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Sounds Heard As the Search Continues for the Missing Sub; Military Moving Assets to Help in Missing Sub Search; Durham Testifies Publicly on The Hill; ProPublica Story on Alito; South under Excessive Heat; California Teaming up to Stop Theft. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 21, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:29]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are expecting an update from the Coast Guard on the search for the missing OceanGate sub. Officials reported that the underwater noises or banging picked up during their search so far have not yielded any results yet.

CNN's Paula Newton is tracking this.

And, Paula, obviously officials are trying to keep their hopes up, but what signs have they seen so far?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so hopeful that we've heard these noises, that they've heard these noises. But also, as you point out, totally unnerving. And the reason is that even if they locate this submersible, it is going to be very difficult to actually bring them to the surface.

Let me tell you what's going on now. The U.S. Coast Guard, which is the lead on this, just told us in the last few minutes that Canadian ship, another one, the John Cabot, is headed to the area, and they're going to use what they're calling side scanning sonar. What does this do? Simply put, it is using sounds that it detects on the sea bed to actually map it. By mapping those acoustic sounds, they may be able to better pinpoint the location of this submersible.

John, even if they find it, what they've done now, and what they've been doing for the last 48 hours, is pre-positioning, both equipment and expertise that is already there or headed there, and that means more submersibles that can go deep into the deep sea and actually continue to search or, in the best case scenario, they find the submersible and will begin thinking about how to raise it to the surface.

Crucial here is everyone is watching the clock. I mean, look, they have about a day's worth left of oxygen. I wouldn't ever be specific about that. I mean experts tell me that because of the expertise on this submersible, they might be able to use that oxygen for much longer.

John.

BERMAN: What about the weather? How is that affecting things?

NEWTON: You know, John, I've been out in these waters. The weather can turn very dramatically. The good news is here, the weather looks good and it looks good for the next little while, at least the next 24 to 48 hours.

This is really good news for all the crews out there. You know, in the beginning of this search, when they were searching the surface water, they had some fog. Doesn't seem to be apparent right now. And let's keep in mind, everyone has said how remote this area is and how challenging it is. So, good news that the weather is cooperating.

BERMAN: Well, at least they have that on their side.

Paula Newton, thanks so much for that.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, John.

If officials are able to locate the missing sub, they will then be tasked with the highly complex mission to recover the craft and the five people on board. There are very few assets in the world that can reach more than 12,000 feet below sea level, where the Titanic lies. And even those that can, they can only travel about 1,000 feet per hour, which means it could take 12 hours to reach the Titanic, if it is at the bottom, that submersible.

Let's take a look at those machines which are called remotely operated vehicles or ROVs. This is one of them that we know has been deployed to that search site. ROVs are about the size of a cargo van and they're tethered to a surface ship with a 2 inch thick cable which provides power and communication.

Now, U.S. military ROVs have electric motors and cameras but would not have the capacity to actually be able to lift that submersible. That is where this piece of technology could come in. Experts have suggested an ROV could attach a cable to what's called the Fly Away Deep Ocean Salvage System, or FADOSS. It has the ability to lift loads up to 60,000 pounds and could potentially haul the submersible to the surface. But, of course, they have to find it first. And that is where the trick is.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely.

The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, the Canadian coast guard, they have been on this search and rescue mission since Sunday. Now the U.S. military is offering up additional assets to assist in what is clearly becoming a massive effort.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is tracking this. She joins us now.

Natasha, how is the U.S. military helping out now? NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Kate, so a

number of different military branches have been invoked to search for this vessel, including the Navy, the New York Air National Guard and Transportation Command. And as Sara just mentioned, the Navy has provided this deep submersible object, essentially, a roving object, that can lift things off of the sea floor very deep inside the ocean that weigh up to 60,000 pounds.

[09:35:06]

It is called the Fly Away Deep Ocean Salvage System. And that is going to be very key, of course, if they do actually recover this submarine and if they can ultimately try to bring it to the surface. That is going to be very instrumental in that. But, of course, they are still trying to figure out whether that's even possible and where this vessel even is.

So, the Navy has also been in touch with the Coast Guard about these banging sounds. And actually we just heard from a senior Coast Guard official earlier this morning who said that they have enlisted some Navy experts to try to figure out what those sounds might be because those Navy experts have the scientific expertise to try to figure that out.

And then basically with regard to the search operation, the transportation command, which is responsible for transporting different assets of the U.S. military to different locations around the world, they have actually sent out three C-17 planes which are transporting cargo from the locations in the United States to Newfoundland to try to then put them on site near where the search operation is taking place. So, things like heavy transported commercial and rescue-related cargo that could help the assets deployed there already try to figure out where this submarine is, as well as, of course, C-130 aircraft being deployed by the U.S. military to help in the search and rescue operation. So a really all hands on deck effort here by the U.S. military in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard, which, of course, is still taking the lead on this, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it sure seems like it.

It's great to see you, Natasha. Thank you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, the battle to stop organized crime on big retail stores coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. California's new tactic against major theft rings.

