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20,000 Expected to Attend Memorial, Vigil Tonight; Interview with Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado; Former Vanderbilt Football Player Found Guilty of Rape; Memorial Vigil Underway for Shooting Victims; Hamas Founder's Grandson Journey to American Dream; CNN's "Declassified" Premieres Tonight. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired June 19, 2016 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: These are the live pictures now from Orlando's Cathedral Church of St. Luke. A memorial service under way there, and it is followed later by a candlelight vigil.

Police estimate some 20,000 people could gather in the area this evening to honor those 49 people killed, more than 50 wounded in the attack. Five victims were laid to rest in Florida yesterday. Eighteen still in the hospital, four of them in critical condition.

Now, this outpouring of support comes as we are learning that the Justice Department will release limited transcripts from three phone calls that the gunman had with the negotiations and the police in terrible early hours of Sunday morning one week ago today.

CNN's Brynn Gingras joins us now from the Cathedral Church of St. Luke where this memorial service is being held.

Brynn, what's the mood there? And the crowd, how big is it?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, there are several hundreds packed inside of the St. Luke's Cathedral at this point. The service now getting underway, and we are seeing a lot of members from different faiths and leaders from different faiths now going in there, some of the leaders having stashes that are of rainbows as they head into the service, which we have a program, and it includes a bunch of hymns, as well as readings and prayer as well.

And the mood, Jim, well, you know what? I talked to some people who are headed into the church earlier, and one gentleman stuck out. It was him and his husband who said this is the fourth vigil they have been to this week.

And he said two things about it. He knows being through all of this how close this community has gotten. He said that the second thing that he has taken away from this week is that before he and his partner would sort of look around to the each other, make sure that nobody was looking at them when they had some sort of display of affection, and now, Jim, he said that I just don't care anymore.

So, that is the sort of the feeling here in Orlando. There is hope, and there has been healing, and that is the phrase that is going with this, with this service as well as the vigil that will follow that is expected to attract about 20,000 people.

SCIUTTO: Brynn Gingras, thanks very much.

I want to bring in Ed Lavandera as well, because he's at Lake Eola. That's where the candlelight vigil will take place.

So, this is a much more public event I imagine, because we're talking about the possibility of thousands of people able to join there.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some people have even told us they are saying that they are expecting several tens of thousands here tonight, Jim. And the amphitheater here in the lakefront in downtown Orlando is already starting to fill up with thousands of people already -- people handing out flowers and that sort of thing. So, this is definitely going to be the public outpouring of grief.

We have a long list of speakers expected, organized, who also told that they expect perhaps some of the survivors and victims' relatives to show up here tonight as well.

But, really, this is kind of the symbolic gesture for what has been going on in the public grieving that this city has been doing so intensely for the last week as they have come to grips with what unfolded her exactly a week ago. It is all going to be a poignant evening here as thousands come together, Jim.

SCIUTTO: You know, Ed, like you, I have covered so many shootings like this, and this one particularly large, of course. But when I was there last week, just the sense of sadness seemed to permeate the city. Later, do you still feel that? Do you feel how this has affected the broader community?

LAVANDERA: You know, I think that one of the things that has struck me is that a lot of times, when people are, and we know this in having dealt with so many people who have been in tragic situations, everybody grieves differently, and that is what I ask people who ask me what it is like to be in cities and communities or in front of people like this, and there is never a right way or the wrong way And you never seize to be amazed with by the way that people deal with the grief that they are dealing with.

But I am struck by this amount of public outpouring. You know, I was struck yesterday that I was in the watching in a bar watching a soccer game, and there was a moment where on one of the television sets, the pictures of the victims started appearing on the screen, and it seemed like many people's attention, you couldn't hear what was going on, on that particular television monitor, but many people just their eyes just drifted, and they just, you know, one by one, is the pictures of each victim scrolled up by the screen, you could see conversations just kind of stopped, and people looking, and kind of taking that in, in their own way. Those are the kinds of things that have been striking me as you have watched people here in week.

