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Search for Missing Sub; Tim Taylor is Interviewed about the Missing Sub; Trump Documents Case; Suspicious Letters Sent to Kansas Legislatures; Hunter Biden Agrees to Plead Guilty. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired June 20, 2023 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:37]
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Time is against us. That is the word from a friend and colleague of the pilot of the missing dive vessel. There are five people on board with a limited supply of oxygen. And we have the very latest on where the search is focused today.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He was warned that anything he says now could be used against him in court. So, what does he do? Donald Trump gives an interview filled with new claims about why he refused to give back sensitive documents. The legal hole he might be digging.
BOLDUAN: And Tropical Storm Bret picking up strength. It may become the first hurricane of the season. We'll tell where you it's headed.
This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
The search operation out in the Atlantic continues this morning. A research dive vessel that lost communications Sunday has still not been found. And the obvious urgent concern is that the oxygen supply on board is dwindling by the minute, truly. Officials say the sub lost contact with the support ship about an hour and 45 minutes into its decent Sunday. They say the vessel has enough oxygen to last about three to four days.
The vessel is about the size of a minivan is what we're learning and is carrying a pilot, four passengers that are also called mission specialists. They were on an eight-day journey led by OceanGate Expeditions to visit and view the wreckage of the Titanic at the bottom of the north Atlantic Ocean. Several agencies now, including the U.S. Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force are involved in the search. The search covers a huge area, 900 miles east of Cape Cod.
And one of the biggest challenges is the depth that we are talking about here. The Titanic wreckage sits at nearly 13,000 feet below the surface. The deepest underwater rescue ever recorded was at just at over 1,500 feet deep. And that was back in 1973.
CNN's Jason Carroll is in Boston following all of this.
Jason, what does the search operation looks like this morning?
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the depth is just one of the challenges that you sort of outlined there, Kate. There are a number of challenges that search and rescue teams are going to be facing as they get this effort underway.
First, let's talk about the area that they're searching. It's a vast area. It's a remote area. We're talking about an area about the size of Connecticut, about 5,000 square miles across. And what search and rescue teams have done is not only searching by air, but they've dropped sonar buoys below the surface to see if they can try to hear any sort of sound from the missing submersible.
Of course, at this point, time is of the essence. At last count there was about 54 to 80 hours of oxygen left on the submersible. There is a massive effort underway from a number of different officials here. You've got the U.S. Coast Guard here in Boston that's heading up the effort. You've got the U.S. Navy. You've got the Canadian Coast Guard, as well as the Canadian Armed Forces.
Just a short while ago, the head of the U.S. Coast Guard here in Boston spoke to CNN about the search effort and about how now today they're able to search below the surface of the water.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAR ADM. JOHN MAUGER, OVERSEEING SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATION: A lot of the search to date has been primarily focused on the surface of the water. And our aircraft flew patterns in combination with Canadian aircraft and New York Air National Guard aircraft, flew patterns that -- roughly about the size of the state of Connecticut. But today we now have underwater search capability on scene. And so we're going to be using that to see if we can locate the submersible in the water.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: So, that will certainly help with the search effort again that's underway. As for those who were on board the Titan, that's the name of the submersible, you have Hamish Harding, that British billionaire who was also on board Blue Origin's spaceflight back in 2022. You have the Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood and his son who was onboard, and also within the past hour or so CNN has confirmed that the French nationalist, the submersible pilot, Paul-Henry Nargeolet also on board.
[09:05:06]
Their families and colleagues praying for their safe return.
Kate.
BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And the search back at it this morning.
Jason, thank you so much.
John.
BERMAN: All right, this particular submersible was designed by an American company called OceanGate. It was first deployed in 2018. It can carry five people down to a depth of about 13,000 feet. That's 2.4 miles.
I want to give you a sense of just how deep that is. The word record for scuba diving is to a depth of 1,000 feet, 3,200 feet down light no longer seen. At 5,200 feet, most animals can no longer survive. Sperm whales can dive deeper than any other mammal. Even they only get to about 10,000 feet. The average depth of the ocean is about 12,000 feet. And the Titanic is still lower than that. The record settled at 12,450 feet, about 2.4 miles below the surface.
