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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
A Close Look at Wall Street's Problems; Can Bush Boost the Economy?; Plea Bargain Gets Walker Lindh 20 Years in Jail
Aired July 15, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
We spent the day today with firemen. It was a charity event and we saw some old friends and met some new ones. We're always honored when asked to attend events like this and feel privileged to be among these people and their families, including today some of the kids whose fathers died on the 11th.
This event by coincidence took place on a day of another important marker, the search through the debris at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island came to an end. Every day since the 11th workers have hauled debris that was the World Trade Center out to the old landfill. We've shown this from time to time. They would lay it out on a conveyor belt and then the workers would go through every inch of it in search of some human remains. This was hard and terrible work. But there was never a shortage of people to do it. Just like there was never a shortage of men willing to crawl around the ground at ground zero in search for the same, sad treasure and that's what it was.
We always ask when we are with firemen, how is it going? And every time they say, not so well. We need a year minimum it seems to go through the cycle of grief. We need to see Christmas and Easter pass. We need to mark birthdays and anniversaries before we really begin to heal and we are not yet there and there's nothing magic about a year. Some will take longer but a year it seems is the minimum.
Tomorrow another step on the road to better. Six plans for the Trade Center site will be unveiled. The first major step in the rebuilding and the battle over the competing visions of what it should be. And it hasn't been a year and not enough time has passed and we seem to be in a rush to repair the physical damage while the emotional damage is still raw and we think that's what it is, a rush. Why this hurry? We are still burying the dead from a tragedy that was just 10 months ago.
On we go to the today news, beginning with the stock market. It was a harrowing day on Wall Street. Allan Chernoff starts off "The Whip."
Allan, the headline from you, please.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: A vicious cycle is driving the Dow down and many average investors are playing a role. Can the chairman of the Fed put stop to it? We'll have a close-up look at the problems on Wall Street.
BROWN: Allan, thank you.
More talk on the economy from the president as he tries to restore confidence in the economy in the market. Kelly Wallace at the White House tonight.
Kelly, the head line from you.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, aides say a president can't really turn markets around but a president can boost consumer confidence. So that was President Bush's mission today as he headed to Alabama to say the economy is quote, "coming back." -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly. Legal surprise today from John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban. Bob Franken covering the story.
Bob, the headline from you tonight?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, plea bargains are not that unusual of course, Aaron, but plea bargains that are so secret that the judge doesn't know about it, now that's unusual. All of it means is that the John Walker Lindh trial won't happen.
BROWN: Bob, thank you. And fourth in "The Whip," the clock is running out on the congressional career of Jim Traficant. It has been a memorable career, the end apparently going to be the same. Candy Crowley covering that.
Candy, the head line from you, please?
CANDY CROWLEY, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The headline is after this spring's conviction on 10 felony counts, James Traficant has returned to Washington and a jury of his House peers. The man who is now, it seems, without a party may be soon without a job.
BROWN: Candy, thank you much. Back with you all shortly. Also ahead on the program tonight, some interesting people to talk to on three different stories, very different. Jim Cramer, a true Wall Street original on what's next for the market. He tends to be a little high voltage. We'll see how it goes tonight. Also tonight journalist Robert Pelton who interviewed John Walker Lindh soon after he was captured late last year, and likely would have had to testify against his will at the trial had it taken place. And the Sharon you probably don't know. Omri Sharon, the son of the prime minister. We'll talk with "GQ" writer Guy Lawson about the man he calls the most powerful back room operator in the Middle East, a man who met secretly with Yasser Arafat.
All that and more in a very full hour to start the week. We begin with the markets. We'll get to the president's continuing effort to restore confidence in a moment. The Senate's vote on accounting reform as well. We'll also talk about how this all affects the recovery and what Alan Greenspan might do tomorrow. All of that.
But before we touch on the politics and the economics, we begin with the sheer physics of it all. Quite a plunge. Quite a recovery. Quite a day for the markets. Here again, CNN financial correspondent, Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF (voice-over): Investors who aren't already sick of the stock market got enough of a roller coaster ride today to make their stomachs turn. The Dow Industrial average sank 440 points. Then in the final 82 minutes of trading, the index roared back, closing with a loss of only 45. Some money managers said stocks had fallen too far, too fast. They started buying. That led speculators who had been betting on further decline to quickly switch their bets, turning their sells to buys. Still many market veterans are unimpressed with the rebound.
LARRY WACHTEL, PRUDENTIAL FINANCIAL: Show me the follow through. Show me the money. Don't give me a one hour slice of time. Give me a day. Give me two. Then I will be impressed. So it's the follow through that counts.
CHERNOFF: The stock market has become a dangerous place. The Dow Industrial is down six days in a row, seven of the past eight weeks, losing a fifth of its value. And the Dow has been the best performer of the major indices this year.