SCIUTTO: I believe it, Ed. Forty-nine people, and you almost cannot contemplate the number. Ed Lavandera, thanks very much. Well, there was the death toll, 49 dead and more than 50 wounded and

some of them seriously, and that is the beginning of the damage done in that club one week ago. Each story has story to tell from that night, and here they are in their own words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

ANGEL COLON, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: It was a great night. No drama, just smiles, just laughter.

[18:05:02] JEANNETTE MCCOY, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Shots are going all over the place, you start feeling, and you can tell at that moment, it felt like a war room. There was a lady who was shot next to me, and I started to duck, and I'm turning around. As I'm turning around, I see the gun, but I don't see the guy, but I see the gun, because of the flair and the fire that's coming out.

CHRISTOPHER HANSEN, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: And it went with the beat almost until you heard too many shot shots, and it was just like, bang, bang, bang.

COLON: And we started running, and unfortunately, I was shot about three times in my leg. So I had fallen down. I tried to get back up. But, everyone started running everywhere. I got trampled over. I shatter and broken the bones in my left leg.

MIGUEL LEIVA, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: We all kind of like rushed into the bathroom, and there was maybe 40 or 50 people in that one bathroom, and then he told us to -- he said everybody must come out because everybody is going to die. So people were running out frantically, and he just started to kill people right there in the hallway.

NORMAN CASIANO, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: That is when the gunshots were extra close, and you could hear everybody underneath their breath praying and crying, and like trying to be quiet, so if he would go into the bathroom, he would not hear us.

LEIVA: And then he came back and shot into our stall, went into the bathroom, over the stall, and into the stall where we were, killing more people.

COLON: He is shooting everyone that's already dead on the floor, making sure they're dead. And I'm just there laying down, I'm thinking, I'm next. I'm dead.

LEIVA: It is hot in there and people were dehydrating and sweating and bleeding out. We tried to speak as little as possible.

OFFICER OMAR DELGADO, ORLANDO POLICE DEPARTMENT: I went inside with my brothers in blue trying to help the best we could.

COLON: And I'm looking up and some cops, which I wish I can remember his face or his name, because I'm, to this day, I'm grateful for him, because he looks at me, he makes sure that I'm alive. And he grabs my hand, and he said, this is the only way I can take you out, and I'm like, please carry me, because I'm in pain right now.

SAMUEL MALDONADO, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: And then all of the sudden, it is like silence into the few hours then, that's when you heard that big bomb. That is when --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That the police set off?

MALDONADO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: The police set off a bomb to try to get in?

MALDONADO: Yes, and the car alarms, because it all started turning on and it is a big commotion.

LEIVA: The police never got to come in the bathroom where we were, and they blew the wall, the concrete wall off. They used the SWAT battering ramp to make a hole so we could make it out. There was about 30 of us in there, only like seven of us who made it out alive.

COLON: I looked over, we're all in pain, and we were able to get to the ambulance. They brought us over here, and the way that you guys have taken care of us, this hospital, it is amazing.

LEIVA: We must remain strong so that we can continue to make a recovery, and it is a long road, but slowly but surely, I believe that we could all make it.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

SCIUTTO: A long road for sure. Coming up here live in the CNN NEWSROOM, he is a popular Democratic governor who is no stranger to dealing with the emotional fallout of a horrific mass shooting. Colorado's John Hickenlooper, he's one of the names floated to be Hillary Clinton's running mate, is furious of Donald Trump for his response to the Orlando shooting. Hear why when he joins me live.

And another look at the Orlando cathedral where a memorial se service is under way for the victims of that rampage. It is only seven days ago if you can believe it. The memorials continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:11:58] SCIUTTO: You are watching live pictures here now of two memorial events under way now in Orlando, Florida. On the right hand side of your screen, this is from inside, a church where the Orlando Gay Chorus is singing a hymn.

On the left hand side, we are seeing crowds gathering at a memorial to be held outside this very close to the medical center there, where those 49 crosses have gone up. That's going to start later this evening. Tens of thousands possibly expected there. We're going to monitor both of those evenings throughout the evening. They remember, it's only seven days ago today when that horrible tragedy took place.

