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Long-Simmering Conflicts Between Texas GOP Erupts; Texas AG Recommended to be Removed from Office by Texas House Committee; Interview with Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D); Plot to Kill Queen Elizabeth while Visiting the U.S. in 1983 Revealed in an FBI File; Vatican: Pope Francis Postpones Events Due to Fever. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired May 26, 2023 - 10:30   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: This morning, political chaos in Texas where one of the most powerful Republicans in the state could face impeachment, and that really only scratches the surface. A Republican-led Texas House ethics panel voted unanimously to recommend State Attorney General Ken Paxton be impeached and removed from office. The committee has been investigating him over claims he abused his power for years to benefit a major donor. Paxton has denied all wrongdoing.

And in the face of all this, Paxton, has called on House Speaker Dade Phelan to resign with a wild claim and no evidence that the speaker was drunk during a house session. The speaker's office said the attorney general's allegation was retaliation for the house ethics panel's probe.

CNN's Rosa Flores is following all of this for us. What happens now?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT Well, let's dive into those 20 articles of impeachment, because that's where this story starts. These include dereliction of duty, obstruction of justice, disregard of official duty, misapplication of public resources, constitutional bribery. These go on and on. Now, these articles of impeachment were adopted a day after an explosive and stunning hearing at a Texas investigative committee made up of three Republicans and two Democrats.

Now, the testimony described years of alleged wrongdoing by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. And according to these allegations, they were to benefit a donor but this was all related to a whistleblower case that Ken Paxton settled back in February for $3.3 million, obligating the Texas taxpayer to foot the bill. Now, this is the reason why we're here. The Texas house speaker who's also a Republican has maintained that the Texas taxpayer should not be paying $3.3 million of this settlement without a proper investigation.

That's the investigation that we're talking about here. That's why the articles of impeachment were adopted. It was the result of that investigation. Now, the three-hour plus meeting was stunning. Here's just a taste of some of those revelations. Take a listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said he did not want to use his office, the OAG, to help the feds or DPS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hate to interrupt you, did you just state -- I want to be very clear, that the attorney general for state of Texas said he did not want to use his office to help law enforcement?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is exactly what was relayed to us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

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FLORES: Now, the Texas attorney general firing back, saying that all of these allegations could be disproven. Saying that the articles of impeachment are illegal. In a statement, saying in part, "For liberal lawyers put forward, a report to the House General Investigating Committee based on hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims." It goes on to say, "This process provided no opportunity for rebuttal or due process. They even refused to allow a senior attorney from my office to provide the facts."

Now, the articles of impeachment are House Resolution 2377, John. They have to go before the full house. A simple majority will move them to the Senate where they're, of course, would be the impeachment court would be taking place. There is no date for any of this set at this time. John.

BERMAN: No date yet, but things are moving pretty quickly. Rosa Flores, what a story down there. Thank you very much.

Rahel.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Now, to the City of Baltimore which is turning to a new strategy to try to protect these young people from violence. So, starting today, teens between the ages of 14 and 16 will have an 11:00 p.m. curfew on weekends. Kids ages 13 and under need to be in at 9:00 p.m. And new this year, series of activities to keep teens off the street, and police the city says, will not play a leading role in enforcing the curfew. The move comes after a recent uptick in violence impacting the city's young people. And Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott says, it is time to take steps to keep them safe.

The mayor joins me now. Mayor Brandon Scott, welcome to are the program. Good morning.

MAYOR BRANDON SCOTT (D-BALTIMORE, MD): Good morning, and thank you for having me.

SOLOMON: So, explain to us a bit more about how this curfew will work. And, I think, critically, who would be enforcing it?

SCOTT: Yes, I think it's helpful to start from the beginning. Baltimore has had a curfew ordinance in place for most of my lifetime. I actually as a council member a few years ago, almost 10 years ago, rewrote that curfew law. And this is about now -- how we're changing that approach. We know that unnecessary engagement of law enforcement has been something that is happening and we don't need that for our young people. And we've had some success here with our (INAUDIBLE) collaborative and other ways to deal with our young people to show how that can happen.