The collapse of market confidence has individual investors pulling their money out of stock funds to raise that cash, fund managers have to sell shares, pushing the market down even further, triggering more redemptions: a vicious cycle that has sucked 42 billion dollars out of U.S. stock funds in the past nine weeks.
JIM AWAD, AWAD ASSET MANAGEMENT: This is as bad as it gets. Absent a real depression in the economy. But in terms of the stock market, this is a historic bear market.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF: The man who said investors were crazy to be buying in the late '90s, Alan Greenspan, Mr. Irrational Exuberance, is set to testify before Congress tomorrow. He'll probably give the economy a vote of confidence but there's not much that he can do about the accounting scandals which these days appear to be more important to Wall Street than any economic data -- Aaron.
BROWN: Heard on the radio today, never know how much credibility to give any of this, that the Fed chairman may talk about interest rates tomorrow and lowering them again, which would just about have the banks paying you to take their money. But that might move the market a little.
CHERNOFF: Well, so far it hasn't been that successful in moving the market. Typically it does. Historically it's great for the market. But they have lowered the rates 4 3/4 percent since last year, hasn't done much.
BROWN: One other quick thing. And this is one of those axioms that may or may not always be true, but that individual investors are almost always wrong about their timing of the market and that the fact that they are selling while obviously it's not a very healthy sign for the market, as an indicator of something.
CHERNOFF: Yes. A lot of professionals use the individual investor as a contrary indicator, but who knows? It's not a guarantee that the individual investor is going to be wrong. One analyst I know says it's OK to panic as long as you panic early.
BROWN: Thank you. Thank you, Allan. We'll talk with Jim Cramer a little bit later in the program about the market as well.
This is especially knotty problem for the president, and like the Fed chairman, presidents can move markets. Fair or not, the market clearly was not dazzled by the president's speech last week in New York. The president tried again today. This time not by talking about ethics and scandals but by touting the economy generally. It's good, he said. The fundamentals are sound. If there were problems, someone else created them and he and his team are solving them. Be confident, he seemed to say. Then boom, the market dropped 400 points.
Here's CNN Kelly Wallace.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE (voice-over): With consumer confidence at the lowest level since right after September 11, President Bush heads to Birmingham, Alabama, taking on the role of economic-cheer-leader-in- chief.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: American business and workers are resilient and resolved and this economy is coming back. That's the fact.
WALLACE: And the president touted some facts: low inflation, rising productivity, economic growth up over 6 percent for the first three months of the year. The fundamentals are strong, he said. But the Dow did not show it. Failing to calm jittery investors last week after his Wall Street speech on corporate responsibility, the president tried again. He said the country needs to get over what he calls "the recent economic binge."
BUSH: There was endless profit. There was no tomorrow when it came to the stock markets and corporate profits. And now we are suffering a hangover for that binge.
WALLACE: But Democrats argue the president is focusing on rhetoric, not reform, saying what is needed now is presidential backing of tough new accounting rules for corporate America.
SEN. JON CORZINE (D), NEW JERSEY: If you consistently say the same thing and the market keeps going down, it's kind of like breathing your head against the wall. You might want to change a little bit of what it is what you say in the context of a real crisis of confidence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: And the president is well aware what a crisis in confidence could mean for his party in November. That is why he will continue to highlight the good economic news and promise to get tough on corporate wrongdoers.
And, Aaron, today, the president gave lawmakers a deadline. He said he wants Congress to get him a corporate responsibility bill before lawmakers leave in August -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, Lawmakers could hardly be moving any faster without help from an oxygen tank right now. The thing cleared the Senate today. I mean, they are moving as fast as anyone could imagine.
WALLACE: Lightning speed. Do you ever see members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, agreeing, passing that Senate bill, I believe, 97 to nothing. What's interesting, Aaron, is that Senate bill, a lot tougher than the proposals President Bush has put forward. The House bill not as strong as the Senate bill. Now it'll have to go to a conference committee. And what is likely to happen, President Bush is likely to end up signing a bill much tougher than what he previously supported -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly, thank you. Kelly Wallace at the White House tonight.
As we were just talking about, the Senate has now provided its version of the legislation. It passed 97 to nothing, the Public Company Accounting and Investor Protection Act. I know you are writing that down, right? The measure would create a new private sector oversight board with the power to discipline wayward accountants. It bans personal loans from companies to top officers and directors, and would require company insiders to tell the SEC more promptly when they buy or sell company stock.
The next step, reconciling the bill with the weaker version already passed by the House. As Kelly mentioned, that conference committee set to go to work tomorrow. These things go on pretty much in secret. We will see what comes out of it. But the betting is it will look more like the Senate bill than the far weaker bill that passed in the Republican-controlled House.
