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At This Hour
Did Germanwings Co-pilot Practiced Taking Plane Down; Former Baltimore Prosecutor Criticizes Mosby; Bill Clinton Fires Back; Jeb Bush Down in Polls. Aired 11:30-12p ET
Aired May 06, 2015 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN: Is there any way that either the captain, who was onboard with him at the time, is there any way that anyone on the ground at the time, should have known that this happened or could have known?
JUSTIN GREEN, AVIATION ATTORNEY & PRIVATE PILOT: Because of the time, the flight before where he murdered everyone and killed himself, I don't think they could have known from that particular flight. The question I have is airlines regularly go back and look at prior flights. It's a program that they have. They'll pull flight data recorder and look at the information. If someone looking at this guy's past flights, his activity that he engaged in when pilots were leaving the cockpit, that might show notice on behalf of the airline.
BERMAN: Before this one?
GREEN: Before this one. The report, which is just a preliminary report, just basic information, does not provide that information.
BOLDUAN: How important do you think this information, this graph that we're seeing, this possibly a rehearsal, how important do you think it is? This is coming out in the interpret report. This isn't the final report that suggests that French investigators think it's critical.
GREEN: It's because it's on the flight data recorder. One of the first things you do is you look at the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder and because it was the prior flight, this information is on that. So that gets into the preliminary report. What really tells me is this wasn't just an isolated incident. This guy had the plan and idea for a while. We now know on two flights he was playing around with it just the same way that it's been described as a practice. I think it's more of a guy trying to work up maybe courage. I wouldn't use courage to describe what this guy did. But work up the idea of actually murdering all of these people and killing himself.
BERMAN: So the trial run as it were, rehearsal, whatever it was, happened when the captain was out of the cockpit.
GREEN: That's right.
BERMAN: And when the co-pilot crashed the airplane, the pilot was out of the cockpit during the crash. Is it unusual for a captain to leave the cockpit so much on flights which aren't going over oceans or anything/
GREEN: What's unusual is when he left it. The pilot on the prior flight left it right before the airplane was supposed to take a descent. That's normally a time that you're not going to have one of the pilots leave the cockpit. Going back, most airlines nowadays would always have two people in the cockpit and based on what this guy did, he did his stuff when he was alone. I think that's really something maybe more for a psychiatrist than a pilot or an aviation lawyer. I don't think if two people were in this cockpit, he wouldn't have murdered 150 people.
BOLDUAN: That's interesting.
Justin Green, thank you so much.
GREEN: Thank you.
BERMAN: Coming up next for us, a former Baltimore prosecutor is now really ripping into Marilyn Mosby calling her actions reckless and incompetent. She will tell us why live.
BOLDUAN: And Bill Clinton firing back. His response to accusations money influenced his wife's decisions when she was at the State Department serving as the nation's top diplomat. That's coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:36:19] BERMAN: New this morning, withering criticism for Marilyn Mosby, the state's attorney in Baltimore, saying the charges she levied against six hours is recklessness, political ambition and all of the above. That scathing assessment comes from a former Baltimore prosecutor.
BOLDUAN: In a new piece that's in "The Baltimore Sun," that former prosecutor says if she were a Baltimore police officer right now, she would be looking for another job immediately. And as a Baltimore citizen, she also writes that you may start looking some place else to live.
Joining us to discuss, that prosecutor, Page Croyder.
Page, thank you for coming in.
You were blunt off the top. You say the decision reflects inexperience, reflects recklessness and you also talk about political ambition. Why did you feel so strongly about speaking out like this?
PAGE CROYDER, FORMER DEPUTY STATE'S ATTORNEY, BALTIMORE: When you have a complicated case like this and volatile case like this, you have to take your time to get it right. You have to take your time so that people have confidence that the charges that you are placing are not motivated by political ambition and do not reflect your inexperience. In this case, two weeks is almost unheard of a case like this. She did not use her own homicide unit to investigate this. She was doing a separate investigation, which, by the way, will probably complicate her ability to prosecute the case. She didn't use her most experienced attorneys. She did not use the grand jury, which should have been a very important tool to her to swear witnesses under oath and so if they changed their testimony later they have it under oath piece of evidence to show to the jury to have ordinary citizens of that grand jury ask questions about what happened so she can get feedback as to what questions are unanswered and perception of the appropriate charges. She didn't do any of that and she didn't even have the autopsy report until the morning she was announcing the charges. Her mind was already made up ditto with the police report. She didn't get the completed police investigative report until the day before she announced her charges meaning her mind had to have been made up. She did no consultation with the police investigators. There had to have been many questions. Her own charging documents raise many questions.
BERMAN: You lay out a number of arguments there. I think critics of your arguments might say, number one, the reason she didn't use a homicide detective is she really wanted to be independent from the police. There are those that suggest that police shouldn't be investigating police. You also refer to in a case like this. What makes it a case like this? It's police officers involved and a lot of people leading up to the charges were suggesting if these were not officers, if this were a similar situation away from law enforcement, you would have seen charges more quickly. Should police officers be treated differently?
