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Ecuador Presidential Candidate Assassinated During Rally; Utah Man Accused Of Threatening Biden Killed By FBI; ProPublica: Justice Clarence Thomas Took Dozens Of Trips Paid For By Billionaire Friends. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 10, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:34:13]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: In Ecuador, a presidential candidate was just assassinated in broad daylight. He was leaving a campaign event when it happened. And there is video of all of this capturing the moment that Fernando Villavicencio was shot and killed. In the video you see him walking away from a campaign rally led by officers surrounded by a crowd of people gets into a waiting car and that is when fires break out. We warn you this video is disturbing.

CNN's Rafael Romo is following the story for us. He joins us now. Rafael, Election Day is just days away, what is happening there right now?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Was far as we know it's still going to go on Kate. It's very chaotic situation with the President calling for a 60-day state of emergency. And Fernando Villavicencio had just finished a speech after a rally held at a school in Quito, the Ecuadorian Capital.

[09:35:12]

As he was leaving the school and being ushered into a car, gunfire rang out. It was at least 12 shots, Kate, and all the people who moments before we're cheering him on, had to dive for cover. Officials say this was a targeted attack against the man who wants to describe his own country as a Narco-state run by a political mafia. Authority say nine people were injured. Villavicencio a 59-year-old activist, journalist and politician who was running in Ecuador's presidential elections to be held in less than two weeks on August 20, as we mentioned before, he would frequently speak openly against corruption in his country and had recently said that the mafia had subjugated his homeland.

And just to give you an idea of how bad the security situation in Ecuador is, Kate, a seven of the eight candidates in the election were under police protection. The attack happened less than two weeks before the election but officials say it will still go on as planned in a video shot at a rally just a few days ago. Villavicencio said he was refusing to wear a bulletproof vest because the people, his supporters, he said were his bulletproof vest. He also said that he had received death threats from a known group and a known traffic a gang in Ecuador and current Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso vowed the killing will not go unpunished and announced a 60-day state of emergency. Kate, back to you.

BOLDUAN: All right, keep up -- keep close to this, Rafael. Thank you very much. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's terrifying.

BOLDUAN: I know.

BERMAN: Meanwhile, new details this morning on a Utah man who was killed by the FBI after he allegedly made threats to kill President Biden just hours before the President was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City. FBI agents were trying to arrest Craig Robertson for several threats he had made online. Court records show he did own several guns. A source tells us that FBI SWAT agents shot and killed Robertson after he pointed a gun at them while they were giving him commands to surrender. CNN's Josh Campbell is all over this story for us. Josh bring us up to speed here.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, John, just an astonishing set of developments yesterday, you had an FBI SWAT team going to the suspect's home. This was just before as you mentioned, President Joe Biden was set to visit Utah. Now, the suspect had been under investigation for allegedly making these online threats against Biden.

The FBI SWAT team shows up they had an arrest warrant and hand on told from a law enforcement source that as they were giving commands to the suspect he brandished a weapon towards those agents. One of those FBI agents opening fire fatally shooting that suspect. Just to give you a sense of what prosecutors alleged in this complaint. This is some of the material that the suspect allegedly wrote online. I'll read you part of it. He said, "I hear Biden is coming to Utah, digging out my old ghillie suit." That's a reference to camouflage suits, worn by snipers and cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle, that among a series of concerning posts that were online.

Of course, if you're the Secret Service, if you're the FBI, you have the president coming to town. That's something that was very concerning. They went to take action to arrest him, that obviously ending fatally after he was shot by an FBI agent. John.

BERMAN: Was it just President Biden that this man had been talking about or writing about online?

CAMPBELL: No, you look through this criminal complaint, some 40 pages and they talk about other targets including Vice President Kamala Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Interestingly, the FBI investigation began in March after a social media company contacted the FBI national threat Operations Center and said we're seeing concerning material on our platform someone threatening Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg who of course had been criminally investigating former President Donald Trump. I'll read you one of the posts of the suspect allegedly wrote, he

said, heading to New York to fulfill my dream of eradicating another George Soros two-but political hack DA, I'll be waiting in the courthouse parking garage with my suppress nine-millimeter to smoke a radical fool prosecutor that should never have been elected. He then goes on in graphic detail to talk about wanting to kill the Manhattan DA.