And repair in record speed. The damaged portion of I-95 that collapsed earlier this month is set to reopen way ahead of schedule. When drivers can stop taking those detours, that's next.

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[09:41:25] BOLDUAN: Happening now on Capitol Hill, special counsel John Durham testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. His testimony coming just weeks after he released a report highly critical of the FBI's investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and possible contact with Russia.

Now Durham yesterday met behind closed doors with members of the House Intelligence Committee about this.

Let's get over to CNN's Sara Murray. She's following this from Washington for us.

Sara, what are you hearing?

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, you know, we're getting a double dose on John Durham on Capitol Hill this week. And I think what we saw yesterday, you know, is the House Intelligence Committee meeting in a bipartisan fashion behind closed doors with both the top Democrat and the top Republican emerging with concerns about how the FBI handled things during the Russia investigation and the belief that things could be done better in the future.

Listen to the top Republican on the House Intel Committee after meeting with John Durham behind closed doors yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): The issue here is not just politicization. The issue here is, these were presidential political campaigns. And so that's what has such a higher degree of standard of concern because it can affect political and electoral outcomes. And that's why our conversations were so important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, I think that what we are going to see today, and what we are already seeing today before the House Judiciary Committee, is a much more partisan take on John Durham's report, as well as other ongoing investigations. We already heard from Jim Jordan, who is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, talking about Mar-a-Lago, the search of the former president's home there. We also heard from Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on this committee, basically questioning if Republicans are using this as a way to just distract from Donald Trump's recent indictment.

You knew, we got John Durham's opening remarks so far where he does raise concerns about the way the FBI conducted themselves. So, we're going to wait and see how much of this devolves into sort of a proxy fight over Donald Trump and his legal woes more broadly versus how far they really get into the depths of the Durham report and possible changes that could be coming to the FBI.

And, Kate, we should note, the FBI has said in a statement that they have made changes in the wake of a Justice Department inspector general report on these same issues. So, again, we'll see how much of this devolves into a sort of partisan food fight or how much they stay on topic today, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Stand by to stand by. It's great to see you, Sara. Thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: So, new this morning, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito responding to ethics allegations hours before they even went public. Overnight, "ProPublica" published an investigative piece alleging that in 2008 Alito went on a luxury fishing trip to Alaska with businessman Paul Singer. "ProPublica" describes Singer as a hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in high stakes business disputes. The story says Singer flew Alito to Alaska on a private jet and that the justice did not report the fishing trip or the private jet flight on his annual financial disclosure. "ProPublica" also says Alito did not recuse himself from cases involving Singer's hedge fund that came before the court after that trip.

Now, hours before this article came out, Alito wrote an op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal" alleging that the hospitality did not have to be reported under the rules at the time and that the accusations against him are not, quote, valid.

Our Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue is with us now.

Tell us about the suggestions in this report, Ariane.

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right. And we have another Supreme Court justice here being accused of skirting ethics law.

[09:45:04]

And it is very strange, as you said, that Alito sort of tried to get ahead of this story and published his response ahead of time. But before we get to that, the two takeaways from this reporting is that in 2008 Alito did accept a ride on a private jet from this man named Paul Singer, who's a big conservative player, a big GOP donor, to go on this luxury fishing trip. And he never disclosed that on his campaign finance reports. And that, ethics people say, that's a problem because it exceeds gift limits and that he should have moved to recuse it, but - he at least put it on these financial disclosure forms. But he said that the rules at the time didn't force him to do that. So, he chose not to.

And then the second big issue, John, here is that, in fact, there were cases related to an entity related to Singer that came before the Supreme Court. And, in fact, in 2014 the court heard a case and ruled in his favor. And critically here, Samuel Alito did not recuse from those cases.

We talked this morning to the reporter at ProPublica and he sort of puts together the takeaway here.

Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN ELLIOTT, REPORTER, "PROPUBLICA": The experts we spoke to said that that will -- that's an expensive gift. And, you know, if you were -- if you were going up against somebody in court and you found out that the person on the other side had been flying around the judge on a private jet, the basic question is, can that judge be fair? That's the situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DE VOGUE: But, of course, Alito said that he and his clerks never caught the fact that Paul Singer was related to these cases that came before the Supreme Court.

BERMAN: Ariane, you and I have been reporters for a long time. I think the technical term for what Alito did here is a switch-a-roo. ProPublica reached out to him for comment, a series of questions. He didn't answer them. He went to "The Wall Street Journal" and put out this statement. Pretty interesting.

DE VOGUE: Right, John. And you don't usually see Supreme Court justices do these kind of switch-a-roos, right? Basically, they went to the public information officer. They were told, no comment. And then Alito turns to "The Wall Street Journal," and what's kind of astonishing here is, he wrote the op-ed himself defending himself. You do not usually see that.

And here's what he wrote about the ride on the private jet, because I think it's interesting. He said, I was asked whether I would like to fly there in a seat that as far as I'm aware would have otherwise be vacant. It was my understanding that this would not impose any extra cost on Mr. Singer. Had I taken commercial flights, that would have imposed a substantial cost and an inconvenience on the Deputy U.S. Marshals who would have been required for security reasons to assist me.

