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DOJ Report Shows Law Enforcement Response to Uvalde a Failure; E. Jean Carroll Resumes Testimony in Defamation Case; Trump Says, Presidents Must Have Immunity, Even in Events That Cross the Line. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 18, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This just in, CNN has obtained the DOJ's report on the 2022 Uvalde school shooting and it called the police response to the massacre a, quote, failure.

Our teams are going through that report as we speak to find out what else happened on that horrible day in which 19 children and 2 teachers were slaughtered.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: And right now, E. Jean Carroll is being questioned by Donald Trump's lawyers as a jury decides how much the former president will have to pay for defaming her.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Down goes DeSantis, down to South Carolina that is, which is not in New Hampshire. Why he is pulling back if not out of New Hampshire just days before the primary.

Kate is getting better. Rahel is in for her. I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

All right, we do have breaking news. CNN has obtained a copy of the federal report evaluating the law enforcement response to the Uvalde school massacre. This report was shared with CNN by a family member of a Robb Elementary student. The full report is expected to be released later today.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz has been working this story from the beginning, and, Shimon, I can see you looking through the report right now. What are you learning?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And, John, and just the stress, we obtained this report from a family members who are allowed to pick it up this morning after their meeting last night with the attorney general here behind me. And so this morning, the Department of Justice gave them the opportunity to pick up their report and some of them are sharing the information with us.

And as you said, one of the critical things in this report is that it highlights the failures of the police officers' leadership, the commanders of the different police departments that responded that morning in their -- essentially in their lack of leadership and taking control of the scene, giving instructions to officers, treating this situation like it was a barricaded situation, not an active shooter situation, despite the fact that there were several indications that there were children inside the classroom, that the gunman was still firing, they could hear the shots, and all of that should have made officers and the leadership on scene that day act, take charge and go after the gunman and essentially kill him and try and rescue the people inside.

Also from what I've seen from this report, the Department of Justice really focuses on the victims here and the trauma that the community has experienced because of the lack of accountability, the lack of transparency, the way that they were treated here by officials, the lack of care for some of the victims on the day of the shooting and the way that they were treated and handled, and really just a top to bottom failure in every way by law enforcement on that day from their response to the way they treated the scene, the crime scene, the way they treated victims, what they did after the shooting ended.

And also the communication here of the narrative that was initially put out by law enforcement, that this was some kind of heroic effort by officers who were on scene and officers who responded and just days later, really, from tough questioning by reporters, that all unraveled. And, essentially, what we learned was that officers stood by for some 77 minutes as the gunman was allowed to remain inside that classroom.

I can tell you, John, from talking to family members, they want more accountability. They are waiting for the local district attorney here to make a decision on criminal charges. They want criminal charges. It's unclear at this point if that's ever going to happen.

[10:05:01]

And so now we wait for more news. We're going to hear from the attorney general later today here at a press conference. We'll hear from family members again later on.

But, certainly, from what I've seen in this report, there are serious issues with the response by law enforcement on that day, as I said, from top to bottom. And it is a very damning report, certainly, but it is something that the family members here have been waiting for a very long time. And that is the most important part of this because it is about the family members and it is about the victims and how they have been just mistreated and given no answers for now what is almost two years.

BERMAN: Shimon, I will never forget arriving there with you and you telling me the minute we got on the ground something is not right here. Something is not right about what we're being told, what happened and how police responded.

So, it's so interesting to me now that you're telling me that this federal report goes into the response to the response because this is about the victims, this is about the families and how they've been treated after in many ways this horrible massacre.

You say there's some accountability here. Does this federal report name names and give an outline for maybe who or what is to blame?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, there is. They are naming names of their -- naming the leadership that day, specifically the school -- the former now school police chief, Pete Arredondo, who really was sort of, the they say, based on their investigation, and, really, a lot of the investigation that we've done, that he was in charge of the scene that day and that it was two other law enforcement officials.