Now, interestingly, John, FBI agents put him under surveillance of the suspect. They eventually approached him and confronted him about some of this concerning material. He allegedly told them this was all part of a dream. I then told them to -- if they wanted to come back, they better have a warrant. Of course, they did just that yesterday going to his house, but he did not respond to those demands to come out and, you know, be placed under arrest instead as allegedly pulling a gun on those FBI agents and now obviously shot and killed.

BERMAN: Very specific in graphic threats there. Josh Campbell extraordinary details. Thank you so much for your reporting. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Let's talk more about this. Joining us right now. CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst, the former Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe.

Andy, as John and Josh were talking about the -- their specific and it was kind of ongoing and continuous the threats that were coming that he was posting online, Josh went through some of it. And even just last week, this man noted that President Biden would be coming to Utah saying that he would begin, "cleaning the dust off his M24, sniper rifle."

[09:40:22]

This gets at something that we've discussed for a long time in many regards, which is how does the FBI decide when speech rises to the level of an actual threat?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Kate, what you've just referred to, these are the exact things that the FBI looks for when they are coursing through reams of threat, threatening speech threats that are brought to their attention through the end talk. They have the very hard job of trying to figure out which of these speakers could actually become an actor, right, which there's a lot of people that say a lot of controversial things on the internet, that they're not all actionable threats. But this individual has repeated focus on political leadership, repeated references to firearms, photographs of the firearms confirming that he actually had the things he was talking about. Then, of course, it comes to a peak with his comments about the president arriving in his area, preparing to take out a sniper rifle and engage in some sort of violence directed at the president United States that is clearly beyond the pale. Those are actionable threats. And that's what brought the FBI to his door yesterday.

BOLDUAN: I was going to ask you that, if he had been under -- he'd been under investigation for months, they had been to, you know, been to meet with him once -- at least once before. And what do you think was, I'll call it the last straw. But what led the FBI to execute this search warrant at this time? Was it the fact that Biden was coming, was coming to Utah nearby?

MCCABE: I expect it was. There -- what you see here is like a consistent pattern of escalation. You know, the -- I think the -- the experience of sending the agents out to his house is particularly instructive, right? They go out there just to talk to him to get a sense of this guy to find out, is he really planning something? Or is this all bluster when they get in front of them? Is he going to back off from it and say, hey, I was just kidding around. I was trying to look tough to my friends on the internet, that sort of thing. No, that's not what happens.

He essentially refuses to talk to them. He tells them they need to get a warrant. And then he begins taunting the agents with multiple postings on social media, telling them that he almost shot them that day that he was loading his gun for the next time they came out to his house. So this escalation really tops off when now you start talking about a threat to the president United States. That's it, they could not let this go on any further without taking this guy into custody. They have things they could charge him with. They needed to execute that warrant just to take him to neutralize the threat.

BOLDUAN: So add into this then, it's not just threats against President Biden. He also spoken threateningly against Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Attorney General Merrick Garland, including those two -- I note that because these are two people who are overseeing cases against Donald Trump currently, which leads me to wonder, what level of concern do you have that there could be more like this as cases against Donald Trump continued moving towards trial.

MCCABE: Kate, I'm confident that the multiple cases, investigations, what will ultimately be trials of Donald Trump will continue to really fire up the most extreme portion of his supporters.

You know, he also made threats about Letitia James, he made threats about Gavin Newsom, who is a very kind of outspoken Trump critic. So, and let's be clear, President Trump's own rhetoric targeting these people, showing his supporters who he dislikes, airing out his own grievances, that has an encouraging impact on people who are prone to violence. It's reckless to engage in that sort of speech, but that's what President -- former President Trump does.

BOLDUAN: Scary. It's good to see you, Andy. Thank you very much. John?

BERMAN: All right, thanks so much, Kate. A new report on the wide range of trips and perks enjoyed by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas bankrolled by his wealthy friends.

