Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Flowers Seen At St. John's Port For Titan Crew; Canadian Transportation Safety Board Launches Investigation Into Titan Tragedy; Sources: Republicans In Fake Elector Scheme Testify In Exchange For Limited Immunity; Two Whistleblowers: IRS Recommended Felonies, More Charges For Hunter Biden. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 23, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:53]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A search for answers. We're learning new equipment is being sent to the seafloor to get a closer look at the debris field left by the doomed submersible. The latest on recovery efforts

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And the January 6 probe focusing on fake electors who schemed to keep former President Donald Trump in office even though he lost the election. CNN can exclusively report at least two immunity deals have been offered. What that could mean for the former President and others tied to the plot.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: And if there is any doubt about Trump's continuing grip on the GOP, wait until you see how Republicans reacted to his 2024 rival Chris Christie today.

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

SANCHEZ: First on CNN, new pictures of a robotic diving vehicle being lifted out of the Atlantic Ocean after it found the Titan sub's debris field yesterday. CNN has learned that a new mission to the debris site is underway as experts explore what caused the catastrophic implosion. We're also getting new images of a makeshift memorial at the port of St. John's in Newfoundland people bringing flowers for the five lives lost on the Titan.

Let's take you now to St. John's with CNN's Miguel Marquez, who is there for us. Miguel, we just learned that the Canadian Transportation Safety Board is launching an investigation into the incident. What more can you tell us?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, now that the U.S. Coast Guard has determined that the fate of the Titan and that we know that all five crew members are dead, the transportation board here in Canada opening up that investigation to figure out from their end what exactly happened.

That's why what is happening right now on the seabed floor will be very important to that investigation. Namely, a remote operated vehicle or a deepwater drone that is down there now, mapping out that - the remains of the Titan. There are five large pieces they found in two different debris fields, about 1,600 feet in front of the Titanic. And they - they're hoping to glean some information about the implosion and an explosion of that vessel and what exactly happened.

They may end up bringing or try to bring up some pieces of it, but that will be a much more complicated process to do. But - so - all of this now becoming a very official process with the Canadian Transportation Safety Board announcing that they will open an investigation, a deepwater drone down there now mapping that out and trying to understand the vector and what happened as that sub descended to just above, not too far from the Titanic and then imploded, what sort of force and how could it have destroyed it in the way that it did. And they're hoping to glean some of that information from the sea floor, Boris.

SANCHEZ: So much important information that can be determined based on the evidence. They're now gathering.

Miguel Marquez, thank you so much. Brianna.

KEILAR: Since the early stages of the Titan sub's development, industry experts and employees voice safety concerns, that includes using carbon fiber for the pressure haul. Filmmaker and oceanographer, James Cameron, raised those concerns as well in an interview with CNN, and he also compared the Titan's voyage to the Titanic's.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CAMERON, DIRECTOR, "TITANIC"/DEEP-SEA EXPLORER: I think there's a great almost surreal irony here, which is Titanic sank because the captain took it full steam into an ice field at night on a moonless night with very poor visibility after he had been repeatedly warned by telegram by Marconigram, by radio, during the day, that that's what was ahead of him.

[15:05:04]

And so I think we're also seeing a parallel here with unheeded warnings about a sub that was not certified where the entire deep submergence community actually - or not the entire community - but a large number of them got together to write a letter to OceanGate, the company, and say, we believe that this could lead to catastrophe.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: This was a - an experimental design, there's no question about it. It's a carbon composite. You can tell us more about what that actually means. I mean, it's a kind of stuff used in spacecraft, but is it designed for deep underwater pressure and what is the danger of that kind of material in this kind of environment?

CAMERON: It's completely inappropriate for a vessel that sees external pressure. Carbon fiber composites are used very, very successfully for internal pressure, pressure vessels like, let's say, a scuba tank. And you can get two or three times multiple of what you could get out of steel or aluminum for that type of pressure bottle.

But for something that's seeing external pressure, all of the advantages of composite materials go away and all the disadvantages come into play. We always understood that this was the wrong material for submersible hauls, because with each pressure cycle, you can have progressive damage. So it's quite insidious, because you may have a number of successful dives, which is what happened here, and then have it fail later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We have Veronica Miracle with us now from Everett, Washington where OceanGate is based. Tell us what else you are learning Veronica, about some of the warnings and concerns coming from or that came from the submersible community?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna this week, we've spoken to a couple of former OceanGate employees who really mirrored and confirmed what James Cameron was just talking about. They said, as the development and the testing was happening at the Titan, they were receiving a lot of pushback from the submersible community because these materials and the design choices were considered experimental and highly controversial.