You had the sheriff, Nolasco, who was there that day, and then also the active -- the acting Uvalde police chief, Mariano Pargas. In all of these names, all of these individuals have been the subject of several reports that we here at CNN have done in-depth analysis based on video we obtained, reports we obtained, all showing the lack of leadership, all showing the fact that they failed to take any kind of action on that day, despite knowing, hearing 911 calls, hearing that kids were inside that classroom, hearing from the husband of a teacher who was inside telling them that his wife was inside shot.

So, all of this sort of this report takes everything that has been known, some new information and puts it all together, and really just paints an ugly picture of the response both that day, both after and even to this day of how this community has been treated.

And the other thing, John, you know, I remember us, you and I standing outside that school the next morning, and remember we did that lengthy interview with that Texas Department of Public Safety official who was the spokesperson.

And he came to the scene and he started just talking to the media and offering all kinds of narratives of this heroic effort, that the police were here and they were there to rescue people, but days later, all of that started to unravel, and that was a big problem here, because the family members in the community were just not getting answers, true answers, accurate answers, and that is something that they are still living with here in the community, and it has caused a major distrust, it has caused major trauma for this community.

BERMAN: It didn't add up. It just didn't add up. Shimon Prokupecz, stand by, if you will. Again, a lot of what we're seeing today is because of the questions you've been asking for so long, two years.

With us now, CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Jonathan Wackrow. So, Jonathan, this is a federal report, the results of an investigation that's been going on for months and months and months here. A lot of what it finds is what we have come to know through reporting by Shimon and others here that the law enforcement response was inadequate, in many ways, just wrong. So, what happens now with this?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT: Well, listen, we have to learn from it, right? And we have to take what we saw on that day, what is being reported now and hold people accountable, right? And I think that what Shimon's point -- what he was trying to say here is that the re-victimization of this community happens again now, because this report is out without the accountability and holding people accountable for their either actions or lack of actions on that day just continues the pain and suffering for this community, right?

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What we see in this report is no different than what we saw in the moments of the police response and all of Shimon's remarkable reporting afterwards is that the there was a complete failure across the board, right? And so that failure is the situational awareness, you know, from the moment that those first calls came in, realizing that this was an active shooter situation, not a barricaded individual, right? That's failure number one.

Communication, understanding the tactical control of responding officers and public safety officials to that site, maintaining an incident command structure, there were so many failures on that day. And for 77 minutes, we watched as those failures compounded.

And that's what this report outlines. You know, law enforcement has been taught for years, hundreds of thousands of hours of training go into, you know, hostile intruder active shooter situation and what needs to be done. This is now a basic tenet of modern day policing. And what we saw was the exact contrast to that. We saw those widely adopted, you know, tactics around hostile intruder active shooter essentially ignored.

And that that needs accountability. Those people who are making those decisions need to be held accountable for the 77 minutes of lack of action and the deaths that occurred because of that.

BERMAN: I don't want to oversimplify it, but what has become the way that law enforcement has been taught to deal with active futures is basically you can't wait. You can't wait to go in.

WACKROW: No.

BERMAN: And what happened in Uvalde was the opposite of that?

WACKROW: John, the number one priority that every rookie police officer learns in the academy and it's -- you know, it reinforced through on the job training throughout their entire career, number one priority in an active shooter situation is stop the killing in progress at all costs. Aggressive action by law enforcement is critical. You need to draw the gunfire away from innocent victims.

Remember law enforcement is going in with equipment, with tactics, with training, with knowledge of how to suppress that threat. Those innocent victims have nothing. You are the savior. If you're that police officer, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to go in and at least draw the fire away and try to suppress that threat as quickly as possible. That force of action by law enforcement is critical to resolving this situation. When you don't, this is what you get for 77 minutes.