Two other things to note here. From the moment he was brought back to the United States for trial, the smart money all said there would be a deal in the John walker Lindh case. On the defense side, it was going to be difficult, if not impossible, to find a sympathetic jury for the young man. On the prosecution side, some of the accusations themselves were a bit thin. So both sides had reason to deal, and deal they did, right late into the night last night, 20 years, half a lifetime for young Walker Lindh, not enough to many.
Here's CNN Bob Franken. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN (voice-over): The deal had been struck about midnight, just some nine hours before John Walker Lindh came back to court. So secret that judge T.S. Ellis only found out shortly before he took the bench.
Lindh pleaded guilty to two charges: illegally providing help to the Taliban and a new one, carrying explosives, grenades, in the process. The government dropped all other charges, including conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals. Among them, CIA operative Mike Spann. Instead of possible life in prison, John Walker Lindh, the so- called Taliban-American, now faces 20 years. Prosecutors declared victory.
PAUL MCNULTY, U.S. ATTORNEY: This is a tough sentence. This is an appropriate punishment. And this case proves that the criminal justice system can be an effective tool in combating terrorism.
FRANKEN: The plea bargaining intensified last week after President Bush signed off on the negotiations. The deal was struck just as the two sides prepared to fight in court over whether alleged confessions and statements made by Walker Lindh on the battlefield could be used at trial. Defense attorneys knew they faced an uphill battle.
JAMES BROSNAHAN, LEAD ATTORNEY FOR WALKER LINDH: I think the factors included, among other things, the environment in which we're all living. But people are somewhat frightened. They are upset. It would have been difficult.
FRANKEN: Walker Lindh was asked by the judge, do you feel you're able to make decisions about your future today? In a quiet voice, the defendant said, yes. As he entered the courtroom, Lindh gave a broad smile to members of his family, but the mood was somber as he left.
NAOMI LINDH, WALKER LINDH'S SISTER: I love my brother very much. I just want him to come home, but I know it's not going to happen. But he's been so strong and we had to be strong for him.
FRANK LINDH, WALKER LINDH'S FATHER: Nelson Mandela served 26 years in prison. He's a good man like John. Someday I hope, I hope that the government will come around even further and say that even 20 years is wrong for this boy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: People who know Nelson Mandela say that John Walker Lindh is no Nelson Mandela, but he will be serving a long jail term, up to 20 years. Thanks to the softer approach by the government, Aaron, it will not be a lifetime behind bars -- Aaron.
BROWN: Part of the deal is that he cooperates with the government. Does the government feel he knows very much?
FRANKEN: No. As a matter of fact, that's almost a pro forma arrangement. They don't really feel that he was very high up on the food chain. He did attend a meeting one time or other, a large crowd of people meeting with Osama bin Laden. But they really don't feel that he knows a lot. They will however polygraph him and get whatever they can out of him.
Another part of the deal, by the way, is he can't write a book, no profit. As the U.S. attorney said, any profits, anything he has to say goes to the United States government.
BROWN: And do we have any idea where he will be moved.
FRANKEN: Well, the request by the defense attorneys is that he's moved to a medium-security prison in California. The feeling now is that there's really no reason to oppose that. That, of course, is where his family is. And there's no word that we are aware of that the U.S. attorney is going to try and block that.
BROWN: Bob, thank you. It will be interesting to see what kind of life he leads in prison. That's the tricky part of what's next for John Walker Lindh. Thank you very much.
A little later in the program, we'll talk with freelance reporter Robert Pelton who was working for us, for CNN, when he interviewed John Walker Lindh just days after his capture by the U.S. government. We'll talk with Pelton a little bit later in the program. There's a story within a story where Pelton is concerned. And we'll try to get to as much of it as we can.
On to a courtroom 7,000 miles away. Judgment day for the men accused of being the mastermind behind the kidnapping and the murder of Danny Pearl of the "Wall Street Journal." A Pakistani court sentenced Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to death. This is a story that is important and delicate for two very distinct reasons.
At the heart, of course, a search for justice for one man. But the Pearl case is also a crucial test for the government of Pakistan, the country of Pakistan. Can that government deliver real justice without setting off a backlash, without stirring up sympathies for extremists like Omar? And judging by what was said today, Omar seems to be determined to stoke the fire against the moderates in Pakistan, even if he does it from death row. Here's CNN Tom Mintier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Security was tight in Hyderabad, as the judge in the kidnapping and murder trial of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl handed down the guilty verdicts.
All four defendants were found guilty, but only one, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, also known simply as Sheikh Omar, was given the harshest sentence: death. The death penalty in Pakistan is traditionally...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well, obviously a technical problem. We'll try and fix it. In any case, Omar sentenced to death. His lawyer said later essentially we'll see who dies first here. It's not the sound of a guy who is ready to cooperate with the Pakistani government. In any case, we apologize for the technical problem and on we go.