This all comes, of course, as the court is really under a lot of pressure to look again at how it handles ethics questions. That's what's at issue here and they are under the spotlight again, John.

BERMAN: And they police themselves and Congress is discussing whether or not that's 100 percent appropriate anymore.

DE VOGUE: Yes.

BERMAN: Ariane de Vogue, great reporting. Great to have you here.

Sara.

DE VOGUE: Thank you.

SIDNER: All right, scorched in Texas. Several cities breaking heat records across the state. A look at the dangerous heat wave hitting the south and southwest. Plus, beating them at their own game. How California is trying to take

on a problem plaguing the state. I know you've seen the viral videos of those brazen robberies at retail stores. What they're calling a first of its kind approach.

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[09:52:49]

SIDNER: Today is officially the first day of summer, and it's off to a dangerously hot start in some places. More than 30 million Americans are under extreme heat advisories across Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico today. The heat index in some places could be as high as 120 degrees. These record temperatures come as early as nearly 200,000 customers are now without power across the region after a weekend of devastating storms. Energy officials are now asking people to do their best to cut back on their electricity use to ease the strain on the entire system.

CNN's Rosa Flores is in Texas for us. \

You are at a wonderful spot when it's hot, Galveston Beach. I've been there many times. The heat is breaking records there. And you've got your gadgets. So, how hot is it?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm here with all of the gadgets today, Sara, and I'm on the beach to try to cool off all at the same time. It's about 84 degrees right now and it's not even 9:00 a.m. So, a lot of people in Texas are going to be coming to Texas beaches like this one to try to cool off.

In nearby Houston, the temperature has not been under 80 degrees for about a week. The temperature there during the day, actually, has been between 100 and 101. And when you put in the humidity, the heat index, it's been between 110 and 115.

Now, let me tell you something, Houston is not alone. All of the major cities in Texas have had a heat index of between 110 and 120. And even the smaller cities have not had much relief. Those cities have had a heat index of 108 to 112. So, imagine that.

Cooling centers have been opening across the state to give people some relief so they can go in there and get some air-conditioning. ERCOT, the power company - the - excuse me, the power grid here has been asking people to conserve energy.

Now, Sara, you mentioned this, so I want to invite you into my picnic here in Galveston because I'm in the mood for chocolate-covered strawberries.

SIDNER: Oh.

FLORES: And we're going to conserve energy today. So we're going to try to make some here on the beach. And you can see that these chocolates are almost melting. [09:55:01]

Not yet.

SIDNER: Oh.

FLORES: There you go. My first chocolate-covered strawberry.

SIDNER: Not bad. I mean, it's 8:54 in the morning and you're eating chocolate and strawberries and you're sitting on the beach. I'm just going to tell you, I know it's hot, but I'm jealous. It looks fantastic. But people need to be careful out there because the heat is really serious. Save some of those chocolates and that strawberry situation for me later.

Thank you, Rosa Flores. Appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: I had no idea where that was going. She starts in the ocean. She's got her toes in the ocean. And she ends up eating strawberries on the beach. That might be my favorite live shot ever. It was like "Goodfellas." It was like a single camera tracking shot.

SIDNER: Best assignment ever.

Who directed that film? I don't know.

BERMAN: I don't know who she's going to meet next on the beach. I mean that's the next part of this. That was awesome.

All right, in a first of its kind effort, California is teaming up with retail giants to battle organized retail crime. The target of this effort, not petty shoplifting, it's organized smash and grabs. The types we've seen on numerous videos. So, these groups are calling for an increase in information sharing between retailers and websites to stop the resale of these stolen goods. Big box stores, including Target, say this kind theft will cost their company more than $500 million this year.

CNN's Veronica Miracle in San Francisco with the latest on this effort that these retail companies say is completely necessary.

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, John. California Attorney General Rob Bonta says that there are many ways that these organized crime rings steal millions of dollars in products every year. Some of it is from storefronts. Other times they go to warehouses, they steal from trains, shipping containers, sometimes they even steal from the backs of trucks. And what they will do is return these products for cash or they will go to third-party reseller sites like eBay.

So, this effort to stop it at every single level has been about two years in the making. Now, law enforcement, these third-party retailer sites and these retailers are all working together to share intel where before they were working independently. Retailers will be tracking this data and then reporting it to police. Now they're going to be sharing all of this information in real time in an effort to stop it very quickly.

Here's what the attorney general had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB BONTA, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's not about the occasional smash and grab at your local big box store. This is about a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise. Criminal schemes that are complex, orchestrated and incredibly organized. The only way we can take these criminals down is by beating them at their own game, by being organized as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIRACLE: And, John, pretty staggering numbers. According to a 2020 national retail survey, for about every $1 billion in retail sales that these organizations make, about $700,000 is stolen every year.

John.

BERMAN: That really is incredible. Veronica Miracle, thank you very much for that.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, is there new hope now in the search for the missing Titan deep water vessel? Crews report hearing repeated and consistent banging sounds as they're scouring the water. And one ocean explorer just told us that making consistent noise like that is a standard protocol in an emergency under the water. We have many more details coming in. That's next.

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