The subs weighs about 23,000 pounds and is made out of carbon fiber and titanium. It is small and uncomfortable. Not a lot of space for five people for hours at a time. It can carry up to 96 hours of oxygen. Those who have previously made the trip say the hatch is sealed from the outside with 17 bolts. There is no other way out. There is also no GPS on board. That means the submersible depends on those on the surface to guide them.
A CBS crew took a trip on the Titan last year and was surprised by some of the materials used onboard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And yet I couldn't help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised.
STOCKTON RUSH, CEO, OCEANGATE: We can use these off-the-shelf components.
I got these from Camper World.
We run the whole thing with this game control.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on!
It seems like this submersible has some elements of MacGyvery (ph) jerry-rignous (ph). I mean you're putting construction pipes as ballasts.
RUSH: I don't know if I'd use that description of it, but there's certain things that you want to be buttoned down. So, the pressure vessel is not MacGyver-ed at all because that's where we work with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail. Your thrust can go, your lights can go, you're still going to be safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: OceanGate says they use off-the-shelf materials to simplify construction and easily replace parts.
With me now is ocean explorer Tim Taylor. He is the CEO of Tiburon Subsea.
Tim, great to see you again.
One of the things that's interesting here, it's not like a plane that crashes in the sea, you don't know where it went. They know where the Titanic is. They know roughly where this sub was operating when it lost contact. So why is it so hard to find now?
TIM TAYLOR, OCEAN EXPLORER AND CEO, TIBURON SUBSEA: Well, I'm asking a lot of questions about myself. You mitigate risks when we work with underwater vehicles. All of our vehicles have pingers on them like black box pingers so that you can locate acoustically. I am - I am asking myself why that's not the case. There's a lot of - they're -- first of all, we need to focus on the rescue attempts, whatever's out there now. Let's hope that they find these people and they're still alive and they can - they can bring them to the surface. But questioning why there wasn't an ROV on that vessel to be able to start looking two days ago is another question I have. I don't understand some of the risk mitigation that I see from shore. Again, that's a different perspective. But those are questions I have.
BERMAN: So, if they are still alive, and let's hope, and if they are still conscious, is there anything they can do on board right now to help themselves get saved?
TAYLOR: I think that conserving resources, obviously, oxygen, is the big thing. If they are alive in there, they're going to be at almost freezing temperatures, assuming they lost all their power, that's why they can't communicate. It's going to be dark, cold and oxygen is their most precious resource. So, consuming that, staying calm, sleeping.
There's been talk about them potentially banging on the hull to make a noise so these acoustic pingers can hear them. So that can be an effort made as, you know, teamwork to do - rotate in shifts to bang on the - on the hull so outside people can hear them.
Again, just should have a pinger on this, but, you know, that would - that would sufficed to do almost similar, and would work very much a similar way.
BERMAN: So, look, we heard from officials that they've been searching on the surface, an area about the size of Connecticut. Now they're moving the search under the water itself. In a perfect world, how would they do that? What would they be using?
TAYLOR: As far as underwater?
[09:10:00]
BERMAN: Yes.
TAYLOR: Yes. So -- well, it -- underwater, they have to locate them. And time is of the essence. So whatever assets they have on location, they should deploy. If they have - if they have a sonar -- in our - in our instance, when we work, we specialize in autonomous underwater vehicles. So, we would launch an autonomous vehicle. But the data does not -- you don't know what the autonomous vehicle has seen until it surfaces. So I would do a quick one or two, three-hour search of the area where they were last known and send that vehicle to the top and download that data as fast as we could to try to locate them.
And an ROV, which is a Remote Operated Vehicle, which I understand just arrived onsite, is a tethered vehicle that runs from the surface ship. They can go down and then assess the situation, whether they're alive, whether they've had a catastrophic failure, if they were stuck in the shipwreck. And if they are, then they can -- they can devise a plan onsite to get them out of that entanglement or hook the vehicle to them and help thrust them out and bring them to the top the best they can.
ROVs aren't meant to tractor gear around, so there would have to be some type of an assist to get it - get it floating on its own, or at least moving on its own, and kind of drag it. It is a neutrally buoyant system.
BERMAN: Well, you bring up a great point.
TAYLOR: So, there's a - there's a lot of - a lot -
BERMAN: Tim, how does that work?