So now, we are calling in social workers. We are calling in our community partners. Our rec and parks, our school employees, and also peers. Young people who are above the age of curfew that will be working with to make sure that we are having the approach to get our young people into our youth connections in which our at two of our recreation centers there. We're going to be providing the supports for them and their families.

Law enforcement is not going to be leading on this because quite frankly they don't have to. And even though our city has seen a 14 percent reduction in homicides this year and 10 in nonfatal shootings, we are seeing far too many people and most importantly a spike in our young people. And we're going to do everything to save our young people, including enforcing curfew.

And that also goes on our summer program that we're going to have. Midnight basketball, pool parties, cookouts, any and everything that we can do. 7,000 young people will be employed by the City of Baltimore through our youth reach program.

SOLOMON: Mayor, I just want to be clear though because I heard you say that law enforcement will not be leading the effort. But how involved will law enforcement be? Period.

SCOTT: Period. So, this -- it's a very complicated thing but this is how this works. So, when law enforcement will not be transporting the young people, that will be done by our school system and school system employees, inside of a school system vehicle that will be branded about our summer and safe -- our safe summer things that we have going on here. When they get to our rec centers, however the two centers, that will be manned by folks from my office and other city agencies.

But we will have our Baltimore City school police on site to help with security, but also to make sure that we're able to access where these young people, their emergency contacts, and their folks that we need to have them picked up. But law enforcement will not be going out and pulling and pushing young people into the vans. So, all of these things that folks think, we've never done that in Baltimore, even when BPD was enforcing it. They never chased young people for curfew or anything like that.

This is something that Baltimore City has gotten right over the time. And now, we're starting to evolve --

SOLOMON: Mayor, let me jump in here -- SCOTT: -- that approach so that we're able to do it in our way.

SOLOMON: Unfortunately, we're running out of time, but this is of course an important issue. So, I want to just get your response on this. How is Baltimore sure that this will be effective? Study after study has shown that youth curfews are not effective in reducing crime. So, what has made your office believe that this strategy from Baltimore could be different?

SCOTT: Well, I guess that's the place you have to start, right? Because we never said this was about -- solely about reducing crime. Anybody that knows about violence in this city and in this country knows that there is no silver bullet. This is all about the completeness of that, right, and the complexity of that. But as someone who help run our youth connection centers all the time, I would disagree that interacting with a 10-year-old tells me that he knows his mother is a prostitute.

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And we're able to get him in program and planning after his mother is shot is an impact in violence here. I would disagree that helping a pregnant 16-year-old be able to stay in school and graduate and have those children and young men as young as six or seven getting off the street doesn't impact crime. This is about all of this, the totality of this, and also making sure that we're doing right by our young people.

SOLOMON: I think a lot of people would certainly want to see young people doing better and certainly benefiting from programs like this. So, Mayor Scott, good luck with the program. Thank you for being on with us today.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: Coming up for us, a fever has forced the pope to cancel all of his meeting today. We have the very latest from the Vatican for you.

And newly released FBI files reveal a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth back in the '80s while she was in the United States. We'll bring that to you, coming up.

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BOLDUAN: A plot to kill the queen has just been revealed in FBI files made public for the first time. The documents detail a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II back in 1983 ahead of a trip to the United States. More than a hundred pages were posted on the agency's online record site called "The Vault". And it included a tip about a man who wanted to harm the queen after he claimed that his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland. Now, the queen's trip happened amid the trouble. The violent period that divided Northern Ireland in part over allegiance to the United Kingdom. CNN's Scott McLean has more on this. He's joining us now. Scott, what do these files reveal about this plot to kill the queen?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kate. Well, first off, these papers were put out there in the public domain, some 40 years later as part of the FBI's library of documents that were put out to the public through freedom of information request. So, we have more than a hundred pages here to go through and all of the files seemed to be different.

