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Alec Baldwin Indicted In Fatal "Rust" Shooting; Small Passenger Plane Lands On Virginia Road; Trump Lawyers Tell Supreme Court To Reverse Colorado Decision: Taking Him Off Ballots Would "Unleash Chaos." Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 19, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:01:16]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN BREAKING NEWS.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Breaking news into CNN, after initially having charges against him dropped, actor Alec Baldwin has been indicted by a New Mexico grand jury on charges connected to that 2021 fatal shooting on the set of the film "Rust."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have CNN's Josh Campbell with us, along with CNN Legal Analyst, Joey Jackson.

Josh, just catch us up here. What more are you learning about this?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, for our viewers, if this sounds familiar, it's because it is. This is now the second time that actor Alec Baldwin is being criminally charged for his alleged role in that fatal shooting back in October 2021 on the set of the movie "Rust" in New Mexico.

Now, to reminder our viewers that after that initial incident, authorities conducted their investigation, prosecutors ultimately determining in their view that Alec Baldwin was criminally responsible for being the person holding that weapon when it went off, fatally shooting cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Now, interestingly and importantly, those charges were ultimately dropped. Prosecutors at the time said that that's because new evidence had come to light really raising questions about a piece of evidence in that case. A law enforcement source told me that the evidence in question was the gun itself and whether over some period of time it had been modified, which, of course, would raise all kinds of questions about it being presented as evidence.

But authorities said at the time that they will continue their investigation. And if they ultimately do determine that they believe Alec Baldwin is responsible, they will seek additional charges. That is what happened we're learning today. A grand jury in the state of New Mexico returning an indictment.

I'll read you these two charges. Count one, involuntary manslaughter, negligent use of a firearm. Count two, involuntary manslaughter without due caution or circumspection.

Now, this is a bit of legalese, but although these are two counts, the way that this is being charged, if Alec Baldwin is ultimately convicted, a jury will only sentence him on one charge or the other. So not both charges, but nevertheless, he is now criminally charged once again.

As far as how this investigation came to light and what authorities found, I want to play just a short clip here. This was from our exclusive interview with the initial prosecutor in the case who told CNN what they found as they went through their investigation and why they thought charges were applicable at the time against Baldwin. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY CARMACK-ALTWIES, NEW MEXICO'S FIRST JUDICIAL DA: There was such a lack of safety and safety standards on that set that there were live rounds on set. They were mixed in with regular dummy rounds. Nobody was checking those or at least they weren't checking them consistently. And then they somehow got loaded into a gun, handed off to Alec Baldwin. He didn't check it. He didn't do any of the things that he was supposed to do to make sure that he was safe or that anyone around him was safe and then he pointed the gun at Halyna Hutchins and he pulled the trigger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, it's worth pointing out that after those charges were brought, these - or dropped - these new set of charges were brought by a special prosecutor, a separate team that looked at the facts and ultimately determined in their view, they should present this to a grand jury.

Critically, we should note that Alec Baldwin all along has maintained his innocence. We just got a statement in from his attorney, a very short statement saying they look forward to their day in court, guys.

KEILAR: All right. I don't want to lose sight of the fact that in all of this is the death of a woman, a young woman, Halyna Hutchins, mother and a wife. And that family still obviously reeling from what they have lost here.

Joey, what is your reaction to this news?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Brianna, that's a critical point with respect to the loss of a life.

[15:04:59]

I guess the issue is going to be whether or not criminality played into that loss.

Obviously, when there's an indictment, what that means at its core is that you have a grand jury. A grand jury convenes and they make a determination, Brianna, not of guilt, but whether there's reason to believe that a crime was committed and that Alec Baldwin committed that crime.

In making that assessment, the grand jurors don't have to make that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt, right. Only, really, is there evidence that's put before them, okay. Now, ultimately, it will go to a trial and a trial jury will have to make a decision as to involuntary manslaughter.

Well, what does that mean?

Involuntary manslaughter is not suggesting that Alec Baldwin meant to kill anybody. What it does suggest is that there was negligence. That is, he and his conduct fell below what a reasonable person in his position would have done under those circumstances as it relates to the use of that firearm as it - and as it relates to the firing of that firearm, and so that's the essence.