Well, Donald Trump's reaction to the Orlando shooting has been much like his candidacy, unpredictable, and at times brash. He is breaking from his party on key gun control issues, and reiterating controversial calls for his Muslim immigration ban. He also says that he has zero doubt that Orlando will happen again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If you think that Orlando was the end of it with this weak attitude and this pathetic president that we have, it wasn't, folks. It wasn't. It wasn't.

This is just the beginning. Unless we get smart and tough and vigilant and unless we say, I'm sorry, you are coming from the region in the world whether it's -- and I can name them all, and I can name them all, but it's radical Islamic terrorism. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado is slamming Trump's response. Hickenlooper dealt with the mass shooting himself, of course, in his state in 2012 when a gunman opened fire in that movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He said this to "The New York Times", quote, "Trump cared nothing for compassion. There was no sense of dignity and those are the things that generally a community grieving finds nourishing."

Well, Governor Hickenlooper joins me now.

Governor, thanks for joining us on this Father's Day.

GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D), COLORADO: You bet. Nice to be here.

SCIUTTO: Governor, you have particular experience with this with the Aurora shooting, and you called Trump's reaction mean-spirit, said he was seizing a political opportunity. Explain that.

HICKENLOOPER: Well, I mean, you are still in the very process of dealing with the tragedy. I mean, the victims in the hospitals, the family members of the victims, the whole community is going through this traumatic press, and he is patting himself on the back. I mean, it is almost unconscionable. It reflects almost total absence of any empathy or real caring about what's happened to everybody, all these people.

SCIUTTO: I have to ask you, because you have of course have dealt with this directly, and you have had the shooting, you had to deal with the victims' families et cetera, I, like many journalists have covered too many of these shootings, to count. I literally cannot count how many times I've been outside of the scene of a shootings like we saw in Orlando last week.

There is enormous frustration, frankly, on both sides of the aisle about how our country responds to this and how our country can prevent these kinds of things.

[18:15:08] Is there something different about this shooting, do you believe, that will spark some sort of change to make it not happen or least likely to happen again? HICKENLOOPER: Well, I certainly hope so. Like you, I am frustrated,

bewildered at the inability to come to terms with figuring out some of the restraints. Obviously, we have to figure out how to do a better job with the mental health, and the issues after we had Aurora, we really sat down and really examined how we are dealing with mental health. Do we need other legal changes, our guns -- you know, we did -- we switched to universal background check, and again maybe it wouldn't have been applicable to this case in Orlando, but creating a fabric of better regulations than making sense of the people who should haven't these weapons of destruction don't get them?

SCIUTTO: But you know that the enormous hurdles of both the Republican and the Democratic lawmakers to pass regulations, even if they are small and incremental. You know that the groups like the NRA will jump on them. They'll attempt to get them barred from office or lose their elections in the primary stages and elsewhere.

How do individual lawmakers who frankly have their political careers to think about, how do they overcome the hurdle when the price -- and we have seen before -- the price is so high politically?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, that is why this tragedy is so significant. I mean the scale of it, and the fact that it is a hate crime tied into terrorism, and hopefully, it can push us into to a meaningful dialogue. And, you know, the dialogue requires listening, and so far, Mr. Trump hasn't the capacity really to listen, he just shouts most of the time. And I think that's our challenge here if we are going to be trying to make this country safer, it has to be all of us coming together after a tragedy of this scale, and rolling up our sleeves and saying, here's how we're going to get to a better place.

SCIUTTO: You heard Trump in addition to proposing this broad Muslim ban in response to acts off terrorism. He is now talking about profiling Muslims. He says that's necessary. Do you believe that's true?

HICKENLOOPER: No, I think that racial and ethnic profiling, there are various, and I don't have them in front of me, but there are a number of people when you talk about how when you start looking at profiling, oftentimes what is happening is that you will miss the obvious tip- offs of someone who is really going to be a terrorist or a mass killer, and that vigilance and really training our first responders in terms of what they should be looking for is probably much more useful.

SCIUTTO: When I was down in Orlando, I spoke to a lot of people, and I asked them, what do they think that needs to be done, right? And I did hear people, you know, warm -- people who are warm and hospitable, and thoughtful and affected by the tragedy. I did hear people said, you know what, we've got to keep the Muslims out of the country. And you will hear it from the people reflecting, and that's in effect who Donald Trump is talking to when he makes these kinds of proposals.

