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Texts, Video, 911 Calls From Uvalde School Massacre Released; Trump Sues Justice Department for $100M Over Mar-a-Lago Raid; Trump Campaign Says It Was Hacked, Points Finger At Iran; USA Gymnastics: Video Supports Efforts To Reinstate Chiles' Medal. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired August 12, 2024 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:34:01]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: A trove of newly released information about the Uvalde school shooting is reigniting anger about the botched police response.
The release, which only came after CNN and other major news organizations sued for it. It includes various documents, dashcam videos and text messages. We also hear a 911 call from a man who says he's the shooters uncle.
It's now been two years since 19 children and two teachers were all killed at Robb Elementary School as their families now continue fighting for accountability.
CNN's Camila Bernal is here with more on this.
Camila, what are we learning from this newly released information?
CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jess. You know, the audio, the video, the text messages, they're hard to listen, to watch and read. And like you said, I want to point out that most of this CNN and the outstanding team that has been covering this shooting has already reported on and shown you.
But we did learn that this man, who said he was the shooters uncle, called 911 that day and begged a dispatcher to talk to his nephew, hoping that he could help end that situation.
[13:35:04]
Now I want you to listen to that 911 audio.
(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)
UNIDENTIFIED UNCLE OF UVALDE SHOOTER: The thing that is happening at Robb right now, he's my nephew.
DISPATCHER: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED UNCLE OF UVALDE SHOOTER: I was wondering, maybe he could -- he could listen to me because he does listen to me. Everything I tell him, he does listen to me. Maybe he could stand down or do something to turn himself in.
(END AUDIO FEED)
BERNAL: So that call came into dispatch at 12:57 p.m. That was seven minutes after law enforcement had used a janitor's key to get into that classroom and killed the suspect.
Now, in another one of the 911 calls that we're released, that was actually first reported by CNN in the months after the shooting, a 10- year-old girl is trapped in a classroom and you can hear her telling the dispatcher to hurry because there we're a lot of dead bodies.
This is really not something a child should be saying -- Jess?
DEAN: Absolutely not.
Camila, we're also learning that officers were concerned about their own safety after this. What more do you know about that?
BERNAL: Yes. We received these text messages that show a group of officers were expressing fear for their safety in the hours and the days after the shooting. And they we're asking if their photos could actually be taken off the Web site.
There's another group chat that mentions the DPS director throwing everyone under the bus. That's obviously referring to the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
And in a press conference after the shooting, the DPS director did say that the on-scene commander had made the wrong decision and did not attempt to get into this classroom quickly enough.
He later said that the first officers that responded acted against active shooter training. And we have reached out to DPS about these text messages.
But just last week, the former Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo told CNN's Ed Lavandera that he felt that he was scapegoated from the very beginning.
So there's still a lot of questions when it comes to law enforcement, who was heavily criticized for this failed response. Because remember, it took 77 minutes for these officers at the school to confront the shooter.
And the families of the 19 children and two teachers, they're still dealing with all of this. And they still want accountability -- Jess?
DEAN: Of course, and still grieving their loved ones. It is so heartbreaking to look at all of those pictures of who was lost.
Camila Bernal, thank you for that reporting.
Still ahead, lawyers for former President Trump have filed $100 million claim against the Justice Department over the fence federal search of Mar-a-Lago. We're going to break down their case, next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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[13:41:49]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Donald Trump has a new campaign ad that seems to accompany his new lawsuit they just filed against the Justice Department.
The former president is seeking $100 million over the FBI's search of his Mar-a-Lago home in August of 2022, alleging that it was wrong and that it hurt his reputation.
Media coverage of the Mar-a-Lago warrant is part of the new Trump ad that he tweeted out today. And the ad plays up his claims that a biased Justice Department is going after him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom. They wanted --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: We're going to talk about this now with CNN senior law enforcement analyst, Andrew McCabe.
You are a former deputy director of the FBI. I just wonder, as you look at this lawsuit, how do you think that the bureau is going to respond to this?
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, the department will respond on the bureau's behalf. They will defend it vociferously.
There there's very, very little legal merit or chance that this will succeed. It's a political move, not really so much of a legal move.