Last point, Brianna, and that's this, I'm sure there'll be questions asked, well, why isn't this double jeopardy? And the answer to that question is remember what double jeopardy is and when I say that, right, the obvious point is that these charges were dismissed before as Josh Campbell indicated, not these, but charges against him. Well, they were not adjudicated and tried. You can't be tried for the same offense twice. You certainly can be charged and that's exactly what happened here.

SANCHEZ: We're joined now by Scott Coscia. He's a stunt coordinator, armorer and former NYPD officer.

Scott, I'm wondering how you are reacting to these new charges.

SCOTT COSCIA, ARMORER: So I'm very mixed. It sets a very weird, unheard of precedent to charge a producer in a - in something like this. But at the same time, so many safety protocols were violated on that movie that I don't know if Alec Baldwin really should be indicted on this because it's not his job. It's my job to understand what a firearm does. And these are kind of a weird kind of cowboy gun. It's not your standard revolver, so I'm very mixed on the - on this indictment, I have to admit.

KEILAR: You're mixed on it because you think that the responsibility should fall to the armorer and who the supervising producer over the armorer.

COSCIA: I think it ultimately falls on the armorer, but I think also the first AD bears a great amount of blame here because he picked the gun up off a prop table. There's a story of Jon-Erik Hexum, an actor in the '80s, and he picked the gun off a prop table, put it to his head in a joke and ended up sending about a quarter-sized piece of a skull into his brain. And that was just loaded with blanks.

And it's kind of changed the way things have done. And nobody is allowed to touch a firearm on my set unless I authorize it. It goes from my holster to the talent's hands. And then once that's - once cut is called, it goes right back into my holster.

SANCHEZ: Joey ... COSCIA: So I think the first AD bears a lot of responsibility here.

Alec Baldwin was told it was a clean gun. So in my opinion, I don't see how this indictment is valid. I have to be honest with you.

SANCHEZ: Joey, to Scott's point, it's likely going to be a difficult case to prove. I'm wondering if you also think that it could set a precedent for actors on a set where there is weapons, whether they're modified weapons in this case or otherwise.

JACKSON: So, Boris, I do. I do think it sets a very difficult standard and at what point does an actor have reason to believe that what he's told is what he's told, that that information could be relied upon? And I think to Scott's point, you're going to have many jurors when they assess whether or not Alec Baldwin was negligent to the degree that it rises to a crime.

What was his responsibility? Did he have the right to take into account what someone told him? What are the protocols? Were there breakdowns prior to the gun even getting into his hands? Was the gun modified in any way such that it went off without him having to exert any power or pressure, as he indicated he didn't do?

And so to Scott's indication, he, in essence, right, in his statements, it's sort of - I'm envisioning what they'll be saying if it gets this far in a jury room in terms of who's responsible. Yes, there's someone dead here. That's very significant. A meaningful, precious life has been taken away. The issue is whether it was his negligence that was the result of that and that's what a jury will have to determine. But it does, Boris, set a very, very difficult precedent moving forward.

KEILAR: Yes, it's just so sad what is at the heart of this?

Scott, Josh and Joey, thank you to all of you. We really appreciate your perspective here.

COSCIA: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. We're continuing to follow a breaking story just outside of Washington, D.C., a small commuter airplane made an emergency landing on a Virginia roadway shortly after it took off from Dulles International Airport.

KEILAR: Yes. Seven people were on board this single engine Cessna when it made the hard landing.

We have CNN Aviation Correspondent, Pete Muntean, with us now.

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We also have CNN transportation analyst and former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo.

Pete, tell us what you're learning about what happened. PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: We're learning a lot and more developments coming all the time. The flight crew of this flight, the Southern Airways Express flight 246. It's a Cessna Caravan there, typically seats about nine people.

They were able to radio the Dulles tower just after takeoff and this incident occurred and say, we've landed on a road. We've got two pilots and five passengers on board. Everybody is okay. That is the big headline that we're now getting. The FAA confirms that seven people were on board this airplane after apparent engine problems almost right after takeoff, this flight took off about 12:50 this afternoon from Dulles International Airport on runway three-zero that goes to the northwest.

Not perfect weather there. Only visibility of about a mile and a quarter. Low cloud ceiling. It was snowing at the time when the engine quits in a single engine airplane, you got to commit and go for something that looks like a runway, often a road. But the challenge here is getting it onto the road with the flow of traffic, getting around power lines. That's another risk and also telephone poles.