Where -- you are an experienced politician in addition to being a successful businessman, where do you think the country is on these issues right now? Do you think fear has risen so much to the top that the country is capable of taking a step like that right now, barring a whole people or profiling a whole people based purely on the faith?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, I'd like to think that it could not happen in the United States, but obviously, when fear takes hold, you know, after Pearl Harbor and we went to war with the Japanese, we incarcerated a large number of U.S. citizens who were of Japanese heritage. And I think most of us look back on that as terrible mistake.

We had a Republican governor at the time, Ralph Carr, who really sacrificed his political career to stand up for those U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and he said, "We can't do this." And I think this is the same kind of thing. There is fear and I understand -- I feel where the people are coming from fear, but it is the wrong response is to make these decisions based on, you know, how someone appears or what religion they believe in.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask can you a final question here, and I know that you love the questions like this. But your name of course being floated as a possible vice presidential pick for Secretary Hillary Clinton.

First question is, are you being vetted for vice president?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, I don't -- I'm not sure it is being vetted, but I have talked to the Clinton campaign many times about how to help them succeed. Obviously, I think it is a very important presidential campaign and maybe that turns into vetting.

[18:20:04] You know, I'm sure my focus and I am sure Secretary Clinton's focus is not on any one person, it's on the campaign and what are the issues going to be, she is going to be looking for somebody who can be the best partner she can have. So I want do, you know, regardless of who she chooses to run with, I want to do everything I can to help her succeed.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you, if you were chosen, would you accept the call?

HICKENLOOPER: Well -- I mean, I've got the job I love and being the governor of Colorado is a very good gig as there, but it would be very hard to say no if your country, if the presidential nominee came and said, you know, here's why we need you, it would be hard to say no for sure.

SCIUTTO: Governor John Hickenlooper -- thanks very much, and Happy Father's Day to you.

HICKENLOOPER: You bet. Happy Father's Day.

SCIUTTO: We are getting new information about an arrest made during Donald Trump's rally in Las Vegas yesterday. You're seeing video of it there. The Secret Service says that a man has been charged for attempting to disarm an officer inside that event while Trump was speaking. Camera has captured him being let away as you saw there.

The suspect has been identified now as19-year-old Michael Sanford, but there's no word yet on whether he is a Trump supporter or an anti- Trump protester or exactly what his intentions were. We will let you know when we learn more.

And coming up live in the CNN NEWSROOM, a former Vanderbilt football player is facing 25 years in prison for his horrific attack on a young woman. Next, a new look at the damning surveillance video which caught the crime.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:25:19] SCIUTTO: Former Vanderbilt football player Brandon Vandenburg now faces 25 years in prison after a guilty verdict in his retrial. A jury found Vandenburg guilty in all eight counts for his role in the gang rape of an unconscious female student. I said it right there. It happened in a campus dorm room in 2013.

We want to warn you that some of the video that we are going to be showing is disturbing for some viewers. Surveillance caught Vandenburg carrying the unconscious woman out of the car and into the dormitory. He was with several other members of the football team at the time. After about 30 minutes, the video showed Vandenburg leaving the room, a towel covering his e head.

And then the other men inside ran out. The woman woke up next morning in pain but with memory of what happened. Police began investigating after seeing the surveillance video while they were looking at the vandalism at the dorm. About two weeks later, their investigation led them to recover deleted pictures and video of what had happened inside that room.

CNN affiliate WZTV followed the trial.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We the jury find the defendant Brandon Vandenburg, count one, aggravated, guilty of aggravated rape.

REPORTER: It took jurors less than five hours to find Brandon Vandenburg guilty of aggravated rape, sexual battery and unlawful photography. But there are no winners.

TOM THURMAN, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: When you look at all the young lives that were destroyed that one night based on this situation, there was so much promise, things in that room from all those individuals, and now, their lives are pretty much destroyed as to what they can accomplish.

REPORTER: Vandenburg's mother left the courtroom in tears, concluding a trial that's been emotionally taxing for everyone involved.

