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Trump Loses Another Attorney; Synagogue Shooter Found Guilty; Minneapolis Police Department Receives Scathing Review. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired June 16, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Guilty of all 63 charges. A jury reveals its verdict for the man who walked into a synagogue and shot and killed 11 people, including a 97-year-old great-grandmother, two brothers, and a husband and wife who were married in that same synagogue decades ago. We are live from the courthouse.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: racism, retaliation, excessive force and zero accountability. The Justice Department revealing a scathing review of the Minneapolis Police Department after a years-long investigation following the murder of George Floyd.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: The man responsible for the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history is now in the fight for his life.

The jury that just convicted the killer of these 11 people of capital crimes is now going to determine a 50-year-old Robert Bowers should get the death penalty. Bowers went on a shooting rampage inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018. His attack also left six people wounded, including four police officers who responded to the scene.

This is a trial that's pretty rare. It is just the second federal death penalty case under the Biden administration.

CNN's Danny Freeman has been covering this trial in Pittsburgh, which started more than two weeks ago.

Danny, the jurors in this case came to this conclusion pretty quickly.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna.

It really only took them about five hours to reach this conclusion, as you said guilty on all 63 federal charges, including those 22 capital offenses.

And just to illustrate exactly what some of those offenses are, the main ones are obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death. That's specifically for killing 11 Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue back in 2018 while they were in the middle of praying, of exercising their religious freedoms.

And then the other capital charges for those 11 victims was the use of, discharge of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence. Robert Bowers is also convicted of all of the hate crime charges that were brought against him as well.

There is relief in this month, but I actually want to bring you some color because we just got our producer Sarah Boxer out from actually inside the courtroom. She described that it was a very quiet and stoic moment as the verdicts were being read in that courtroom. And Bowers was sitting there wearing a blue-collared shirt, navy sweater, fairly emotionless as these verdicts came down.

But, Brianna, I just want to remind viewers what exactly has been going on over the past three weeks in this trial and just remind what really the horror was inside that synagogue four-and-a-half years ago.

We heard from one of the survivors, Carol Black, who described hiding in a closet in the basement of the Tree of Life Synagogue as she heard bullets upstairs and downstairs, and then she saw her friend Mel Wax die.

She said -- quote -- "He immediately went down on the ground on his back and was dying. He didn't say anything. He made a garbling kind of sounds. And then he made a grunt and then silence. His head was just inches away from my feet."

We also heard from another survivor, Dan Leger. He's a nurse. He testified that, when he and his friend Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz heard the gunshots initially, they looked at each other, because they were medical professionals. And they said: "Oh, no. We have to run towards these gunshots."

They were both shot. Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz was killed. Dan Leger was shot in the stomach. And he recounted that he stood still on a set of stairs praying, thinking that he was going to die. But he was rescued by first responders.

And I have got to say, Brianna, we have also seen a lot of images from this trial, new images, graphic images of the massacre inside that synagogue. A lot of those most graphic images were not released to the public. However, there were a number of images that were released to the public.

And they really tell its own story, including one of a prayer book. Prayer books like these are in synagogues all over the country, all over the world. And you can see this image of a bullet through it. And the rabbi of the Tree of Life said that he wanted to preserve that so that there was a preservation of the witness to the horror of that day.

Now, the next step is the death penalty phase. The jury is called back on June 26 -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Danny, thank you. We will be looking to see. Obviously, this is not over.

I want to bring in Dave Aronberg now. He is the state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida.

The defense here presenting no witnesses, the jury deliberating for just five hours before finding Robert Bowers guilty here, on all charges.

[13:05:05]

I know you have been following this very closely. Is this what you expected?

DAVE ARONBERG, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA, STATE ATTORNEY: It was, Brianna.

The defense did not contest that he was the one who committed this heinous act. They were just saying that he was not motivated by prejudice; he was motivated by a dislike of immigrants and thought the people inside the synagogue were helping immigrants. But that made no sense, because he didn't go to an immigration agency.

