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More Charges Expected In Girl's Kidnapping; 4 Students Among 5 Shot At Morgan State University; CIA Sex Assault Victim Sues Agency For Intimidation; GOP Rep. Lawler Backs Calls To Expel Gaetz From GOP Conference; Hunter Biden Weighs Fundraising Options As Legal Bills Top $10M. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 04, 2023 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:31:35]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We have new details to share with you on the rescue of a 9-year-old New York girl kidnapped while camping with her family.

Police say more charges could be coming for the accused abductor, 46- year-old Craig Ross Jr after a ransom note led them to find the girl hidden in a camper behind his mother's home.

This, coming as authorities say they're chasing new evidence, including surveillance video from the hours after Charlotte went missing.

CNN's Jean Casarez is in Upstate New York and she brings us the very latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A dramatic investigation still unfolding after a miraculous turn of events in the disappearance of Charlotte Sena.

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): It's been a long two days but, tonight, our prayers have been answered.

CASAREZ: The 9-year-old girl found alive Monday night, appearing to be physically unharmed after disappearing from a campground in Upstate New York two days earlier.

Authorities charging 46-year-old Craig Nelson Ross Jr with her kidnapping.

Searching the property where he lived in a trailer behind his mother's home, and where he allegedly held the 9-year-old captive.

The break in the case came at 4:20 a.m. Monday, 17 miles away where police were watching the Sena family home. A car pulled up. Law enforcement observed someone dropping something into the family's mailbox. HOCHUL: State police go to the mailbox and identify what is a ransom

note that had been left behind for Charlotte.

CASAREZ: A fingerprint on the note, which demanded money, matched those from a 1999 drunk driving arrest. It led police to Ross and that camper where he lived. Monday evening, around 6:30, SWAT teams moved in.

HOCHUL: After some resistance, the suspect was taken into custody. And immediately, the little girl was found in a cabinet, covered. She was rescued. And she knew she was being rescued.

CASAREZ: The good news delivered to the community during a prayer service for Charlotte.

LARRY DENNING, PASTOR, MOUNT ZION CHURCH: Thank you, God. God answered our prayers.

(APPLAUSE)

DENNING: Certainly excited. We came together, opened the doors to pray, and we're seeing a miracle already.

CASAREZ: Charlotte was taken to the hospital to be checked out.

Her family saying in a statement:

"We are thrilled she is home. And we understand that the outcome is not what every family gets. A huge thank you to all of the agencies that were mobilized, all of the families, friends, community, neighbors and hundreds of volunteers who supported us and worked tirelessly to bring Charlotte home."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're all just breathing a sigh of relief. Not just for them, for her, all the children and the neighborhood, who feel safe again.

CASAREZ: Jean Casarez, CNN, Saratoga County, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Here's a look at some other headlines that we're watching this hour.

Golf star, Lexi Thompson, will become only the seventh woman ever invited to see up with the men on the PGA tour. Next week, the 18- year-old will play Shiner's Childrens' Open in Las Vegas.

Thompson says she hopes it's a message to young women that you can chase your dream regardless of how hard it is.

[14:34:56]

Also, Dish Network is now the first company to be fined for littering in space. The SEC fined the TV provider $150,000 for space junk, for not moving a dead satellite out of the way and into a higher orbit, that is a designated space junk yard.

While it's a small fine, it sends a message to the industry to clean up after themselves. Space junk can cause collisions with other satellites.

And the CDC says it's no longer distributing vaccination cards, those white cards that millions of people carried around with them.

An easy way to track your doses that you've been vaccinated. But they're rarely needed anymore. Pharmacies say you don't need one anymore to get a booster shot.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We'll be right back.

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[14:40:00]

SANCHEZ: Officials in Baltimore are now searching for the gunman or gunmen who shot five people last night at Morgan State University. Four of those victims were students.

And the shooting happened outside the school's Fine Arts Center where a homecoming week event had just wrapped up. Students reported hearing a loud bang as they exited. Immediately, the crowd began to run and shelter

in place.

Classes are cancelled today. But the shooter remains at large.

Let's take you to the campus of Morgan State University with CNN's Gabe Cohen.