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[09:48:50]

BERMAN: Brand new reporting this morning on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, dozens of lavish trips paid for by billionaire friends. This comes from ProPublica and shines a light on decades of behavior in detail. We just haven't seen before. CNN's Tom Foreman joins us now with the details here. Tom?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John, this is a lot. Let's talk about the people who are giving this to him in the first place. David Sokol, the late Wayne Huizenga passed away five years ago, Paul Novelly and Harlan Crow. These are extraordinarily wealthy people who were giving Clarence Thomas extraordinarily big gifts in this new ProPublica reporting. Among the things they itemize hear from these four folks were 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, 12 VIP passes to pro and college sports events, two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica, one standing invitation to an Uber exclusive golf club and there was a voyage around the Bahamas by yachts, helicopters.

Is it illegal or against any rules for very wealthy people to give gifts like this to somebody? No, the people who are giving the gifts, there's no indication they did anything other than use their extraordinary wealth to give amazing gifts.

[09:50:09]

It is also not entirely clear if Clarence Thomas broke a law or rules by accepting this. ProPublica seems to think he did. Others will argue they don't. Some of his defenders are saying this is a big hit job on him to say all of this.

But the bottom line is when this arose last spring was some of the gifts originally from Harlan Crow, who, for example, bought a home for Thomas' mother. Thomas' defense at the time was to say, early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close friends, or from personal friends who did not have business before the court, was not reportable.

Now, to be sure, ProPublica says there's no evidence that any of these four people had direct business before the court at this time. Those that have said anything about it have said we never talked about business before the court but many people are saying this is also a question of appearance here and scale, John, even in a town like D.C. where a lot of people trade favors, this is an awful lot of favors worth, according to ProPublica, millions of dollars and they don't think they've accounted for all of it yet.

BERMAN: Yeah, two things here, Tom, one I need much better friends. Two, whether or not this broke any rules. This is exactly why there are people calling for much more specific ethics guidance in the Supreme Court. Tom Foreman, a lot more to come here. Thank you very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, new data just out this morning and another read on how well the United States is combating inflation, we have that for you, next.

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[09:55:52] BOLDUAN: For the first time in more than a year, consumer prices have heated up. New numbers out this morning show annual inflation rose 3.2% over the past 12 months. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is tracking all of this. Please make sense of this for me. Is this good news, is this bad news, is this both?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: At first glance 3.2% that's up, that looks bad. However, coming in below expectations and look at the month over month number up 0.2% that's moderating, that's what we saw in June. And then core inflation which strips away volatile fields like food and energy that actually cooled on an annual basis.

So let's look at what is driving, however, this month -- last month, rather, inflation. So actually car insurance, a big driver up 2%, month over month, up 17.8% year over year, that could be because of higher interest rates, shelter that accounted for 90% of the increase in inflation. Still, the rent is too damn high up 7.7% and then food. This is what people are paying for every single day, grocery store prices still too high up 4.9.

BOLDUAN: This is why people don't -- this is why people feel sour about the economy, so.

YURKEVICH: Exactly. But let's flip it and let's look at some good news, price drops, airfare down 18.6% year over year, gas prices actually down 19.9% year over year. Up a little bit on the month because some of these higher prices we've been seeing, but good news overall year over year. And then eggs what people buy every week at the grocery store. Remember, remember these high prices that we saw a year ago, down 13.7%.

Also this morning, we got weekly jobless claims up 21,000 from the previous week. So coming in at 248,000 people applying for first time unemployment, that number, however, while rising still not where the Fed wants it to be.

BOLDUAN: OK.

YURKEVICH: They want it to see a little bit -- see a little bit above 300,000. So they're going to look at all of this and then make their big decision in September, when they'll decide whether to raise rates or pause them.

BOLDUAN: It's such -- it's still a complicated picture. But there is a little bit of clarity as you're -- as you're kind of digging into it.

YURKEVICH: Come on.

BOLDUAN: Where -- maybe where it's headed.

YURKEVICH: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: It's great to see you, Vanessa. Thanks. John?

BERMAN: I think Vanessa brings a lot of clarity. All right, apocalyptic wildfires, just decimating Maui killing at

least 36 people. There are still many people unaccounted for, we're getting new information on the rescue efforts. Stay with us.

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