More later on the guilty plea by John Walker Lindh. We'll talk with Robert Pelton. Up next, Jim Cramer joins us again to talk about the harrowing stock market. This is NEWSNIGHT on a harrowing night. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK, back to Wall Street. Now, a friend the other day said when she was first hired for her job on the Street, she was reminded that there are three creatures that make up the market: bulls, bears and pigs. The pigs, which was many of us, ruled the '90s. Now, we would never refer to any of our guests as a pig, honest. But we will say that he did spend some time in the '90s tending the pig farm. We are always glad to see Jim Cramer, author, commentator and reformed market addict. Mr. Cramer, nice to see you, sir.
JIM CRAMER, CO-FOUNDER, THESTREET.COM: Bulls make money. Bears make money. And pigs get slaughtered.
BROWN: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) well, and it's pretty ugly out there in the slaughterhouse these days.
We were talking with Allen Chernoff a moment ago that there's one of those market saws that the individual investor is almost always wrong. So, the fact that the individual investor is selling sounds to me like a great indicator to buy everything in sight.
CRAMER: Well, you know, there is some truth to the idea that the individual is wrong. But, remember, most individuals have been brainwashed by the mutual fund/Wharton, Jeremy Siegel school complex, which is to say that you should buy and hold. It doesn't matter what you are holding, just hold it. And, of course, that turned out to be fatuous logic because if you held Lucent or WorldCom or Qwest or Global Crossing, it didn't matter how long you held it. It went to zero or it was going to zero. So, I don't think the public is necessarily panicking. I think the public is convinced that it is just a big worldwide wrestling federation rig game, though.
BROWN: That it now looks more like a casino than...
CRAMER: No. No, that's not true because I don't know whether you go to the casino much, because I go to the casino a lot.
BROWN: Really? I'm surprised to hear that about you.
CRAMER: Yes, well, there's a very simple -- you know, 51-percent pay out on blackjack. The slots have a very registered pay out. There's lots of state officials. I would say next to NFL football, it's as clean a game as you can get. I don't think you can say that...
BROWN: The casino? CRAMER: Yes. I don't think you can say that about the stock market. Since I have seen you last, we discovered that 200 people were probably in on the WorldCom fraud. I mean, that's a lot of -- that's a big club. That's much bigger than like the Gambino family.
BROWN: Well, let's not bring them into it.
(CROSSTALK)
These Wall Street guys, they may hurt you a little. The Gambino family can hurt you a lot. So, I don't want to go there.
CRAMER: OK, I understand. But I also understand that it's a pension fund issue. I mean, pension funds are kind of -- people believe that they either have their 401(k) or IRA in stocks have never seen anything like this. And they want to take the money and put it in their house, which has a neither a terror problem nor an ethics problem.
BROWN: And that's probably not a bad idea, by the way.
CRAMER: No. It holds value.
BROWN: I mean, it holds value. And as Will Rogers said, he said, "they are not making real estate any more." So what do we do? Do we ride it out? Do we get rid of stuff?
CRAMER: I think at this point you have to ride it out because it's just so -- look, I was looking at this Millennium Pharmaceutical today, OK. Now, these guys may be complete knuckleheads, but the stock has $8 in cash and it's at nine bucks. I'm not selling a stock with $60 million in sales that has $8 in cash. But that's what I'm seeing.
Pfizer today, they do this really smart move, they buy Pharmacia because Pharmacia has got the other half of Celebrex, which is the thing that is killing Merck, OK. And what do they do? The company loses 25 billion like that. That's wrong, too. Too many mistakes being made by the market itself in valuing companies because everybody feels that the next thing is WorldCom.
BROWN: All right, slow down. And I know that's a scary thought. What I think I just heard you say is that people are now panic selling, that they are selling companies at prices that are ridiculously low.
CRAMER: Well, they've decided that since it's all rigged -- I think some of it was rigged. But now they have decided it's all rigged. And since it's all rigged, they are selling everything. And whatever stays alive in the next four months, they will buy it back later. It's kind of like the game plan.
BROWN: Do you think we're -- and this may be an impossible to know sort of thing -- do you think we are at the beginning of something, the middle of something or we're closer to the end of something? CRAMER: Well, I think we are definitely closer to the end. I committed some cash today for the first time in two years. And why I did that was because I see a lot of things that are like this Millennium. I see a lot of things that are just selling so low that I figure, hey, listen, I'll take some pain. I'm no stranger to pain. I lived in the house of pain when I was at the hedge fund. Now I'm only just a renter. But I think that I could take the pain for a short period of time. And I think that it might be six months, but I don't think more than that.