John, I was on air on CNN with you with Shimon in those moments looking at and understanding, wait a minute, why aren't police moving? We saw that they were taking positions outside of the building, but there was no action. And what happened was that caused frustration on the scene. We saw a complete collapse of any type of incident command. And, again, this report outlines it, but now we need to move into that next phase of accountability.

BERMAN: Jonathan Wackrow, thank you very much for being with us today. And, again, our thanks to Shimon, who was on the ground in Uvalde, poring through a hard copy of that report that we are the first to obtain. Thank you both very much. Sara?

SIDNER: Still ahead, we just have five days to the New Hampshire primary. Nikki Haley is making a full court press there, while Ron DeSantis, not there. He's focusing on somewhere else, Nikki Haley's home state. We'll discuss.

Also, can House Speaker Mike Johnson avert a partial government shutdown? He and his colleagues on Capitol Hill have less than two days to try to make that happen.

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SIDNER: Right now, E. Jean Carroll is back on the stand, facing cross-examination from Donald Trump's lawyers in her $10 million defamation case. Trump's lawyers indicating she had about 30 minutes worth of questioning left.

Let's get right to Kara Scannell outside court. Kara, what are we hearing from inside the court?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, E. Jean Carroll has been on the stand for just a little while now and she's under cross-examination from Trump's attorney, Alina Habba. The focus of much of the questioning this morning has been on the timeline, because E. Jean Carroll's initial story came out through a book at cert on New York Magazine's website and that Donald Trump made his first statement that Carroll is suing him for that defamatory about five hours later.

So, what they are showing Carroll are people responding to her tweet about this story that was negative before Donald Trump made his first post. Some of these tweets that they've showed that she was making up false news, was a dirty liar, another said, you are a disgrace.

It's all part of Trump's argument that he should not be held responsible for mean tweets that people would have sent E. Jean Carroll regardless of what he said. And, of course, Carroll and her lawyers have said that it was Donald Trump's statement that prompted his followers to echo his words and to bombard her with negativity both in these tweets but also through Facebook messages and some threats that she said had scared her where she thought she was going to get shot.

So, she is still testifying now on the stand. They're also starting to ask questions about how much money she is currently making because another argument that Trump's lawyers are saying is that Carroll's actually -- her career has prospered since she came public with her allegations against Trump and she has a new found career and that it's not as damaged as Carroll has testified yesterday under oath all day about the impact of Trump's statements.

So, her testimony is only as you say about to go for about a half hour today and then she will be done and the cross-examination will be over.

[10:20:05]

Her lawyers may choose to ask her questions under what's known as redirect but her testimony will end sometime this morning. Sara?

SIDNER: Okay. We're seeing video of her coming in and out of court.

Kara, I just wanted to know who's taking the stand next or what's happening next in court after she testifies and is cross-examined?

SCANNELL: So, her lawyers also say that they want to call Carol's former boss at L Magazine. That's where she wrote her advice column for almost three decades. So, she is expected to take the stand, add to Carroll's credibility.

And they also intend to call a reputation expert. That is someone who will talk about the monetary harm that Carroll is facing. She is facing more than $10 million in damages in this lawsuit.

Now, the judge has also said that Carroll's lawyers can play the Access Hollywood tape. That's where Donald Trump bragging about how he, as a celebrity, has a right to do what he wants to have women, that was allowed in the first trial. The judge has said he will let that come in again because it may help the jury understand the former president's mindset and views toward women.

It's unclear if that will be played today, but that is one of the pieces of evidence that Carroll's team has said that they want to play. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes. The grab her in the P tape raised a lot of eyebrows and anger back when it was played, and yet he still became president and now we're seeing this fight between he and E. Jean Carroll play out in the courts.

Kara Scannell thank you so much for following all of the details of these cases. John?

BERMAN: All right. With us now, CNN Legal Analyst Norm Eisen. He served as House Judiciary Special Counsel in Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. Ambassador, thank you very much.