I want you to listen now to witness Jesse Labell. He was one of the first people to respond to this. He actually says that the flight crew of this plane were able to glide it under some of the traffic lights nearby there on Loudoun County Parkway, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSE LABELL, WITNESSED PLANE'S EMERGENCY LANDING: I was driving down the road to go get some food, heard a loud noise thinking my car blew up or something. And I look up and there's a plane 20 feet above me and lands 30 feet in front of me.

And literally, first thought is this is insane. What's going on? What the heck? What do I do?

So I - it landed, went underneath the traffic light, got squirrely over here and hit the guardrail. Looks like it only damaged the propeller. But once it landed, I parked the car and ran up to them, make sure everybody's okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: These are the live images right now of the response there at Loudoun County Parkway and Arcola Mills Drive. This is a pretty busy intersection, a bit of luck on the pilot side. Schools were closed today in north of Virginia because of the snow, not a lot of people out driving at the time, don't really need to intermix an airplane with the traffic.

The one risk here of an engine failure after takeoff of an airplane that is a single engine like this, so just one propeller is you can't really go back. You can't really turn back for the runway. It's known as the impossible turn. It can be very dangerous. So you have to make a little bit of a turn left or a little bit of a turn right and commit to something and land. And that is exactly what this crew did. Typically, these flight on these commuter flights are relatively new to aviation, getting their feet wet in commercial flying. Give this pilot a promotion and maybe a job at a mainline airline. They did a tremendous job of getting this airplane on the ground and really not all that much damage.

You can see the propeller curled there a little bit. Of course, that'll be something investigators will want to look at. Maybe the question is whether or not this airplane was still producing a little bit of power instead of a complete power loss. I would be speculating there. Of course, that'll be something that investigators will want to look into.

But this was an incredible job done in really challenging conditions. And they had to react very quickly, only at about a thousand feet above the ground. Not a lot of time to react.

SANCHEZ: Wow. Speaking of what investigators will be looking at, let's ask Mary Schiavo.

Mary, you've heard the details, what we've learned so far about this. Obviously, we also have to mention that there's adverse weather in the region today. How might all these factors shape where you would look as an investigator?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, as an investigator, you'd look at all the factors. And of course, Pete has a good eye there. Since those propeller blades are bent on the tips, that means that the propeller was at least turning, probably not full power because the pilot called in that they were having an engine problem and they didn't have sufficient power.

But the fact that he was able to control it, get it down, get it to the highway, and then you still have this propeller bending, that means it had some power, probably not full power and then there was a report from online flight tracking websites that it climbed about 800 feet in two minutes. It should climb about 800 feet in one minute. So it had half its rate of climb.

So something went on there with the power. And then the investigators will also look at the weather and the performance of this aircraft. This aircraft doesn't have what we call heated wings. This aircraft knocks off snow and ice off its wing and off of part of its tail with something called boots, pieces on the plane that expand and contract and knock the ice off.

And whenever you have a plane with boot deicing system rather than heated surfaces in bad weather, they always are concerned and investigators always look at whether it could have suffered some tail icing.

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It's ice builds up on the tail just like it builds up on the wings and they always want to look at that in any kind of accident like this. And finally, they will look at the piloting. That's one thing you're taught in flight school, you have to pick your emergency landing field if you've got a problem. And technically you're - it's illegal to land on a highway or road, but not an emergency if you declared an emergency, they so did a great job of missing all these signs.

I mean, I couldn't really - looking at the picture - it's amazing you got under the signs and over the signs and around the wires. That's awfully good or very lucky or both and that's fortunate.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is.

Because let's talk about a little bit more about the weather and the temperatures. We were looking at - the temperature is around freezing here in D. C. It's been below freezing. Well, I think a lot of people have been worried about their pipes freezing just to put it into context about what we're dealing with here.

It - so a system like that where you mentioned the boots, but what else would there be for deicing that would just be standard at these kinds of temperatures that they might be looking at?

SCHIAVO: Well, for this kind of plane, these boots are what they have. On a big jet, of course, the surfaces are heated and it's a more robust system. But on this little plane, the boots are what doesn't it and on the wings, they go, literally the length of the wing and you can see the black images there on the wings, those are the deice boots. On the tail, it's only a part of the tail.

Now because the pilots are going to be able to tell the FAA and the NTSB exactly what happened and that he was losing power and things like that, they won't have to wonder if it was tale icing or an icing problem. But whenever you have weather like we're experiencing today, and I'm in Pennsylvania where the flight was headed, the weather's terrible here too, they always look at that.