TAYLOR: Yes.
BERMAN: I mean say they do find it.
TAYLOR: Yes.
BERMAN: Say it is on the bottom of the ocean. How can they get it up?
TAYLOR: Well, an ROV is usually equipped with manipulate arms. They are used in off shore oil and gas and deep water, you know, construction and things of that nature. So they're equipped to kind of handle equipment. The sub is neutrally buoyant. It has a lot of mass. It's big and heavy. And -- but it - but it's not like you're lifting it off the bottom. It should be close to neutrally buoyant. So, being able to move it, thruster it, tractor it around, tug it round like a tugboat on the surface and get it ascending on its own. If they've dropped weights. I mean there's a lot of - there's a lot of other things that can be factors here. If they've dropped the weights and they're stuck in the wreck, then that's another scenario. If they - if they've - if they've imploded, then it's a recovery and studying what happened so they can - they can have answers for the families and the people that (INAUDIBLE).
BERMAN: Well, look, nothing about this is easy. Tim Taylor, thanks for helping us understand the challenge very much ahead.
TAYLOR: No problem.
BERMAN: Kate.
BOLDUAN: Yes, absolutely.
So, we're also tracking Donald Trump. And Donald Trump taking questions. The former president is adamant right now in an interview with Fox News that he did nothing wrong in how he handled classified documents after leaving the White House. In the new sit-down with Bret Baier, Trump offered up this defense for why he kept classified information and why he says it as found in such unsecure locations, like a bathroom, at his club.
Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've got a lot of things in there. I will go through the boxes. I have to go through those boxes. I take out personal things. As far as the levels and all, everything was declassified because I had the right to declassify.
In all fairness -
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS HOST: Why not just hand them over then?
TRUMP: Because I had boxes. I want to go through the boxes and get all of my personal things out. I don't want to hand that over to NARA yet. And I was very busy, as you've sort of seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Last week Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 charges related to this.
And also this just in, a federal judge has scheduled an initial criminal trial date for Donald Trump related to the classified documents case to begin during the two-week period that begins August 14th.
Let me bring in CNN's senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig on this.
Let's talk about - there's a lot in this interview I want to ask you about, but first this trial date, this initial trial date set. What do you - what do you see in this?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So this is in all likelihood a placeholder. It's just a date that they put on the calendar to mark it off. And the reason that they said on this date is because under the federal rules a defendant has a right - a right to a speedy trial within 70 days of the first court appearance. So, if you go 70 days from last week, it lands within this period.
Now, the prosecutor, Jack Smith, has already said we're ready. We're ready to go. That's what prosecutors always say.
BOLDUAN: Right.
HONIG: The judge is saying in this order, I'm ready to go. But the x factor here is going to be the defense, Donald Trump. If he says I want my trial within 70 day, then we could well see a trial at the end of this summer. But that is very unlikely. He'll say I need more time to prep. I need more time to bring motions and try to drag this out. BOLDUAN: And that's a - and that, you have to say, is probably
understandable, and that's why you're calling it a placeholder. They've got to get something on the books. Everyone needs a deadline, if you will. And, obviously, it's necessary for a defendant to be able to have a trial date.
HONIG: Yes.
BOLDUAN: But -
HONIG: Trump has substantial motions to bring here.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
HONIG: And they're not sort of one-week motions.
And the other thing is, the judge is signaling here that she means business and that she understands this is high priority.
[09:15:01]
BOLDUAN: Yes.
HONIG: And that she intends to move this as quickly as possible.
BOLDUAN: Let's now talk about this - this interview that we just played a piece of it that Donald Trump did overnight with Bret Baier.
HONIG: Yes.
BOLDUAN: First -- before we get to what he said, just the idea that anyone, someone, anyone sits down for a lengthy interview to face questions when they are face -- about the 37 federal criminal charges that they are facing. We know every - every attorney worth their salt will say it's ill-advised. But what do you do with this? As a prosecutor, you're looking for what in this?