BROWN: Anybody making money out there on this?
CRAMER: A couple of short-sellers are making pretty good money, yes. Everybody else is losing money.
BROWN: And who is the genius right now at the moment, other than yourself?
CRAMER: Well, the consistent genius has been, other than my partner Jeff Burke (ph), that's who I give the fund to, is making good money this year, has been a fellow by the name of Dan Benton (ph), who is a very private guy. He runs a firm that is, does a lot of shorting, does a lot of long buying, but is just, without a doubt, has always been one of the great minds but seeks no publicity, unlike me, whom my wife says, Jim, why are you coming on this show? Is it the whole thing just to become the most famous person in the world, because if that's the case, you are not going to succeed.
BROWN: You know, we should all listen to our wives except on that point on whether you should appear on the program. It's always nice to see you again.
CRAMER: Thank you, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you for coming in. Get safely home, please. Tending the pig farm, I'm almost shocked that I said that, but not quite.
Up next, James Traficant testifies before Congress in an effort to save his job.
But up next, the man who found John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan and talked to him. An important interview. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Regular viewers of the program remember perhaps that we had hoped to have Robert Pelton on the program last Friday to get his reaction to the judge's ruling that he would have to testify about his videotaped interview with John Walker Lindh. The government had built much of its case on what the so-called American Taliban said during that interview.
But how he came to say it, how medicated he was or was not, should someone have read him his rights, the defense planned to make those issues central to their case. Now that the legal smoke has cleared a lot, we now get Pelton's impressions on the case and the defendant. It's always good to see Robert back with us. He joins us tonight from Washington. It's nice to see you.
ROBERT YOUNG PELTON, CNN FREELANCE CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you.
BROWN: Why didn't you want to testify, by the way? I mean, you were there. You had some story to tell that seems to me those questions were not unfair. So why try and get around it?
PELTON: Well, what Brosnahan wanted to do was paint me as an agent of our government. And he physically threatened me on the phone and screamed and yelled at me when I didn't want to do that. And I told him, look, I'm not involved in this case. His guilt or innocence is really not my concern. I was there doing a story. I shouldn't be involved in these things.
And more importantly though, even if I had successfully shown that I wasn't an agent of the government, it would have meant that the tape would have been very incriminating. And I believe that the tape was neither incriminating or not incriminating. It was basically a conversation between two people.
BROWN: You did not believe the tape was incriminating?
PELTON: Well, you have to remember he was up for at least nine counts. Some of those counts were borne out by the conversation he had with me and some of them were not. So, obviously, he had a stake in representing the fact that he wasn't a terrorist, that he wasn't fighting Americans.
BROWN: I want to move on from this part in a second, but -- and we talked about this months ago. At the beginning of your conversation with him, he says he's really not interested in doing an interview. Do you think that given the condition he was in at the time, the things that he had gone through in Mazar, the things he had gone through in American custody afterwards, and we can quibble about some of the detail of that, that any interview with him was fair?
PELTON: No. I could represent to you that what he says on that tape is very lucid. He almost proselytizes. He asks me question. He says, well, don't film down there. He knows exactly what is going on.
And most of his concern about me taping him was the fact that he was being undressed, not because he didn't want to be, you know, on TV. He knew exactly what was going on.
BROWN: Let's move on from that. It's -- I had the feeling that both sides in some ways had painted a caricature here. And I'm not sure I really get who this guy is. Is there more to him than we know?
PELTON: Yes. I went back to Afghanistan to investigate this story because I was quite intrigued by it. I spent two weeks in Qala Jhangi (ph). I interviewed all the major players in the uprising and I met with people in the basement, with Walker. And the part that you are missing is that this was a gentlemen who joined a terrorist organization who is with people who have sworn to kill Americans. Now, what that means is that he did not take part in the killing of Mike Spann, but he could have prevented the killing of Mike Spann. So there is a much deeper...
BROWN: How?
PELTON: Well, he was in the basement for almost eight hours talking with the people before they came up. He knew that these people had grenades, they had weapons and they were waiting to use them when they came up. All he had to do was say to Mike Spann, "hey, can you get me out of here?" And I viewed all the interviews that Mike Spann did with the prisoners, and most of them did say that, they said, "Get me out of here; these people are nuts."
BROWN: So if he had merely said "get me out of here," how would that have prevented the killing?
PELTON: Because Mike Spann stayed there. And he came in with another CIA agent and he stayed there and they watched and they talked to people, and Lindh could have told him about the mood of the prisoners that were down in the basement. And my goal is not necessarily to point out that he was more guilty; it's just that what he told me and what he told other people was what he wanted us to hear. But if you dig into the background -- and much of this will be in the documentary on August 3 on "CNN PRESENTS" -- it paints a very dark picture, much darker than what his parents would like you to see.