CROYDER: This doesn't have anything to do with the police officer aspect. Let me point out she didn't use her own homicide prosecutors to investigate. I wasn't talking about the homicide detectives. She didn't use the most experienced prosecutors in her office used to investigating homicides to do this work for her. As to treating the police differently, what's different about this is there were no charges at the outset. There were no arrests made of the police officers. What you were doing was investigating how this person died because to this day we don't know how he died. If there was evidence immediately available that showed that a police officer had broken his neck, there would have been an immediate arrest. This is not that situation. This is a situation which called for an investigation and she did not use all of the tools available to her to do a completely thorough investigation.
(CROSSTALK)
CROYDER: And the problem with that is that you then set up --
(CROSSTALK)
[11:40:27] BOLDUAN: Real quick, you are passionate about this. You care very much about this. I can absolutely see that.
(CROSSTALK)
CROYDER: It's not this case.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: Just hold on. (CROSSTALK)
CROYDER: It's not this case.
BOLDUAN: I understand. With this situation we want to talk about this case though and I want to get your take on this. With this situation, you were with the state's attorney's office for 21 years. You're not involved directly with this case. What is it about this that leads you as I get the strong sense that you do not trust that this prosecutor albeit an abbreviated investigative period that this prosecutor doesn't have her ducks in a row before she brought these charges? What makes you think that she doesn't?
CROYDER: I just explained it to you. She didn't use the tools available. She didn't use the tools available to her. She herself is terribly inexperienced. Never personally was involved in any cases of this magnitude and further of all you can look at the charges themselves that tell you that she doesn't have her ducks in a row. Her probable cause statement which she drafted and it wasn't a police officer doing it, she drafted to establish probable cause for the arrest of these officers do not support the charge of second-degree murder. That alone. Then she is charging two arresting officers with false imprisonment when there's a serious question as to whether or not there was probable cause. She also could not possibly have thought through the implications of charging officers for arresting without probable cause because those implications are very serious. If you're going to charge them criminally for what may have been a mistake versus planting of evidence or lying. If an officer incorrectly interpreted the fourth amendment to be subject to criminal charges has a huge chilling effect on the police department about which I'm getting feedback already. So, yes, she could not have possibly taken the time to think that through.
BOLDUAN: OK. Page Croyder, thank you for coming on. I encourage everyone to look at your piece in "The Baltimore Sun."
Thanks again.
Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR --
CROYDER: Thank you.
BOLDUAN: Of course.
Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, brand new polls just in, not so great news for Jeb Bush in them. Hear who now leads the Republican field in the crucial state of Iowa.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:46:39] BOLDUAN: Moments ago, Bill Clinton took on a big money issue facing his wife on the campaign trail. Foreign donations to their charitable foundation. The author of the book, "Clinton Cash" suggests that big money from overseas influenced Hillary Clinton's decisions when she was secretary of state.
BERMAN: A short time ago, President Bill Clinton told our Christiane Amanpour the allegations in the book won't fly. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a policy when she was secretary of state that we would only continue accepting money from people that were already giving us money. I tried to recreate that policy as nearly as I can now during the campaign. With minor exceptions for healthcare work which we can talk about if you like. I think they all -- people know that. People understand that enormous percentage of health and development work around the world is funded by governments and multinational organizations and they found us because they think we're good at solving problems and taking advantage of opportunities. But we also have 300,000 other donors and 90 percent of them give $100 or less. So there is just no evidence. Even the guy that wrote the book had to admit under questioning he didn't have a shred of evidence for this and thought he would throw it out there and see if it would fly. It won't fly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: It won't fly. Clintonian speak at its best.
Let's bring in our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, who just wrote a column about this.
I'm struck by the defense there's no evidence of this. There's no evidence of this. Why not just say it didn't happen. There was no influence at all?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: He also said in another interview we did nothing knowingly inappropriate, which is also parsing words. The Clintons are clearly prepared for journalists to be poring over the books of the Clinton foundation and do exactly what this author tried to do. I don't think anybody has yet made a case of a quid pro quo of any kind at all. I do think, however, that they've got to be prepared to answer these questions and I wish, however, it were Hillary Clinton answering these questions rather than Bill Clinton because she does have some issues with voters on whether she's honest and straightforward. One way to deal with that is to be straightforward.
BERMAN: Gloria stick around.
We're going to switch around, talk about Republicans, the poll out of Iowa now. Because of who is way, way back in the field. You see Scott Walker on top with 21 percent. Look at this graphic here. You see Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson. Way, way back is Jeb Bush in seventh place with 5 percent.
BOLDUAN: And another important number coming out of this poll, a quarter of voters there, Republican voters, caucus goers, definitely would not support Jeb Bush. He topped the list of those that they would not support at 25 percent.
Let's bring in David Brody, in addition, from Christian Broadcasting Network, joining our conversation on this. Jeb Bush at 5 percent support in Iowa right now, what's behind that, do you think?