They want to make sure that that didn't have anything to do with it if all those systems were working well. And then, of course, you have to know if your plane can take the weather before you take off. But that does not seem to be what happened because the pilot said they didn't have sufficient power. They had an engine problem.

KEILAR: All right. Really interesting and thank goodness that they are all right.

SCHIAVO: Yes.

KEILAR: Pete and Mary, we do appreciate it.

And still to come, the Attorney General weighing in on former President Trump's legal issues in an exclusive interview with CNN. Why he says a speedy trial in the election subversion case is in the public's best interest.

SANCHEZ: Plus, fed up with border bickering, several Texas mayors calling for a meaningful compromise to fix the rift between President Biden and Gov. Greg Abbott. We'll take you live to the border in just moments.

And later, a new deadline for Fulton County's D.A. to respond to allegations of an improper relationship with their special prosecutor. Those stories and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: Right now, Donald Trump is fighting for his political future, both on the campaign trail and in the courtroom. Ahead of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, his lawyers have filed a brief with the Supreme Court saying the ruling that removed Trump from Colorado's primary ballot must be reversed. And they're arguing that if the Colorado ruling stands, it would "unleash chaos" and bedlam.

SANCHEZ: Now, earlier in the day before this filing, Attorney General Merrick Garland made rare public comments about the status of Trump's criminal cases. And in an exclusive interview with our Evan Perez, Garland called for a speedy trial pushing back against Republican claims of political bias at the Justice Department. Watch this.

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MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: What we have to do is show by the acts that we take that we're following the law, that we're following the facts. The prosecutions that you're talking about were brought last year. And the special prosecutor has said from the beginning that he thinks public interest requires a speedy trial, which I agree with.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You do?

GARLAND: I do. And the matter is now in the hands of the - a trial judge to determine when the trials will take place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper now with Nick Akerman. He was a special assistant Watergate prosecutor. He also served as Assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Nick, thank you so much for being with us.

How significant is it that the A.G. weighed in on this election subversion case against Donald Trump?

NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASST. SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: I think it's pretty significant. The problem, of course, is that Donald Trump and his minions have been doing everything they can to denigrate this case, call it a witch hunt, say it's uncalled for, that it's election interference.

I think it's very important that somebody weigh in and talk about the importance of this case and what it means and certainly the attorney general is the proper person to do that. Keep in mind that normally the Justice Department really can't talk much about a case and Attorney General Garland didn't say much about this case.

But there is that kind of problem where you've got Donald Trump and his group just lobbing lots of grenades at this case, all of which, are for the most part, lies. And this at least was a situation where the attorney general could basically kind of give his two cents on this matter.

KEILAR: Yes. And that's all he can give to your point. I mean, they lob the lies and there's not a whole lot that the A.G. can do. And Jack Smith, the special counsel, because remember, this was sort of spun off to create that separation. He's been very deliberate about trying to make this not political. This is something that is separate.

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Does the A.G. weighing in at all affect that? Is that something that the former president can say, well, hey, look, the A.G. is weighing in on this?

AKERMAN: Well, but he weighed in, in such a minor way. It's not like he went into a great deal of detail about the case. It's clear that he has no supervisory authority over the case. He did not decide to bring the case. It was done by Jack Smith.

So, no, I think it was done in a very measured way. That really didn't involve the attorney general at all in the actual nitty-gritty and workings of the case.

SANCHEZ: Nick, I'm curious about the timing here, because if the presidential immunity issue is resolved at a certain point in time, it may mean that the case or at least some of these cases are ongoing right before the November election. What are your thoughts about the DOJ prosecuting a candidate for president just a few months out from Election Day?

AKERMAN: Well, I think it's going to be pretty quick. I think the D.C. circuit is going to come down with an opinion, possibly today, early next week. And I think the case is going to get back on track, and you're going to see this case going to trial in March. So I don't think we're going to have that concern.

But look, the only reason this case is being slowed down, and the only reason it may not be tried immediately right now, is because Donald Trump is doing everything he can do to delay it. So it's hard to really give much weight to the idea that this is a problem for the election when he's purposely trying to delay this case as much as he can.

SANCHEZ: Nick Akerman, always appreciate the perspective. Thanks for joining us.

AKERMAN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still ahead, Texas mayors tell CNN the partisan bickering between the state and federal government over the border is doing not much to solve the humanitarian crisis there. We're going to go live at the border.

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