BROWN: And so, are you surprised then that the government ultimately dealt here?
PELTON: No. Because I think what happened is some of the information that I gathered and some of the information that was out there was going to come crashing down on his head over the next two months, and it would make it very difficult for Lindh to get out from under some of those charges, but at the same time, the government was having a hard time -- and don't forget, most people I have talked to had never talked to anybody from our government -- they were having a hard time digging up actual evidence that would link him with some of these acts they charged him with.
BROWN: In that regard, do you think he was over charged by the government?
PELTON: Absolutely. I think the charges were sort of ramped up to be almost mythical. I mean, this guy is not a major fish in the pond. He's simply a guy that went over and got sucked up with a bunch of bad people and decided to stay with those very bad people, and then very bad things happened. So did he conspire? Yes. Did he go there to do bad things? Yes. But is he a terrorist? No.
BROWN: When you did the interview back then, did you think it would become the kind of central piece in this fascinating legal puzzle that it ultimately became to be?
PELTON: Not really. I thought my favorite interview was with the number three and number four Taliban leader who told me all about why they lost the war. But that never actually ran. But I think my conversation with Walker was interesting for me, and I think it was interesting for him. I don't think he realized the legal consequences it might have later on.
BROWN: Hard to imagine that he would have. Robert, it's good to talk to you. Robert Pelton joins us, and again, the documentary airs in August. August 3?
PELTON: Yes, August 3.
BROWN: August 3. Here on CNN. Thank you much.
Quickly now, a couple of other stories making news around the country tonight, beginning with the dog mauling case out of San Francisco. Perhaps this is the last time we'll talk about this. Perhaps. A judge today sentenced Marjorie Knoller to four years in state prison for involuntary manslaughter. Doesn't of course mean she will serve that long. Mr. Knoller's dog mauled her neighbor to death last year, 33-year-old Diane Whipple. Ms. Knoller was also convicted of second degree murder, you'll recall, but last month the judge overturned the jury's verdict there, saying the evidence did not support it.
From Oregon tonight, some progress in the fighting of wildfires there that have burned 92,000 acres in less than a week. Firefighters helped by cooler temperatures. As you know, it has been very warm in the West. More humidity now and less wind -- all good signs for firefighters.
And a sad day for the king of the cowboys and those who loved him. Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans museum in Victorville, California shutting down. The collection of the Roy & Dale memorabilia will stay intact, all of it, including the stuffed trigger, there he is, will move to a new smaller location in Branson, Missouri.
News around the country tonight.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, amazing political theater in Washington today from Congressman James Traficant, someone who's used to it, we must say.
And up next, one man who has the ear of both Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat. This is a fascinating story. Next on NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And coming up, a fascinating story of the prime minister's son. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
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BROWN: You'd be hard pressed to find a politician, even by Middle East standards, who is more complex and more controversial than Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Slate" once described him this way: "Part Douglas MacArthur, part Richard Nixon, part hand grenade."
But there is another Sharon who is also a major force in Israeli politics, a more elusive character, and yet a fascinating. Omri Sharon, Ariel's son, by all accounts his closest adviser. One of Omri's friends told journalist Guy Lawson that standing next to him is to be in one of the most dangerous places in the world. No surprise there. Sharon the son has taken a huge risk trying to cultivate relationships and dialogue with top Palestinians, including his father's sworn enemy, Yasser Arafat. Mr. Lawson writes about Omri, his father and Arafat in the August issue of "GQ," and he joins us now. It's not all fashion. It's nice to see you. It's a wonderful piece.
GUY LAWSON, "GQ" MAGAZINE WRITER-AT-LARGE: Thanks.
BROWN: When I first heard the story, I swear to you that my reaction was, boy, I bet his dad is really angry that he's talking to Arafat, but it's not that way at all.
No. Quite the opposite. His father has said that if he had listened to his son Omri earlier, he would have been prime minister sooner. It was Omri in large measure who convinced his father to have any kind of conversation, if you can imagine. He was the one who convinced his father to set up a secret back channel way of negotiating with Arafat, and then volunteered himself, the son, to go and do it, and did that.
BROWN: There's something oddly and sort of wonderfully Middle Eastern about sending your son.
LAWSON: It's fantastic. And in fact, that was kind of the undoing of it. The very Middle Eastern myth of it offended some of the more pompous and prim people in the Israeli political...
BROWN: On the Israeli side.
LAWSON: Yeah. And so they set about disabling this possibility. And so the secrecy was lost, and, in fact, Omri was disallowed from -- it's illegal for him -- became illegal for him to go meet with Arafat. And that was when things began to fall apart.
BROWN: I'm sorry, excuse me, just put up the picture again, for just a second, of father and son. I want to get a good look at it as well. Do we know his politics? Are his politics like his father's politics? Do we know?