JAN NORMAN, ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: It's impossible to not be emotional about this case. The facts of it are horrific. And what happened to this victim is horrifying. No matter how times you say it, no matter how many times you see it, it is horrifying every time. And nothing gets easier. I actually think it gets harder.

REPORTER: Prosecutors say it's a case they couldn't have made without the work of metro police. GENERAL ROGER MOORE, ASSISTANT DISTRIC ATTORNEY: Detective Mayo (ph),

Detective Kish (ph), Sergeant Shreve (ph), I can't say enough about the tremendous work that they put in this case.

REPORTER: And the unwavering courage of the victim.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is one of the strongest people that I know. She has incredible courage. And she is just an amazing, intelligent young woman.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Our thanks to Erica Lathan (ph) of WZTV for that report.

Four students in all were charged. Vandenberg is the second man who had been found guilty. Two others still awaiting the trial.

He is gay, Christian and the grandson of one of the founders of Hamas. Coming up, he shares his remarkable story of seeking protection here in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: What did it feel like when your father told me that your life would be at risk?

GRANDSON OF HAMAS FOUNDER: Heavy disappointment. I guess that I have always wanted a family, and I have never had it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:31:36] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at live pictures there coming in from Orlando. Overwhelming emotions on display at two memorial services there, one at a church, one outside. Thousands expected. People trying to turn away from the horror of last week's nightclub massacre, find a way to embrace healing.

This is a special service under way. On the right, at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando. On the left, you are seeing an event outside. It's going to be under way shortly. That's outside on a lake there close to the medical center where so many of the victims were treated. There are 49 crosses there outside to memorialize each of the victims of that shooting.

Just yesterday, the same churches as you see on the right held two funerals for shooting victims. Following today's service, up to 20,000 people expected to walk from that cathedral to that candlelight vigil at nearby Lake Eola. And you can see those people are gathering there. It's really an amazing show of strength and resilience. Just seven days ago we were waking up to the news of that horrible massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

We want to shift to a much different story now. Just last year John Calvin faced deportation to the West Bank in what he said was imminent death. Fast forward now eight months and Calvin who is the grandson of one of the founding members of Hamas is now living freely here in New York City.

Hamas, we should note, is a militant fundamentalist Islamic organization considered a terror group by the U.S. and Israel. It's responsible for many suicide bombings in Israel through the years.

CNN Money's Laurie Segall has more on his story.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim. Well, a year ago we brought you the story of a young man who fled to Canada fearing his life was at risk due to sexual orientation and religion. A year later the outlook is quite different.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN CALVIN, FLED HAMAS FAMILY: I feel safer. I don't think my life is literally under an imminent threat at the moment.

SEGALL (voice-over): Before he ended up in New York, November 4th was a scary date for John Calvin. It was the date he was to be sent back to the West Bank. A day he said would put his life at risk. Here's how he described it to me last June.

(On camera): If you are sent back, what will happen to you?

CALVIN: It is a certain death.

SEGALL (voice-over): Calvin is the grandson of one of the founding members of Hamas. His uncles are in and out of prison for committing acts of terror. At the age of 14, Calvin ran away from home, and eventually converted to Christianity. He says he learned his father was planning an honor killing, a claim his father denied.

Calvin then made his way to Canada where he came out as gay, and that is where we spoke to him last June.

CALVIN: My life is hanging by a thread.

SEGALL: The Canadian government rejected his application refugee status saying that as a teenager, he had been a member of Hamas.

NATHAN WHITLING, CALVIN'S FORMER LAWYER: There was evidence that someone had given him a handgun, but he certainly wasn't involved in any actual acts of terror.

SEGALL: With the deportation threat looming, Calvin says he fled fearing his life.

CALVIN: I went on a hike and crossed the border where I encountered a Border Patrol agent. She detained me.

SEGALL: He says he spent a total of nearly seven months in detention, underwent several trials.

[18:35:04] According to Calvin, a game-changer was our conversation with his father who told me that the family had the right to retaliate if he was sent back to the West Bank.

CALVIN: My father made an imminent and direct threat to my life. He made it very clear and that very credible testimony.

SEGALL (on camera): What did it feel like when your father told me that your life would be at risk?

CALVIN: Heavy disappointment. I guess I've always wanted a family and I have never had it.