But they really illustrate the vigilance of the FBI at this time in the '70s and '80s and '90s in responding to any potential threats no matter how potential the benign they were when it comes to people associated or sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army. Which at that time, in 1983, was in the midst of a three decade-long campaign to sniper attacks, of bombings, and other terror attacks all in an effort to try to get Northern Ireland reunited with the Republic of Ireland.

And so, one document, in particular, which seems to be addressed to the director of the FBI at the time, outlines this plot to kill Queen Elizabeth in 1993 when she visited San Francisco as part of a multi- city tour of the west coast of the United States. And the names are redacted so it's a little bit difficult to follow. But essentially, it says that an officer had gotten a tip from someone who spoke to someone else who was a patron at a well-known Republican bar and was sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army.

The tip alleged that this man had a daughter who was killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet, and that he planned to, during the queen's trip to San Francisco, try to kill her by dropping some item, it doesn't say what, off of the Golden Gate Bridge when her yacht passed underneath. It also outlines potential threats during a trip to Yosemite National Park, though it doesn't give any more detail.

Now, the document also outlines that at the time the sidewalks of the bridge were closed off to the public, or at least had been planned to be closed off to the public as a result. And these fears that the FBI had about threats to the royal family potentially are not all that unfounded considering that in 1979, the queen's cousin, Louis Mountbatten, was actually assassinated by a bomb planted in his fishing boat. And as we know, the IRA frequently targeted sites associated with the British Day. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Fascinating nonetheless to read this even some 40 years after the fact. Thanks for bringing it to us, Scott. Thank you.

Rahel.

SOLOMON: And still ahead, Pope Francis has canceled all of his events today due to a fever. The latest we're learning from the Vatican, still ahead.

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[10:50:00] SOLOMON: Welcome back. And happening now, the Vatican has canceled all meetings today for Pope Francis after he developed a fever. The health of the 86-year-old pontiff has been a concern since he was hospitalized in March for bronchitis.

CNN Vatican Analyst John Allen joins us now. And John, good morning. So, what more do we know about the pope's health condition right now?

JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Hi there, Rahel. Well, we know what you just said which is the Vatican has said that the pope is not taking any meetings today because he has a fever. Beyond that, the Vatican is trying to minimize the significance of all of this. The pope's top aide, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, just moments ago speaking to reporters said that, look, the pope just had a very busy day yesterday. He had eight different meetings, plus a big youth rally in the afternoon that went on a long time. He was just wiped out.

The Vatican also emphasizes the pope's upcoming public appointments in his -- already on his schedule, a mass on Sunday for the Catholic Feast of Pentecost, a meeting on Monday with the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, both are still confirmed. And so, they are trying to suggest this is a temporary setback for the pontiff and not yet another health scare. Rahel.

SOLOMON: But it does come, as we said, after that March hospitalization from -- for bronchitis. And so, how concerned, do you think, should Catholics be around the world? I mean, put this in context for us.

ALLEN: Well, you know, the irony is just today. A new interview with the pope by a Spanish language news outlet came out in which he said his health is actually much better. That his knee pain that he's been experiencing for some time, that has restricted him to a wheelchair or a cane, that that is improving. He's now able to walk on his own. And that, in general, his energy levels are up.

So, look, I think, the truth of it is that Pope Francis, himself, perceives that he is good to go.

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But, you know, when you are 86, when you have been -- had part of your colon removed, when you then have -- when you have had part of your lung removed, that -- you know, the lining (ph) line between good to go and not so great can be fairly thin. And that's the situation the pope is facing. Rahel.

SOLOMON: All relative. Well, here is for a speedy recovery. John Allen, thanks for being with us. Thank you.

And John Berman, to you.

BERMAN: Thanks so much, Rahel.

We have real-time information on your holiday travel. What you need to know to go anywhere today. And there are new details surrounding the death of a Navy SEAL hours after taking part in so-called "Hell Week".

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