Gabe, notably, police say they don't believe the students were the targets here. So how did all of it start?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so, Boris, Baltimore police say it looks like this started as some sort of fight between two small groups that quickly escalated when at least two people pulled out guns and opened fire.

And those five victims in this case, four of whom are Morgan State students, police say they weren't the intended target here. They were just caught in the middle.

And it's really a stunning situation for the people who go to school in this community. A lot of concern because police still have not made an arrest in this case.

The commissioner speaking at a press conference just a little while ago. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD WORLEY, BALTIMORE POLICE COMMISSIONER: We know there was more than one person with a weapon. The problem is the ballistics has to tell us how many guns there were that were shot.

We know there was -- it looks like it was probably a dispute between two smaller groups. And then one individual was a target of two individuals who had weapons.

And we don't believe that individual was hit. We believe the five victims who were struck were unintended targets.

And we do know a third person pulled a weapon. But we don't know how many of those were fired because mainly all the ballistics was relatively the same. And we have to do a deeper dive with our ATF partners.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, again, Boris, at this hour, Baltimore police have not made any arrests. And they haven't revealed if they have any suspects at this point.

Look, Morgan State is a historically black university. The mayor of Baltimore saying today there's no indication at this point that this was a racially motivated shooting, though, it is still under investigation.

SANCHEZ: Gabe, what about the four students that were injured? Do you have an update on their condition?

COHEN: Yes, we do. We heard from the police commissioner a little earlier, who said at least one of those students had been released from the hospital.

Again, we knew just after the shooting in the couple hours that followed that none of the five had life-threatening injuries so that's the positive news to share.

And I just got off the phone, less than two minutes ago, with the fire department that told me those other four victims are still in the hospital. Though, at this hour, they're in stable condition, doing fairly well.

SANCHEZ: Glad to hear that.

Gabe Cohen live in Baltimore. Thanks, Gabe.

Pam?

BROWN: All right, a CIA staffer is suing the spy agency, accusing it of intimidation and witness tampering over a sexual assault incident that took place at its headquarters in 2022.

The lawsuit claims that the CIA repeatedly discouraged its employee from filing a criminal complaint and even tried to intimidate her from testifying against her assailant who was convicted on a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery in August.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis joins us now in the studio with more. So what more do we know about this?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: So, Pam, I spoke to the victim's attorney this morning and he said that, while they're mainly concerned about what she says were a number of instances in which the CIA actively discouraged her from reporting the attack at the time.

What allowed them to bring legal action in the instance is a series of internal instant messages between the victim and another employee at the CIA the agency voluntarily turned over to her assailant's defense counsel in criminal proceedings in August.

So during the attacker's trial in August, the victim's attorney gets the notification from the attacker's defense attorney saying, look, we have these internal instant messages between your client and another employee.

The lawsuit is now claiming that the CIA not only voluntarily turned over those messages to her attacker, but also, according to the victim, they were selectively edited in such a way to make it appear as if she was having an extramarital affair, something that the victim denies.

For example, in one of the exchanges, according to the lawsuit, the victim was discussing feeling sore after a workout.

The way the messages were presented made it look like she was talking about feeling sore after a sexual encounter with this employee, again, which she denies.

This is what the lawsuit is referring to as slut-shaming and her attorneys are arguing that this is the CIA basically trying to intimidate her from testifying at her assailant's criminal trial and, ultimately, trying to help him avoid being convicted.

[14:45:07]

BROWN: And so what is the CIA saying about this?

LILLIS: The CIA isn't commenting on this directly, citing the need to protect the privacy of their officers as well as the ongoing litigation.

But they do say they take reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault extremely seriously. That they've taken a number of measures over the last couple of years to try to improve their internal processes for both reporting and adjudicating claims.

But we also know, Pam, that this woman isn't the first or the only -- I'm sorry -- the only to come forward alleging that the CIA mishandled her claims of sexual assault.

We know that the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are both looking into this issue, as is the CIA inspector general.

And so what's important here, Pam, is this lawsuit is really kind of one of the first public information we've gotten into the details of what these against the agency actually are.

BROWN: All right, Katie Bo Lillis, thank you so much.

And we'll be right back.