LAWSON: Well, he'll tell you, he'll swear up and down they're the same. But then, when you get to talk to him, he'll tell you that he didn't agree with his father going to the Temple Mount. He didn't, of course, agree with his father not talking to Arafat.
This is a man who Yasser Arafat described as "like my son." He's got a strange kind of appeal that, at least in the political classes, has brought him a lot of high regard.
BROWN: This funny thing about Israeli politics: It seems to me that the same players have been on the stage almost the entire course of Israeli history -- not quite, but almost. And now their sons.
I mean, is that who we're looking at, a future Israeli leader?
LAWSON: Well, you could -- the whole world is -- you know, President Bush and everybody is turning to the Palestinian Authority and saying, who's next, and we need to replates Arafat.
In my estimation, Israel has the same questions confronting it: Who is going to make peace? Who can sue for peace in this society? And...
BROWN: Yet we say about the next generation of Palestinian leaders, one of the things is, you know, they all speak Hebrew and they understand Israelis better. They understand the Israeli side better, the Israeli mindset better. Is that true of...
That's Omri's secret. He's the beginning of that.
BROWN: That he understands the Palestinian side?
LAWSON: He understands the importance of understanding.
BROWN: What an interesting way to put it.
LAWSON: A big, big thing.
BROWN: Are there other players out there who understand this as well, or is he a lone voice out there?
LAWSON: You know, I don't want to pretend that he's, you know, the only person thinking like this.
I think that he has -- is gathering a unique set of experiences. I mean, he goes to lunch -- a private lunch with George Bush when his father is in town. He's effectively -- even though he's not allowed to have an official position -- running the government.
He is gathering a set of qualities which will put him in a very strong position. The test for him is after his dad is gone and the jackals close in.
BROWN: We've got about 30 seconds left. Do we expect -- do you expect that he'll run for office of some form?
LAWSON: I think that this is the beginning...
BROWN: That he'll come out of the shadows that he's been operating in?
LAWSON: I think this is the beginning. This piece is the first time he's spoken in public. And although it's tentative and uncertain from time to time, I think that's right. And I think he'll run in the next election. And I think he'll succeed.
BROWN: It's in this month's "GQ," right?
LAWSON: That's right. BROWN: It's a wonder -- I said to you off-air -- it's a wonderfully reported and written piece. And I assume most Americans didn't know that the guy was out there. And it's a great -- if you're interested in the Middle East, it's a great look at some of the players.
Nice piece of work.
LAWSON: Thanks Aaron.
BROWN: Thanks for coming with us.
A few other stories from around the world quickly.
French President Jacques Chirac survived an assassination attempt over the weekend. You probably have heard this by now. It happened in Paris on Bastille Day. A gunman got off one shot as Mr. Chirac went by. He missed. Police have arrested a 25-year-old neo-Nazi. He's currently being held in the psychiatric ward of a prison hospital.
Just outside Mexico City farmers have freed the last of the hostages taken during a battle with riot police. The Mexican government wants to build an airport on their land. The farmers saying today, this fight is not over.
And from Szechuan Province in China -- hard to see it exactly, but they are pandas. Well, now you can see it pretty well -- twin pandas. Well, I think you see the big one there. A boy and a girl, they're not saying. And with baby pandas, honestly -- there they are -- it's not that easy to tell. Huh. They grow up pretty big, don't they?
Later on NEWSNIGHT, a look at the ceremony today that officially ended the search for the human remains from Ground Zero.
Then are the Fresh Kills on Staten Island.
But up next, James Traficant tries to hang onto his seat in Congress, despite being a convicted felon.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: When last we heard from Ohio Congressman James Traficant, he had just been convicted of bribery. Jurors apparently not that impressed that he acted as his own lawyer, or swayed by defense heavy on conspiracy theories, barnyard analogies or tirades -- this is what threw me -- against the agency he likes to call the Internal Rectal Service.
Just building up to that line, and I was uncomfortable.
Today he went before the House Ethics Committee in defense of his job. And unlike his trial, where he did get some laughs and lost the case, no one seemed to be smiling today.
Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.
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CROWLEY (voice-over): This is as alone as it gets: no party to claim him, no colleague to stand by him.
TRAFICANT: I may not be the most liked, and I may have unorthodox measures, and I may have raided this House for some appropriation money, but I'm a member too. And I'll be damned if I'll be treated like a dog.
CROWLEY: Facing jail time and certain expulsion from Congress, James Traficant is his only defense.
TRAFICANT: I will take an upward departure, and I will die in jail, because I did not commit these crimes.
CROWLEY: A Cleveland jury found Traficant guilty on 10 felony counts, including bribery and racketeering. He will be sentenced at the end of this month.
