some of the other things these doctors are accused doing, leaving signed prescription pads at the front desk so that their customers could just come in and buy - basically buy a prescription.
SANCHEZ: Right.
ROMANS: Some people were prescribed more than 15 pills a day.
SANCHEZ: That's insane.
ROMANS: Obviously you don't need 15 opioid pills a day.
SANCHEZ? It's crazy to think this might also just be the tip of the iceberg...
ROMANS: Yes.
SANCHEZ: ...and that there are more operations like this out there.
We are almost 12 minutes past the hour, a judge temporarily blocking the release of surveillance video that allegedly implicates Patriots owner Robert Kraft in a prostitution sting.
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[05:15:00]
SANCHEZ: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft wins a legal reprieve. A Florida judge has temporarily blocked prosecutors from releasing that surveillance videos that allegedly shows Kraft receiving sexual services at a Florida day spa.
His lawyers filed an emergency motion after the Palm Beach County State Attorney's office said it would release the video. Kraft's legal team accuses them of gross prosecutorial misconduct. They claim releasing the video would damage his change for a fair trial. Kraft, of course, with soliciting prostitution.
ROMANS: About a half a million students in and around Denver will go back to school today with heightened security this morning. Sol Pais, the Florida 18-year-old who was said to be infatuated with the Columbine massacre was found dead yesterday. Officials say she shot herself with a gun she bought when she arrived in Colorado.
SANCHEZ: And now the FBI is looking into a website they believe might be connected to her. The website, which CNN is not identifying, had scanned, hand-written journal entries signed Sol Pais. The entries include crude drawings of firearms and knives and a person a trench coat holding what appears to be a weapon.
ROMANS: An 18-year-old upstate New York student died Wednesday following a suspected hazing incident. Sebastian Serafin-Bazan hospitalized last Friday with what the University of Buffalo calls a serious medical condition. He was injured in an undisclosed incident at the Sigma Pi fraternity's off-campus house. The University has suspended all fraternity and sorority activities on campus. The city, state, and university police are investigating the incident. They're looking into whether drugs or alcohol played a role.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hammered, right field, that one back, gone.
SANCHEZ: It's been a tough go for the Red Sox so far this year after coming off a World Series win, the arch rival Yankees are glad to pile on. Coy Wire has more in the Bleacher Report next.
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[05:20:00]
SANCHEZ: Houston Rockets star James Hardin was cooking last night. He put on a MVP performance against the Utah Jazz.
ROMANS: Yes, Coy Wire has more in this morning's Bleacher Report. Hi Coy.
COY WIRE, CNN ANCHOR: Hi Christine. And Boris, I am impressed, you the beards, celebratory ...
SANCHEZ: Of course, fear the beard my man.
(SPORTS)
[05:25:00]
SANCHEZ: Coy Wire, thank you so much.
ROMANS: Football season is coming. Football season is coming. All right, what will Bill Barr reveal. The A.G.'s redacted version of the Mueller report goes public in just a few hours and there may be fewer redactions than we though.
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SANCHEZ: Are you ready for redactions. Bill Barr's version of.
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