[11:50:11] DAVID BRODY, CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK: It's not necessarily shocking, folks. Look, Jeb Bush is the, quote, "frontrunner" and it's all in quotes but that's what it is. It's in quotes. I mean he's kind of a weak frontrunner right now and whether it be immigration or the name or there's so many -- GOP establishment, this idea that he is part of the GOP establishment, I think that's what's driving down his numbers and, of course, Common Core, immigration going on. You put it all together and you come up with a figure about 7 percent. He has work to do.
BERMAN: I think you're giving him the benefit of the doubt at 5 percent.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: Seventh place at 5 percent.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: David, we always talk in Iowa about how lately the evangelical voters are driving the polls in Iowa and that might explain why Jeb's not doing well, David, but look, George H.W. Bush won in Iowa in 1980, George W. Bush won in Iowa convincingly in 2000. I think it's striking that they're turning away from him.
BRODY: Well, I think you make a good point. I don't think the game is over at all in Iowa, but Jeb Bush has work to do. I don't think there's any question about it and he needs to be stronger on issues like traditional marriage and life issue which are issues he's strong on but needs to be stronger and put those out there more to basically offset immigration. It's important to understand with evangelicals they are not a one or two trick pony. Evangelicals, marriage, abortion, hold on for a moment folks. Evangelicals are involved in the common core movement big time in this country. They put religious liberty as a tier issue now in this country. Why do you think rand Paul does well in Iowa and other places with evangelicals because he's talking about not just religious liberty but actually cutting off funds to groups, to organizations, to states that are killing Christians and that gets his biggest applause lines in Iowa and elsewhere.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: I want you to jump in. Do you think Jeb Bush, is this insurmountable?
BORGER: No. It isn't insurmountable. He has a lot of work to do and a problem there. Don't forget, he's hired somebody who used to deal exclusively with Iowa, David Kochle, to run his campaign there. I have been told that he's actually making personal phone calls himself to activists in the state, because he understands that he's got a lot of work to do. He does have a lot of work to do, not insurmountable. The other interesting thing here, look who's leading, Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin. He is not even in the race yet. He's clearly got at lot of staying power. Marco Rubio also has more than tripled his standing since February, I believe. So that is huge for him and Cruz is moving up. You see how this field is shaping up in Iowa. I wouldn't count Bush out, but if you look at the sort of young turks leading the field he has a tough job ahead of him. His campaign tells me look, we're not giving up on Iowa.
BERMAN: John McCain got the nomination barely competing in Iowa.
BORGER: Yeah. They may not win, right. Yeah.
BERMAN: All right. David and Gloria, thank you so much for being with us. Appreciate it.
Next for us, Mike Rowe shows us huge stones.
BOLDUAN: What?
BERMAN: He takes on rocks because "Somebody's Got to Do It."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:57:22] BERMAN: All right. Little us, big us. Moments ago, we promised you Mike Rowe would show you huge stones.
BOLDUAN: Please stop.
BERMAN: The time has come.
BOLDUAN: Yes, apparently, so.
So in a new episode of "Somebody's Got to Do It," Mike takes on a job that you may not know much about, working on a California boulder crew.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big rock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big rock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
MIKE ROWE, CNN HOST, SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO IT: The actual job is harder than this. I think I'm going to have problems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome.
ROWE: Thanks.
Nice office.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, isn't it?
ROWE: Excuse me.
I'm allergic to heights.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh.
ROWE (voice-over): The job is clearly dangerous and I'm flattered and surprised the state gave us permission to participate with Tom and his crew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is when the fun starts.
ROWE: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentlemen, climb on.
Climbing!
Climbing.
ROWE: With that, finally the actual work begins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can start rolling rocks.
ROWE (on camera): Man, there is so much stuff here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the kind of things that oil pans and radiators hate.
ROWE: That thing pops up out of the street.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
ROWE: Straight through your oil pan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
ROWE: Look how loose all this is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yep.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's why we do it.
ROWE: Basically this is erosion, right? It rains.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's weathering of the rock, sort of rots out and you have to clean it off and maybe hopefully get down to some better rock.
ROWE: It seems endless in terms of like a job, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. And, you know, in five, ten years when most of this soil is gone, and what not, we'll come back and do this again.
ROWE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a maintenance activity.
ROWE: You know what it is? It's job security.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Job security, too. And look at the road already. Just from the little bit we've done so far.
ROWE: Yep.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: It's a growth industry, rocks.
BOLDUAN: But that is a very important maintenance job I really never considered before.
BERMAN: Hopefully, you won't have to.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: Thank you. Because you're saving our cars and probably our noggins if they're not falling on our heads.
See the all new episode of "Somebody's Got to Do It" with Mike Rowe tomorrow at 9:00 on CNN.
BERMAN: Looks cool, though, right.
BOLDUAN: From below. I don't know if I would want to be up there doing that. We'll send you up next time.
BERMAN: Please.
BOLDUAN: Thank you for joining us AT THIS HOUR.
BERMAN: "Legal View" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.