The people inside were worshiping on a Saturday. They were not actively helping migrants. They were just trying to express their religious beliefs. And they were massacred because of their religious beliefs. They were massacred because they were Jewish. There's no other way around it.

This guy deserves what he gets, and, hopefully, he will get the ultimate penalty.

KEILAR: So, what do -- as we see this revisited later in the month, what do federal prosecutors have to prove to the jury in order to sentence Bowers to death?

ARONBERG: There's a list of aggravators and mitigators.

And prosecutors have to convince the jury unanimously that the aggravators outweigh the mitigators. And then you could have a Nikolas Cruz situation like they had in Florida, where, even if the aggravators outweigh the mitigators, it just takes one juror to say, no, I don't want him to die.

And so it is very difficult. In fact, at the federal level, there are only about 45 people on death row. It's rare at the federal level to get the death penalty. But one reason why the feds brought this case is because I think he has a better chance of getting the death penalty in federal court than in state court.

They have -- there has not been an execution in Pennsylvania since 1999. So the feds, I think, have a better chance at it. And amongst the aggravating factors, you have to prove that this crime was heinous and cruel and committed against vulnerable people, like the seniors who were massacred that day.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly was heinous and cruel. We will see if it stands the legal test of that.

Dave, appreciate your expertise in this -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: We want to turn now to Minneapolis, because, three years after George Floyd was murdered by former police officer Derek Chauvin, the Justice Department has concluded its probe into the MPD, and its findings are damning, Attorney General Merrick Garland citing systemic problems that led to Floyd's death.

He says that Minneapolis police routinely violated the civil rights of those they were supposed to protect and serve.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We found that MPD and the city of Minneapolis engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against black and Native American people in enforcement activities, violating the rights of people engaged in protected speech, and discriminating against people with behavioral disabilities and responding to them -- when responding to them in crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's go to Minneapolis now with CNN's Adrienne Broaddus.

Adrienne, this two-year-plus investigation unveiling some really disturbing details.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the Department of Justice, Boris, really slammed the Minneapolis Police Department and the city.

But for community leaders here, they were not surprised by the findings of this report, many of them saying this is a reflection of what they have been speaking out against for decades. The report talks about the discrimination in traffic stops when it comes to Native Americans and black people.

According to this report, Native Americans and blacks are pulled over six times more than their white counterparts. And U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was really clear on what this report found. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARLAND: MPD officers discharged firearms at people without assessing whether the person presents any threat, let alone a threat that would justify deadly force.

We also found that MPD officers routinely disregard the safety of people in their custody. Our review found numerous incidents in which MPD officers responded to a person's statement that they could not breathe with a version of: "You can breathe. You're talking right now."

We also found that MPD officers failed to intervene to prevent unreasonable use of force by other officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: And he also announced that the city, the police department is also working toward what's called a consent decree.

Specifically, that means the department will really be watched by an outsider. They're still negotiating that. But it's going to require specific changes to the department.

And for those of you who may be wondering how they came to this conclusion, during this two-year investigation, the Department of Justice looked at body-worn camera from police officers. They also interviewed officers on the force, as well as people in the community. They really wanted to hear from those people.

[13:10:15]

And those folks shared their experiences, along with police reports and complaints, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Adrienne Broaddus reporting from Minneapolis, thank you so much for bringing us up to date on that.

We want to expand this conversation now with former NYPD Lieutenant Darrin Porcher.

Darrin, thank you so much for being with us this afternoon.

First, what was your reaction to the details in this report?

DARRIN PORCHER, FORMER NEW YORK POLICE LIEUTENANT: Well, thanks for having me on, Boris.

I look to the contrast in comparison to what happened in Ferguson years ago in connection with the Michael Brown shooting, as we look through the lens of what happened in Minneapolis. It wasn't a one -- it wasn't a one-shot incident. This was a combustible period that occurred over the course of time, whereas you had these flagrant traffic stops, these excessive use of force that occurred throughout the tenure of the prior chief and the chief before that.