SEGALL (voice-over): According to Calvin, the judge used the threat as evidence to grant him protection under the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

CALVIN: He does believe that I am barred from asylum, however, he does believe evidently that I will be under threat of torture and death.

SEGALL (on camera): Why is your story important in the current political climate?

CALVIN: To show that I have lost count of how many threats that is on my life. And yet I prevail.

SEGALL (voice-over): For Calvin, New York City has always represented hope, a place he can be openly gay without fear of retribution.

(On camera): Do you believe in the American dream?

CALVIN: I do. I finished my school. I go to law school, husband and two kids, and I guess, happily ever after?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: As someone who came to America looking for a safe haven where he wouldn't be persecuted for his sexuality, the shooting in Orlando targeting the gay community obviously struck a chord with Calvin.

And, Jim, I spoke to him recently and what he said was that sense of safety he had felt coming here has been diminished a bit, but he did say he believe that in order to build a stronger community, we have to stop letting the hateful rhetoric win. His message to folks is actually one we're hearing more and more about in the wake of this tragedy. He believes that in the face of hatred love ultimately defies -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Laurie Segall, thanks very much. Fascinating story there.

I want to take you now to live pictures. This again in Orlando, the Cathedral of St. Paul there. They're reading the names of those 49 victims of last week's massacre. Let's have a listen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chevez-Martinez, age 25.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: James Daniel Conde, age 39.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cory James Cornell, age 21.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Deonka Deidra Drayton, age 32.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Simone Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, age 31.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leroy Valentin Fernandez, age 25.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mercedes Marisol Flores, age 26.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, age 22.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juan Ramon Guerrero, age 22.

[18:40:02] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Paul Terrell Henry, age 41.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Frank Hernandez, age 27.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miguel Angel Honorato, age 30.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Javier Jorge Bravos, age 30.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jason Benjamin Josephat, age 19.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, age 30.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25 years old.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Christopher Andrew Leinonen, age 37.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alejandro Barrios Martinez, age 21.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brenda Lee Marquez, 25.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, age 25.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kimberly Morris, age 37.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Akyra Monet Murray, age 18.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, age 20.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Geraldo R. Ortiz Jimenez, age 25.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, age 36.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Edward Sotomayor, age 25.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joel Rayon Paniagua, age 32.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, age 35.

[18:45:07] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Enrique L. Rios Jr., age 25.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John C. Nives Rodriguez, age 27. SCIUTTO: We've been listening there to the recitation of the names of

all 49 victims who fell in the Orlando shooting just last week with a memorial of the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando. You can see those names and their ages, in their teens, their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, all too young.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: CNN's new original series "DECLASSIFIED" exposes the untold stories of American spies. Tonight's premiere explores how the CIA swayed a Soviet to become a key spy for the U.S. This is right in the middle of the Cold War.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we were looking all around the world for Soviet recruits who were vulnerable to our approaches, to our (INAUDIBLE), who we thought we could turn and we found one in Bogota.

[18:50:05] MARTI PETERSON, CASE OFFICER, CIA (RET.): We became aware of him through a telephone tap that CIA had on the Soviet embassy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was doing things in Bogota that showed that he might be vulnerable.

PETERSON: He womanized. He liked parties. He was fast and loose with money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of those things we saw and clearly he was not a real communist. He wasn't a true believer.

PETERSON: So we arranged for a meeting with him in the Turkish bath in the Hilton Hotel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We started talking to him. He wanted a better life. He wanted to do something that he could really believe in, ideologically he was clearly on our side. He didn't like communism. He believed that the American system was superior. All those things kind of came together. We realized we could make a deal with him, and we did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining me now from Washington's International Spy Museum, fittingly, is the "DECLASSIFIED" host, Mike Rogers, former congressman, former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and also spy museum curator Vince Houghton.

Mike, when you look at this case, I mean, they found this vulnerability here which I suppose you're always looking for to try to turn someone. So what did the deal involve? What persuaded him to actually become a spy for the U.S.?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN HOST, "DECLASSIFIED": Well, a whole bunch goes into this. They call it spot and assess and recruit. So they're trying to find somebody and they listed a little bit of this. They gave you a little tease that he was womanizing. He was going beyond his professional parameters as somebody who was working overseas as an official government of the Soviet Union.