In fact that - I believe this letter that James Cameron was referring to was from the Marine Technology Society, we have a copy of that. It was from 2018. And they express these concerns very explicitly.

One of the concerns saying that OceanGate's marketing materials were advertising that the Titan was exceeding or meeting industry safety standards, and they argued that OceanGate was not following the safety rules, saying, "Your representation is, at minimum, misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold."

Now, this morning our Anderson Cooper also spoke with the former co- founder of OceanGate who did leave the company back in 2013. But he came to Stockton Rush's defense this morning and talked about the fact that he believed Rush to be a very strong risk manager, the late-CEO Stockton Rush. Here's what else you have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUILLERMO SOHNLEIN, CO-FOUNDER, OCEANGATE: I had absolutely full confidence in Stockton in the design of the sub and his ability to engineer it and most importantly to take it through a rigorous test program. So I had absolutely no qualms with it. What I do have qualms with is the fact that so many of us in a rush to get answers to our questions are starting to speculate without waiting for all of the data.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIRACLE: I do want to note that the former co-founder still maintains minority ownership of OceanGate. But just bigger picture from some of the former employees that I spoke with, there were concerns about the speed in which they were developing the submersible and the materials and the design choices that were used. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, some warnings we have learned about here.

Veronica Miracle live for us in Everett, Washington. Jim?

SCIUTTO: So we heard the warnings from people with a great deal of experience in underwater submersibles. Let's get some further perspective now from an expert on the deepest underwater rescue ever performed.

Joining us now, Steve McGinty, he's journalist, author of "The Dive."

Stephen, good to have you on. Thanks so much.

STEPHEN MCGINTY, AUTHOR, "THE DIVE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE WORLD'S DEEPEST SUBMARINE RESCUE": Thank you. Thank you for inviting me on.

SCIUTTO: So first question here, clearly, the questions about the safety of this design, the submersible the conditions et cetera, are not new. They'd been raised for years and deflected by, by the designer of this. As you look at this, was this an irresponsible voyage?

MCGINTY: Well, clearly that - I mean, the fact that it's ended in such disaster would indicate that the submarine was not up to the job. What's interesting for me having written the book, The Dive" that looked at the deepest submarine rescue back in '73 is the kind of historical idea of it.

[15:10:05]

Back in '73, the Pisces was a kind of a revolutionary submarine. It was designed by Al Tracer (ph), a Canadian who was a deep sea diver. And that - this was the kind of the early days of the submarine - of the smaller submarine industry, where they built it in a mushroom factory in Vancouver and they tested it out in the water, ironically, where there was a torpedo being tested by the U.S. Navy at the time.

The difference is, and I will make this point quite strong, is yesterday I spoke to Doug Huntington who designed the original rescue toggle that was used and he was like 25, 26 back in '73. And he said that even though the Pisces II was a new submarine, it was the very first of its type, it was insured by Lloyd's of London. It had outside people working on the specifications that was checked.

What he found incredible was the idea that all these years later. And when technology has been refined, and there's been so many different subs made that have gone to such different depths, that collective knowledge appears to have been set aside on the grounds of developing a new system.

And understand that people always want to design new systems and push the envelope - I mean, submariners. That's - the irony was that submariners were and some submarine designers from the early days were pioneers, and so many of them give their lives unwittingly to the task to delve into the deeps. However, I think James Cameron made a very good point when we were speaking yesterday was that for many - for decades, the community has worked together, and safety standards have been have been very solid and they've gone to such incredible depths. And if each group has used the information to refine it ...

SCIUTTO: Right.

MCGINTY: ... and to work together, and the evidence seems to be that here the CEO has gone on his own way and this is this is the tragic result.

SCIUTTO: So here's the thing, I mean, the technology changes over time. But I suppose the lesson one - of the lessons here is that standards, right, should not. The basic idea for instance, as you mentioned, of having an outsider do some vetting of the design some safety testing.

MCGINTY: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. You should never get to grade your own homework. I think that's something that we've learned. No one - everyone benefits every company designer in these industries benefits from having outsiders kick the tires and figure out does this system work.