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[14:50:30]

BROWN: This just in. The backlash towards Congressman Matt Gaetz after his ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is growing.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us now.

Manu, you just caught up with Republican Congressman Mike Lawler. What did he tell you?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He supports kicking out Matt Gaetz from the House Republican conference. It would have to be a conference vote to actually do that. It's unclear if it will come to pass.

But I asked Mr. Lawler whether or not he believes Matt Gaetz should be expelled from his conference. He said, "In my opinion, yes." He called his conduct, in his view, quote, "disgraceful."

This comes as a number of allies of Speaker McCarthy have railed against Matt Gaetz and said what he did was beyond the institution, was beyond the pale.

They accused him of using a personal vendetta to go after Speaker McCarthy, to boost Gaetz's personal and political profile, boost his fundraising, and the like. Many want nothing to do with him or for him to serve in the Republican Conference.

Those allegations, of course, Gaetz has denied. He said this is not personal. He says this is not about an ethics investigation he is facing, but it's simply about, in Gaetz's view, McCarthy is not keeping his promise on a whole range of issues, including over the issue of federal spending.

Nevertheless, this fight still continues to linger. And there are tons of raw feelings within the House GOP conference over all the historical and unprecedented events of yesterday and McCarthy's ouster as Republicans try to figure out what is next.

One of the question questions, if how can a new speaker, if and when they're elected as soon as next week, can work with some of the folks like Matt Gaetz and people had help push out Kevin McCarthy, if the threat to push out the new speaker continues, to kick McCarthy out, given that one member can call for his ouster.

And, Pamela, that's a big question right now.

One thing some members are pushing for is to get rid of that tool altogether to push for the speaker's ouster. And just moments ago, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell

endorsed calls for the House to get rid of that rule, to call for the ouster of a sitting speaker.

We'll see what the speaker candidates do as they line up the votes right now behind the scenes to succeed Kevin McCarthy -- Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Manu Raju, thanks so much.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: So the legal issues have piled up for Hunter Biden and so have his legal bills. CNN has learned that the president's son has racked up more than $10 million in legal fees. And now he's trying to figure out how he's going to pay for them.

CNN's Kayla Tausche is live for us at the White House.

So, Kayla, what's the new reporting on this?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, sources tell me and Paula Reid that Hunter Biden incurred this $10 million legal debt over the course of five years as he moved to defend himself against federal investigations into tax and gun crimes, a lengthy child support case and various congressional inquiries.

This is the first time that the true scope of Hunter's financial straits is being reported.

We've learned from our sources that that mountain of legal debt is only set to increase by a magnitude of millions of dollars if some of these cases go to federal trials, if Hunter is not able to reach a settlement in some of these cases.

Financiers like longtime friend and Hollywood attorney, Kevin Morris, are no longer able to bankroll Hunter's legal efforts.

Now Hunter's team is trying to get creative. There's an expectation that could go to deep-pocketed Biden allies to try to shore up his financial position, to try to fill that hole and raise some of that money.

For the last several months, his team has been considering the idea of launching a formal legal defense fund. It would have been run by an ethics attorney. It would have been by the book to closely monitor where money is coming in from and where it is going out to.

We're told the White House seriously pushed back against that. They were very leery of the possibility that they could be seen as breaching campaign finance laws or just generally in an ethical gray area.

The legal defense fund, we're told, has gone quiet for now. That doesn't mean his team isn't going to try to get creative and find that money somewhere -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: Kayla Tausche, reporting from the White House, thank you very much.

[14:54:58]

Still to come, former President Donald Trump is heading back to the campaign trail after spending a few days in a New York City courtroom for his civil fraud trial. We'll take you live to the courthouse for the very latest when we come back.

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SANCHEZ: A scramble in Congress with no speaker in the House. Republicans need to pick a new leader and quickly as the chamber is paralyzed until a new leader is chosen. What we're learning about who is vying for the powerful position.

[14:59:53]

BROWN: Leaving court and unleashing new insults. Former President Trump is still slamming the judge overseeing his civil fraud trial in New York and the state's attorney general. This, as he heads back home to Florida.

SANCHEZ: And sending seized weapons into a war zone.