And, that being said, it was -- it went unfixed. It went unchecked. And so when we had the death, this horrific murder that occurred that we all saw on a national level, it begged the question of what was done to allow this to get to that point.

We -- and so now here we lie. But a consent decree is not going to be the one-fix solution, because the consent decree only introduces a series of changes, but it has no teeth in the mechanism to fulfill that obligation.

SANCHEZ: So what should then happen next to ensure accountability, if the consent decree is not enough?

PORCHER: Well, it's -- I want to -- unfortunately, it's a glacial process. You need to hire the right policymakers, such as the chief of police.

You need to have the right elected officials to ensure that there's a level of oversight over the department. And the oversight can come from a mayor's commission that was -- such as what we have in New York City that oversees what the department does. I'm not saying that the NYPD is a quintessential police department, but it's a component in the mechanism of oversight.

That oversight is going to be what changes things. In addition to that, you need a civilian commission that can contribute to what the findings that the Oversight Committee sees. That civilian commission can oftentimes present information that will work, because it's the citizens in a democratic society that set forth the change in policing.

SANCHEZ: Yes, so, essentially, a check on what the police department is doing.

And I'm wondering, internally, what you would say to officers that are in that department now hearing these details coming from the federal government and the attorney general.

PORCHER: Internally, we need to have a revolution from the ground up.

The foot soldier, meaning the officers that are hired, need to understand what the dynamic of policing would be. So when we look at the George Floyd case, for example, we had newly hired officers that contributed to this misconduct. The tone was clearly not set within that department.

And we need to start from the police academy and setting forth the tone and the agenda of quintessential policing in that department. And then it may be a complete and total overhaul of the executive branch of that police department.

That, I think, is a very possible conclusion. But we need to start with the foot soldiers that are coming out of the police academy, in terms of training them accordingly.

SANCHEZ: Darrin Porcher, we have to leave the conversation there. But we very much appreciate your perspective.

PORCHER: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Irreconcilable differences. One of former President Trump's lawyers calls it quits on another case, as the legal problems pile up for the GOP front-runner. What the lawyer is saying about this breakup.

Plus: delayed by a spy balloon. But now the high-stakes meeting is back on, Secretary of State Tony Blinken heading to China amid epic tensions between these superpowers. What to expect ahead.

And it could throw a huge wrench into the U.S. economy at a time of surprise strength, members of the Teamsters Union voting to approve a huge strike at UPS. We will have details ahead when CNN NEWS CENTRAL returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:45]

KEILAR: Today, Jim Trusty, the attorney for former President Donald Trump who recently resigned after Trump's federal indictment was unsealed, just announced he's withdrawing from another Trump case, the former president's lawsuit against our network, CNN.

Trusty cited irreconcilable differences with Trump as the reason for his resignation. In the meantime, we are learning two of Trump's current lawyers have contacted the Justice Department to get security clearances. Those are requirements for them to access evidence in his federal case. Much of the evidence is classified.

The judge overseeing that case, Aileen Cannon, told Trump's legal team they had to get in touch with the DOJ by today. And this comes as another federal judge just set an early 2024 trial date for E. Jean Carroll's original defamation case against Trump. This one is separate from the one that we saw last month, where a jury awarded Carroll $5 million after finding Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll.

With us now, we have seen CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes. We have CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny as well.

Kristen, I want to start with you, because, if Carroll's defamation case goes to trial in January of 2024, I mean, you see where this goes with the timeline, right? It's going to take place right in the thick of presidential primary season.

[13:20:05]

And he's also facing a lot of other legal hurdles at the exact same time.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's actually four trials that we know of that have been scheduled.

And keep in mind, this last arraignment, that hasn't even been scheduled, in terms of a trial. So there's four that we know of, and all of them are coming at a time that is incredibly critical for this political race.

And this is why we continue to report that there really cannot be a real separation of the Trump legal operation and the Trump political operation. So let's look at the trials that we know of, one being in October of 2023. That's the first one. This is the Trump company civil fraud suit. This was brought by the New York attorney general.