Now, clearly this tragedy was not their intent. And initially, obviously, they had - they did those early dives and they thought that it was working, it was operative. But as Jim Cameron said before then, the fact was that because of the carbon fiber nature of it, clearly what - I mean, we don't know, but what would the indication seems to be that it has weakened over progressive dives. And all it takes was - all it took was that split second for something to go wrong and the implosion was instantaneous.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And I mean, to James Cameron's point, it seems that these questions were not new. They've been asked for some time.

Steve McGinty, author of "The Dive." Thanks so much for joining us.

MCGINTY: You're welcome.

SCIUTTO: Boris?

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, a new CNN exclusive, the Special Counsel has granted limited immunity to fake electors. What it could mean for former President Donald Trump and others who try to overturn the 2020 election?

Plus, Republicans vowing to investigate Hunter Biden deploying a new tactic in order to dig into his past. We'll tell you what they're doing.

And new data shows America is getting older, the median age, hitting a record high, not necessarily a good thing. Well explain when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [15:18:01]

KEILAR: Exclusive new CNN reporting reveals that the special counsel investigating January 6 has zoomed in on that plot to submit fake pro- Trump electors to Congress after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Sources tell CNN prosecutors have secured testimony from two Republicans tied to the scheme in exchange for limited immunity.

Zachary Cohen is part of the CNN team that broke this story.

Zach, it really sounds like things are ramping up on this front.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Brianna. Our team (inaudible) and Sara Murray, Katelyn Polantz and myself have noticed a lot of grand jury activity just in the last few weeks and really specifically in the last two weeks, we've seen several witnesses go in and testified before the grand jury.

And there has been this apparent focus on the fake electors' plot, this plot to get these Republicans across seven battleground states that Trump lost, there's signed certificates suggesting that he won those dates when he didn't.

And look, we know prosecutors just last week question in front of the grand jury to Republicans from Nevada who signed the certificate from that state. These were two people who previously did not answer questions, pled the fifth to House January 6 Committee, came in to the grand jury room fully expected to do the same.

But they're met by prosecutors who said you have immunity, you now have to answer our questions. And so this limited immunity has allowed prosecutors to secure testimony that they - that others have not been able to get.

KEILAR: It's really interesting. There's also some potential financial crimes being investigated here.

COHEN: Absolutely. And that seems to be another part of this broader election related investigation. And we know that at least one former Trump campaign official has gone in this month and talked about - and was asked specifically about campaign ads and messaging around the fundraising activities that were happening post-election.

So a lot of different pieces at play here, but prosecutors are still very, very much - very active in this investigation and they could be nearing a charging decision at least in some parts of this investigation sometime soon.

KEILAR: At least in some parts soon, very interesting on that front.

Zach, thank you for the great reporting to you and your colleagues. Boris?

[15:20:01]

SANCHEZ: We want to turn now to another high profile investigation, the Hunter Biden tax probe. We now know that two whistleblowers testify that the IRS recommended much stronger charges against Hunter than what he worked out in that DOJ plea deal. They say the IRS recommended felonies and more overall charges. These whistleblowers are now alleging the investigation faced political interference.

CNN's Evan Perez has been tracking all of this for us.

So Evan, walk us through these whistleblower claims. What are they acknowledging? What are they saying?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, what they're saying is that the Justice Department has claimed all along that David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware was in total control of this investigation that there was no political officials who had any role in making any decisions and what they're saying is that that is not true. And one of the things that they pointed out is that they believe people up above were overruling the moves that investigators were trying to make.

And one example, of course, is the idea that they thought that there should be 11 charges brought against Hunter Biden, including felonies. In the end, he's going to plead next week in court to two misdemeanors. And, again, one of the things that they're coming with - forward with is this claim that the Justice Department is lying when they say that there was no political interference.

The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, addressed this squarely at a press conference here in Washington earlier today. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Mr. Weiss, was appointed by President Trump as the U.S. Attorney in Delaware and assigned this matter during the previous administration, would be permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which he wanted to, and in any district in which he wanted to.

Mr. Weiss has since sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee confirming that he had that authority. I don't know how it'd be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution, given that he has this authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And the key part also of this, Boris, is that the attorney general is also saying that Weiss never asked to be a special counsel, right, which is something that one of the whistleblowers is saying, Weiss told them, he requested and he was denied. So of course, we expect that Congress is going to keep looking into this very issue.