HONIG: Yes, so, any statement that Donald Trump has made publicly before or after his arrest is fair game.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
HONIG: You can always admit a defendant's own statement against them in evidence. The jury can see this. If I'm a prosecutor, I love this, because it gives me some the basic building blocks I need to make the case. OK, he had the documents. He knew about it. That's not always a given. Here he admits he knew about it. He went through them. The fact that he admits he went through them by hand, that's one of the allegations in the indictment. He admits that too. And his -
BOLDUAN: And that he wasn't ready to give them back, right?
HONIG: Right. I mean that whole defense to me is easily pierced. You say two and a half years -- first of all, you don't get to do this at all as president. That's not what the Presidential Records Act says. Second of all, you had these documents from the moment you left office two and a half years ago. Third of all, there's a subpoena in the middle there where you and your team represented, we've given you everything back.
BOLDUAN: What do you think of what he's presenting now, the bit we played, which is him saying that the reason he didn't return the documents, one of the reasons is, is that he was very busy at the time is what he said. Is that something that could work in court?
HONIG: No, I don't think so.
BOLDUAN: OK.
HONIG: I mean I think what Trump - one thing that he is perhaps trying to do with these appearances is communicate with the potential jury pool. Let's remember, he's popular politically in Florida where this jury is going to be drawn from. I think it stands to reason some of the potential jurors are seeing these comments.
Legally that defense goes absolutely nowhere. You don't have the right as a former president to leisurely go through the documents, decide what you will and won't return, particularly when there's been a subpoena.
But I do wonder if there's maybe some method to the madness here and he's trying to send messages and community with potential jurors.
BOLDUAN: I want to play just one other bit. When Donald Trump -- something else that he said. It's when he was asked about the recording that is - as described in the indictment that we've talked so much about, about this meeting - the recording of the meeting in Bedminster where he allegedly held up sensitive documents with war plans relating to Iran.
HONIG: Right.
BOLDUAN: Let me play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not. But that was not a document. I didn't have any document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: What do you do with this?
HONIG: So, in a sense, it doesn't matter whether he actually had a classified document that he held up at Bedminster and showed to those writers because the charge is not disseminating or distributing information. The charge is unlawful retention. Holding on to information. And the indictment actually does not allege specifically that he had any such document there. We have reporting DOJ actually doesn't have the document.
The indictment focuses on 31 specific documents that are identified in the indictment, says these are the ones that he's being charged for.
But that said, if, in fact, there is no document, if he was sort of exaggerating or puffing, that may help him argue to a jury, well, I didn't do anything with these documents. It's not a defense but may help with the overall atmospherics.
BOLDUAN: All right. That's - there where we are for the moment.
Thank you, Elie. Thank you so much.
HONIG: All right.
BOLDUAN: John.
BERMAN: Early and dangerous. Tropical Storm Bret could soon reach hurricane status as it inches closer to the United States. Where this rare spring storm could make landfall.
Her husband was impeached, and she gets to vote on whether he is removed from office. The Texas state senator breaks her silence on what she plans to do in this historic trial.
And a new health concern for adults who take an aspirin a day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:23:02]
BOLDUAN: The FBI and authorities in Kansas are investigating a slew of suspicious letters sent to legislators and public officials across the state. We're talking about 100 letters that were received. And the letters contained some type of white powder, as we've been reporting out.
CNN's Rosa Flores has the very latest on this and she joins us now.
Rosa, the preliminary investigation, if you will, the preliminary tests on this powder suggest that it is not a biological agent, but there are still so many questions surrounding all of this. And you spoke to a lawmaker who received one of these letters. What did they tell you?
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I talked to Representative Tory Marie Blew. And she's a Republican. And she says that the GOP-led legislature in Kansas has recently voted to override multiple vetoes by the Democratic governor. Now, she says that this has been very controversial. It, of course, has made news. But she zeros into one of the specific bills. The bill regarding transgender female athletes. And the reason she does that, she says, is because there is a clue, a link, on the envelope that she received. And I believe I need to wrap it back to you, Kate.
BOLDUAN: Rosa, I'm going to jump in really quick. Sorry to interrupt. We have some breaking news coming in.
John, let me get over to you.
BERMAN: All right, Kate, thanks so much.
The breaking news is this, a major development in the federal investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
Let's get right to Kara Scannell for details on this.
Kara, I understand there is a plea agreement. What have you learned?
KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, this five-year long investigation now coming to a head. We have learned from new court filings at the U.S. district court here in Wilmington, Delaware, that Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to multiple criminal charges.