Then, January 15, the E. Jean Carroll trial, January 29, a federal class action suit that accuses Trump and his company of promoting a pyramid scheme, and then March 25, 2024, a trial in that alleged hush money scheme, again, all of these being critical moments. Now, the one thing to note is that we don't know which of these Trump

will have to appear at. But, again, it goes to show you that these things cannot be separated. And they -- as we reported earlier this week, that is part of the Trump playbook. They want to be running on his legal issues.

KEILAR: This is tricky.

I mean, if I'm a presidential candidate, I don't want to be dealing with filing my taxes. I'm going to outsource everything that I can during this season.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: But, Jeff, this just speaks to all of this hanging over this political race. And let's take a look at where Republican voters are on this, because they aren't all behind Donald Trump.

A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that 38 percent of Republicans do view the charges against Trump as serious.

ZELENY: Now, that is interesting, when you look at that you say that 50 percent say it's not serious.

So you think, OK, an almost majority of Republicans say it's not, but 38 percent saying it's serious, that essentially shows you what the lane is for voters perhaps looking for something else, perhaps tired of the drama. We hear this anecdotally as we talk to voters on the campaign trail all the time, so many Republicans who voted for Trump, they liked his policies, but are just exhausted by it all.

And you have to wonder. All these trials that Kristen was talking about, as they add up, and there could be more with the Georgia case, with the possibility of a case here, is that 38 percent who are concerned about this, is that going to increase or not?

So that offers a window for other potential Republican candidates. But the pollsters and strategists I have been talking to you this week, this is just still settling into public opinion. The indictment is just still -- it's a snapshot in time. And that's not likely to decrease here.

So I think we have to put a pause on our reliance on polls on this and just kind of give a sense. But this divide in the Republican Party is significant.

KEILAR: That's a really good point.

I also just want to be clear, I'm not saying they shouldn't file their taxes. They should.

ZELENY: Right. Exactly.

KEILAR: The issue is, do they take care of it personally, or outsource it to someone else?

OK, so that's this federal indictment. He's also using it to raise money, right, Jeff? So he does use it as an advantage.

ZELENY: Sure.

KEILAR: The point is, it's a double-edged sword.

ZELENY: Without question.

And there's so many things you have to do as a candidate, particularly going into Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina. There are dates on the calendar. So he will have to be potentially in two places at one time, or he will delay these. But I think it is a challenge, perhaps, more than anything, mentally

How do you keep track and sort of separate all this? So I think we just have to wait and see. But one thing is probably clear. Republican voters will have a say on this long before any jurors do.

KEILAR: How do people around him feel about that, having the energy and the bandwidth to manage these things?

HOLMES: I mean, I think there's a lot of compartmentalization.

I think that they -- the tone I saw in Bedminster was very different than tone I saw at Mar-a-Lago after that first arraignment in New York. In Bedminster, they seemed a little bit more confident. And when I asked them about that, they said it was because they felt like they were getting the hang of this playbook of how to navigate both of them.

But, again, now we're just talking about two indictments. There's still, as Jeff said, looming in Georgia, the January 6 investigation, the federal investigation. So, whether or not they can keep up that confidence, it's just -- this is a lot, and it's never been done before.

KEILAR: No, certainly not. Unprecedented.

Kristen, Jeff, thank you so much.

ZELENY: Sure.

KEILAR: Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead: A tornado slams a Texas town, killing at least three people and leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. CNN is going to take you to the scene.

And the data of millions of Americans are said to have been compromised after a global cyberattack. We're going to tell you who was impacted and what we're learning about the hackers behind it.

That's next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:29:21]

SANCHEZ: More than 50 million people right now are under the threat of severe weather a day after one Texas town was torn apart by a sudden and powerful tornado, mobile homes turned into matchsticks, dumpsters flying and trucks tossed like toys in Perryton, where three people were killed and officials say some 50 to 100 more were injured.

One person there still remains missing this hour. Watch this. This video taken in Perryton shows just how quickly this tornado formed, one of seven reports across three states of tornadoes yesterday.