SANCHEZ: Yes. The - one of the whistleblowers saying that Weiss was interested in potentially having different venues prosecuting Hunter Biden. That's something that the Attorney General there denied. There are also these text messages as well, that Hunter Biden apparently sent in 2017 to a Chinese CEO multiple times invoking his father saying I'm sitting next to my father, and then essentially trying to press a business deal. What is the White House now saying about this?

PEREZ: So the White House is trying to refer questions they say that the - this matter has been addressed by the White House counsel. I reached out just a few minutes ago to the spokesman for the White House counsel, just to see what it is their response is to this.

The President all along has said that he never had anything to do with his son's business interests, never spoke to his son about his business interest. This text message calls into question that - whether that is true.

Again, this is from 2017, Boris. This is a time when Joe Biden is no longer vice president and he's not President, right? And the agents say that they were not allowed, they were not permitted to investigate this fully.

The question, though, is was Joe Biden in that room at the time, the White House is not saying whether he was or whether he wasn't and the agents themselves say that they don't know whether he was, whether Hunter Biden was just saying that to try to put pressure on this person who was refusing to pay up.

SANCHEZ: Yes. It's very possible that Hunter Biden was embellishing the story to try to exert some influence over that person.

Evan Perez, thank you so much.

We want to get some reaction now from Capitol Hill with CNN's Manu Raju.

Manu, some Republicans are now calling for a special counsel.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some senior Republicans in light of these documents, these allegations that were made by this IRS agent providing that information to the House Ways and Means Committee suggesting that there might have been interference at the Justice Department and also questioning whether or not, as Evan just pointed out, then private citizen Joe Biden had any role in his son Hunter Biden's business dealings back in 2017.

All of this is raising questions among Republicans who say it is time for the Justice Department to name a special counsel to investigate this matter. I just caught up with the House Speaker who said that it could be time to do just that. And the House Judiciary Committee chairman says it absolutely is time to name a special counsel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): But the information that just came back from Ways and Means, it really raises the question about the DOJ and what did they do during this.

[15:25:07]

Did they withhold information? Did they advise him ahead of time? Did they treat him much different? So I don't have the answer for that, but it raises the issue that that could be a situation that you might need, but it doesn't stop our investigation.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Our biggest takeaway is the U.S. Attorney, Weiss, asked for special counsel status and Garland's Justice Department says no. That - like if a special counsel is not warranted here, when is it? I mean, you're talking about the President's business dealings, potentially. And of course, Hunter Biden, his son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, Jim Jordan also told me that he has not yet gotten clarity from the Justice Department about what it means that the probe into Hunter Biden is ongoing. That has been a big point of contention among these House GOP chairman, who are pushing to get more documents and records about the U.S. Attorney's investigation. But if it's ongoing, they'd have a difficult time getting some of those records. So that is a big question that he says he is still trying to get an answer to, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Manu, meantime, you have new reporting on this effort in the House, a push by Republicans to try to expunge Donald Trump's impeachments.

RAJU: Yes. This is a symbolic resolution that is being pushed by Elise Stefanik who's a member of the House Republican leadership and Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is a close Trump ally, a staunch conservative. They have put together this resolution that would call for the expungement of two of Trump's impeachments from the last Congress.

Recall one of them had to do with allegations that the former president withheld aid that was approved by Congress to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine having to announced an investigation into the Biden's, that was impeachment number one.

Impeachment number two had to do with Donald Trump's role on January 6th. He was accused, of course, of inciting the insurrection here in this building on that day, but in a key announcement just moments ago, in that same press gaggle, Kevin McCarthy told the group of us, he does support this effort to expunge those Trump impeachments.

Even though it is symbolic and won't change the actual record of the impeachments happening, if it were to move forward, it could put some of his moderates in a more difficult spot. Some of them simply don't want to vote on this or take a position backing Trump particularly when it comes to January 6. One of them, Don Bacon, a member from Nebraska from a district that Joe Biden carried told me it sounds "kind of weird to go down that route."

Now, McCarthy would not promise to bring this to the floor, Boris, but he said it would go to the House Judiciary Committee and then they would make a decision. He also told me that no, he has not spoken to Trump about this. Boris?

SANCHEZ: It could have a major impact on those moderate Republicans in Biden districts when it comes to 2024.

Manu Raju, thank you so much for the reporting. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Coming up next, crew headed back to the debris site of the Titan submersible. What we're learning about the effort and what they intend to pick up there.

And Bud Light is trying to turn things around after backlash over a partnership with a transgender influencer. We're going to show you their new campaign.