Let me first ask you about this line of questioning that E. Jean Carroll is under right now from Trump's attorneys. It's something along the lines of, other people did it too and first, in terms of saying bad stuff about you, E. Jean Carroll. Why are the Trump lawyers doing this, and is it effective? NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: John, it's not effective. And the reason it's not effective is because the Trump lawyers are pointing to an approximately five-hour gap between E. Jean Carroll revealing what Donald Trump did in New York Magazine and Donald Trump claiming it was false.

And what Alina Habba, Trump's lawyer, is trying to do here is to say, look, you were attacked in this five-hour period before President Trump said anything. And, therefore, you can't blame President Trump for everything that has transpired since.

But, John, we're talking about five hours on the one hand and years of harm that E. Jean Carroll very persuasively testified about on the other. And I just don't think the jury is going to care. The examination has also been marred by considerable additional bumbling by Trump's lawyer, Ms. Habba, who doesn't seem to know the basic rules of evidence on how to use these documents and information. So, that is also a negative when you have a lawyer bumbling in front of a jury.

BERMAN: This exchange between Judge Kaplan and Donald Trump himself, which took place in court, and just the end of it was Judge Kaplan telling Donald Trump, you just can't control yourself in these circumstances, apparently, and Trump responding, you can't either, to a federal judge. What impact does that have in the case now going forward, Norm?

EISEN: Well, Donald Trump already had very little leeway with this judge when it comes to really the former president's best hope of countering this devastating testimony from the plaintiff, the victim here, E. Jean Carroll. That's Donald Trump himself taking the stand. He would have been much smarter to save up that leeway, John, for when he was on the stand, and it really counts the most in front of the jury to get a little extra room to make his points.

The judge is going to be on the edge of his chair. He's clearly starting to get fed up with Trump. And I just don't think you talk that way to a federal judge, especially not Judge Kaplan. He's been on the bench for a long time. This is not the judge in state court, Judge Engoron, who heard the New York State civil fraud trial, who gave Trump and his lawyers a lot of leeway. That's just not going to happen here, and Trump will be barred from the court or ejected from the stand if he continues with these kinds of shenanigans.

BERMAN: Yes, I haven't seen a federal judge treated this way or taken this way.

I want to ask you, we could hear any minute or any day from the federal appeals court on the issue of presidential immunity.

[10:25:04]

Donald Trump and his lawyers are arguing that he has immunity for anything that happened on January 6th, that he did because he was president of the United States at the time.

Donald Trump on his social media just put out an argument here. He wrote, a president of the United States must have full immunity without which it would be impossible for him or her to properly function. Any mistake, even if well intended, would be met with almost certain indictment by the opposing party at term end. Even events that cross the line must fall under total immunity.

Ambassador, that seems like an even more expansive argument than they made in court.

EISEN: John, it's hard to comprehend a more expansive argument than the one Trump's lawyer made in court, that the president can order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate an opponent, and yet Donald Trump has managed to go even further this morning.

The core idea of our Constitution of American law, of the founding of our country, is that no person is above the law. Everyone is subject to the Constitution. No, you cannot cross the line. A president cannot have that absolute immunity. That would be a dictatorship. It would be a lawless country. And there is no way that the D.C. Circuit is going to embrace that kind of broad, absolute immunity or that the Supreme Court will. It's just a question of how long it takes for the appellate courts to resolve this.

Can we get that trial back on track in the District of Columbia federal courts? But this is a dead loser and really reprehensible and dangerous.

BERMAN: Yes. The phrase, even events across the line, you know, is risky, legally, could be admission of malfeasance there. Ambassador Norm Eisen, thank you very much. Rahel?

SOLOMON: All right, John. Coming up for us, up next, Texas authorities arrest migrants at a public park. They were taken away in handcuffs, this as tensions continue between state and federal officials over Texas blocking miles of the southern border. We are live there straight ahead.

Plus, the clock is ticking, but Congress does appear poised to avert a partial shutdown, but there is no room for error. We're going to have the latest on negotiations, coming up next.

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