Everyone, including Traficant, expects he will be expelled from Congress, perhaps by the end of this week.
KEN KELLNER, COUNSEL, HOUSE STANDARDS AND OFFICIAL CONDUCT COMMITTEE: The evidence will show that Representative Traficant, in a pattern of conduct that repeated itself over and over and over again, traded his office and the duties he swore to uphold for money, farm equipment, free labor and a myriad of other things of value to him.
CROWLEY: No one expected Traficant, the combative maverick Democrat with an ear for the pithy and puzzling sound bite, would go quietly.
TRAFICANT: I'll be damned if I'll be targeted. The FBI can go to hell.
CROWLEY: In testimony that was always defiant, frequently irrelevant, Traficant blamed a government conspiracy for his downfall, a runaway FBI and a vengeful IRS for threatening witnesses into testifying against him.
TRAFICANT: I say that Janet Reno has exposed our children to a Chinese bomb and, damn it, I want it on the record.
CROWLEY: This is a man who seems to both revel in and be unaware of his own bizarreness.
TRAFICANT: A horse drinks five gallons of water, he's going to urinate five gallons of water.
CROWLEY: In Washington, where theater and politics are a consolidated industry, this would be comedy, if it weren't for the pathos. TRAFICANT: Where are we? Where are we in America? This is a damn joke.
Other than that, I'm feeling fine. If somebody in the audience has a cough drop, I'd appreciate it. My throat is sore. I'm having some rectal disorders, as a matter of fact, as a result of this. My stomach is upset. And I am hard to live with.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: You can expect this to go on for the next several days, and you can expect the unusual. But do not expect a surprise ending -- Aaron.
BROWN: You know, this is the first time -- I've watched this guy for a while -- this was sad.
CROWLEY: It was absolutely sad. I mean I -- you know, when we started to do this story and I started watching him and they come in and tell you, did you see, that was funny. And I said, no. I really do think the pathos here is overwhelming.
This is really tragic. This was awfully hard to watch.
BROWN: There's that weird line that separates what is sort of funny in a character from something else. And clearly by the end we were at the something else, whatever that is.
CROWLEY: Well, absolutely. We are looking at a man who is facing up to 60 years in jail, though no one thinks he'll get that quite that much, and who really is about to lose his job. It was a sad day. It was.
BROWN: Candy, thank you very much. It was a sad day. Thank you.
We'll wrap it up tonight with another milestone in the clean-up of Ground Zero. One of those days you do remember here in New York. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
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BROWN: Finally from us tonight, some of the heroes from September 11, some of whom maybe haven't gotten quite as much attention as they clearly deserved. We begin at the Pentagon with two men who were simply driving by that morning when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the building. Instead of turning around in fear, they raced to the scene. Today Eric Jones and Steve DeChiaro were awarded the Medal of Valor, the highest award given to civilians. DeChiaro carried victims to a triage station where they could be helped. Jones pulled a burning firefighter to safety, then went back to help others. And both stayed for more than three days on almost no sleep helping to set up a make shift morgue. Those are heroes, folks.
And now to the heroes of Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island. A year ago a line like that would've gotten you laughed out of New York City. A hero at Fresh Kills? This was the world's largest garbage dump. Staten Island wanted it closed up and forgotten forever. That all changed on the 11th of September when the wreckage of the Trade Center needed a place to go and the place chosen was Fresh Kills. We didn't often see the work that went on there, just from time to time, but it was just at pain-staking as what went on at Ground Zero. Hunting for any kind of human remains to give to a family.
New York's police commissioner, Ray Kelly, today thanked the heroes of Fresh Kills in a ceremony that marked the end of the extraordinary work.
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RAYMOND KELLY, NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: Today we close another chapter in our nation and our city's response of the events of September 11. It's a chapter that deserves special recognition. As we all know the attacks on the World Trade Center brought out the very best in our emergency personnel. The courage shown by responders that day has been well chronicled. What has been less chronicled is the work that has been done here at Fresh Kills. Work that has been no less important.
The Fresh Kills if a facility was set up with the diligence and care befitting the world biggest crime scene. But the pain-staking sifting of nearly 200 million tons of debris has really been about reclaiming the victims of the 9/11 tragedy. By discovering and cataloging 54,000 items of property and identifying many of the owners of this material, workers here have helped family members of the victims obtain some sense of closure on the loss of their loved ones.
Your collective efforts form a powerful living tribute to the victims, a tribute you paid each and every day you came to work here. You are to be commended for managing this solemn task with dignity and honor. We will never forget what took place here and the part you played in tending to this hallowed ground.
BROWN: Tomorrow we get a first look at the future of the World Trade Center site, six new ideas. That and more on NEWSNIGHT tomorrow. We hope we'll see you then. Good night from all of us.
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