His came down to ideology. He believed that their system was broken. The information that he gave had to deal with nuclear material. Many believe the information that he gave probably stopped any confrontation, any nuclear engagement during that period. If you remember, very, very tense. So it was that lineage of yes, he was a little -- the CIA spotted him because of his behavior, but ultimately it was because he had an ideology difference with the Soviet Union and thought that he could help change the system if he helped the United States get this information.

SCIUTTO: Mike, a female CIA agent was the handler for this KGB informant. So what special skills, tools did she use?

ROGERS: Well, she was trained -- first of all, she was the first woman that they trained as a CIA officer and sent to Moscow to operate in Moscow. They really could aren't operate. The CIA could not operate in Moscow, it was too hard of an environment. The KGB watched everybody, but they were a little prejudiced in their thinking and they just didn't believe that a woman could be a spy operating in Moscow.

She used that to her advantage, so she was trained in all trade craft that you need. How to detect surveillance. How to avoid surveillance. How to do dead drops where you would actually take a device -- there's a concealment device, it could be a rock, a stick or a dead bird, and place it someplace where your agent, your Soviet spy, if you will, could pick up that material and you could have an exchange in a way you could do no other way in a really tough environment like Moscow. She was trained in all of it, including self-defense, by the way.

SCIUTTO: So, Mike, I know you're there with the curator of the Spy Museum and having been there myself many times with my kids, I know there were a lot of toys there as it were, you know, skills, you know, the devices of the trade. What can you tell us about what's there?

ROGERS: Well, we have a couple of great items. Dr. Vince Houghton who is the curator and historian here has a couple of great devices and it deals with "DECLASSIFIED" that's going to premiere tonight, Jim.

Vince, welcome. Thanks so much. You have a couple of devices here. Quickly, can you talk us through what we've got in front of us?

DR. VINCE HOUGHTON, SPY MUSEUM CURATOR: Yes. So this is actually Marty Peterson's purse that she used in her operations in --

ROGERS: The female spy.

HOUGHTON: Right. The female spy, that she used on her operations inside Moscow. The really extraordinary thing about this purse is that it's not extraordinary at all. There's no secret compartments, there's no hidden cameras because if she'd been caught by the KGB walking around, her cover would have been blown. So the key behind her cover was being average, being ordinary. And so this purse's extraordinariness is because it's so ordinary.

ROGERS: Yes. And by the way, watch tonight to find out why it is really extraordinary not because of its spy gadgets, but for another reason. You have to find out tonight at 10:00 when you're watching.

You have a concealment device. So talked about, Jim, the things that they might use to hide out in some place to conceal the device.

Vince, tell us about it.

HOUGHTON: Yes. The Trigon gave information over to the CIA through a dead drop rock, very similar to this one. Now I say very similar is that the KGB, once they caught Trigon, sorry, I gave away the ending here, developed this rock that can train its new trainees.

[18:55:05] They could tell people what the CIA was up to inside Moscow so the KGB knew people coming into the 1980s, 1990s, although that didn't actually happen, would actually know what the CIA was doing inside Moscow.

ROGERS: Great stuff. I appreciate it. Dr. Vince Houghton who is the historian and curator here at the Spy Museum. If you haven't been, you need to come. More importantly and equally importantly watch "DECLASSIFIED" tonight. You're going to get to peek in why that purse is extraordinary and that rock means something very, very different.

We'll hopefully see you tonight at 10:00. Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Fascinating stuff. Mike Rogers, Vince Houghton, thanks very much.

And a reminder, you can catch this premiere of Mike's new show, "DECLASSIFIED: THE UNTOLD STORIES OF AMERICAN SPIES," that's tonight 10:00 Eastern Time right here on CNN.

And coming up live here in the CNN NEWSROOM, we're going to take you live to Orlando where there is an emotional scene of resilience and hope under way. An estimated 20,000 people gathered for a candlelight vigil set to start moments from now to honor those victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

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[19:00:03] SCIUTTO: It's 7:00 in the evening in Orlando. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York in for Poppy Harlow.