Now, I'm going to walk you through this.
One of these charges involves -- these are two counts of failing to file tax returns in a timely fashion.
[09:25:00]
Those are misdemeanors. He's also going to plead guilty to a charge of a firearm offense. This is the possession of a firearm while you are addicted to a controlled substance.
Now, the firearm offense is going to be diverted. And what that means is that if he meets certain conditions, that charge will go away. This will be over a set period of time. Otherwise, it's the tax misdemeanor charges that he has been charged with.
Now, this is a plea deal that he has reached with the U.S. attorney's office here. That U.S. attorney, David Weiss, was a Trump appointee and someone that Joe Biden, the president, did not replace. And one of the reasons why he didn't replace him was because of this investigation. They wanted to avoid any appearance of political interference.
Now, we are seeing more court filings will be hitting the dockets. So, we should learn a little bit more information about this.
But this certainly does resolve a long-running investigation. And remember, this investigation had included allegation where they were looking into potential money laundering offenses, potential foreign lobbying offenses. And it had really narrowed over the past years as me and my colleagues have been reporting to these issues of tax evasion or, in this case it was the untimely filing of tax - of paying the taxes and also looking a potential gun related charge.
Now, we also reported that back in April they began negotiations between Biden's legal team and the Justice Department to try to wrap this up and resolve this. So here now there is a deal where the former president - the president's son will plead guilty to these tax-related charges. You know, it is a moment here to conclude -- we believe it will
conclude this criminal investigation, but certainly it is not going to go away. There are a lot of political dynamics to this. We have House Republicans looking into the Biden family business. They have also been focused on the Department of Justice's handling of the investigation. There's a supervisory special agent of the IRS who has come forward who has alleged that he believes there was some political interference in this investigation and the attorney general, Merrick Garland, has said that he hasn't. He is leaving this to the U.S. attorney's office to resolve.
You know, it also can't help be noted that this comes one week after former President Trump was arraigned on 37 counts of the federal charges related to his handling of classified documents.
Now, we do expect that Hunter Biden will be appearing in court at some point in the future. The judge will set a date where he will come into the courthouse and enter these guilty pleas. So, that date has not been set. We'll wait to see what the judge says on that.
But certainly a big development here in a long-running investigation, but one that will not go away from the public sphere as President Biden makes a run for re-election.
John.
BERMAN: All right, Kara Scannell, in Delaware.
The news, Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges in a diversion of a gun related charge that had to do with filling out forms, Kate.
BOLDUAN: So, let's stick with this. Kar is working her sources. She's sticking by.
Let's get over to Evan Perez as well. Evan has been following this.
And, Evan, this is -- how long has this been going on? A five-year long investigation. How did we get - how did we get to this?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, this has been an investigation that has gone on through three -- three attorneys general here at the Justice Department. Jeff Sessions was the attorney general when this investigation first started. And as Kara just covered there, just a minute ago, you know, there are aspects of this investigation that have looked into Hunter Biden's financial dealings in Ukraine. If you remember, he was paying -- getting paid millions of dollars as a member of a board of this Ukraine energy company called Burisma. And that has - was something that the FBI looked into for many, many years.
We also know that he was getting paid, again, millions of dollars, working for a -- with a Chinese company as well. Again, something that the FBI and the IRS was looking into, looking into whether he was using shell companies to hide money, to money launder. These are all things that they spent years looking into. And in the end, as Kara pointed out, last year it was clear that this - this investigation had narrowed to these tax issues.
One of the things that Hunter Biden and his lawyers have argued is that he paid the back taxes some time ago, so this investigation should have gone away. It did not. The political dynamics of this, as Kara pointed out as well, cannot be understated. The Republicans are not going to let this go. We know from the House that they are doing an investigation, not only of what they believe are still some unanswered questions about those financial dealings that Hunter Biden had, other members of the family had, overseas, but also just how the Justice Department handled this investigation.
We -- I remember talking to you guys last year, last summer, when we expected that this investigation was going to get wrapped up. We expected that, certainly, before the campaign season there might be some movement on unsealing these charges.
[09:30:04]
And, of course, that did not happen.
So, now we finally have some conclusion, at least for this