Many checks and balances built into our justice system. As you know, one of them is the government doesn't ever take an action like this on their own. They go to court and they prove to a judge that there's probable cause to believe that there's evidence in a particular relocation.
That's what happened here with Mar-a-Lago. And a federal judge made that determination. Then the FBI is simply executed, conducted their authorized law enforcement activity pursuant to that warrant.
KEILAR: You said a federal judge made that determination. And part of the basis for that was that the Justice Department -- the feds had tried on multiple occasions to get this information from Trump in a way that had some kind of coordination, nicely, let me just put it that way. It was done, right, to do it and sort of nicely and in cooperation with his representatives. And in the end, he didn't cooperate.
This lawsuit alleges that they should have coordinated with his lawyers, and yet, they tried to.
MCCABE: It's laughable. The language we've seen from the lawsuit so far is literally laughable.
They say that there's some sort of duty or requirement on the FBI to conduct this sort of activity only with the -- under the consent of -- with the consent of the person being investigated. That's actually not a thing. You're not required to do that.
But in this case, as you mentioned, they spent months, half a year, in fact, pursuing -- to try to get those documents back with the participation and the consent of Mr. Trump and his representatives.
They -- numerous lawyers they consulted with. And in fact, at one point, the Trump team looked at what they had and only gave some of it back, therefore, making the decision to continue to retain the rest of it, which we now know had dozens and dozens of classified documents in it.
So it's ridiculous. It's not going anywhere. And the claims in the suit themselves are -- are absurd.
KEILAR: I want to switch gears because the Trump campaign says that it was hacked. They said that this weekend, in fact, that they had been hacked by Iranian operatives.
[13:45:02]
"Politico" has now reported receiving emails from an unknown account about the Trump campaign, receiving documents.
Iran says the accusation has no credence. Do with that what you will.
How does Iran's past behavior inform what we may be seeing here? And I just want to be clear, some of the details are murky at this point.
MCCABE: Absolutely. So we know, historically, that Iran kind of a waded into the presidential contest in 2020 in a very similar way.
They used spear phishing to go after accounts that they thought could get them into the documents and the conversations within political campaigns. That's essentially what's been alleged here.
As you said, we don't know for sure if it was Iran. We know that Microsoft said that they have uncovered some Iranian activity, but they didn't identify which campaign it was directed at. And the Trump team has said it was them. It may very well be Iran.
But in this case, you see a slight evolution on the same tactic. This time, from the Microsoft report, we know that Iran went to a former campaign adviser, hacked into that person's account and used that account to send spear phishing emails to people in this unidentified campaign.
So that's a -- they're, they're upping their game a little bit. They've learned from their 2020 experience, and they're still committed to trying to play some mischief in our election.
KEILAR: Can you talk a little bit about what we don't know here? Because you -- Microsoft initially had said that there was an attempt.
The Trump campaign saying there was a successful attempt. They're saying that it was Iranian operatives. We're hearing that really from the Trump campaign.
You talk to federal representatives, hey, is there an investigation going on? They're not going to tell us. Maybe not surprising there. How do you make sense of all this that we don't know?
MCCABE: We can't -- at this point, we don't have the facts to connect what Microsoft is saying about Iran with what the Trump campaign is saying about having been hacked. There's not -- we're missing that kind of keystone in the bridge.
It may very well exist. But as you said, the feds aren't sharing that with us, which is totally standard.
Whether or not the Trump campaign has reached out to the FBI to report this hack and to participate in an investigation in some way, we don't know that either. They haven't answered that question.
But even without a contact like that, it is likely the FBI would investigate this anyway, because they are always investigating Iran's malicious cyber activity targeting the United States and certainly targeting our election.
They would be investigating it. So very understandable why the bureau is not saying anything at this point until they get a better understanding of who did what here.
KEILAR: Yes, more to learn.
Andrew, thank you so much.
MCCABE: Sure.
KEILAR: Really appreciate it.
U.S. Gymnastics is it's fighting back after Jordan Chiles was stripped of her bronze medal. More on the video evidence that they just submitted to make the case.
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[13:52:30]
KEILAR: All right, there's a new twist in the battle over the bronze. USA Gymnastics says it has submitted video evidence that challenges the decision to strip U.S. Gymnast Jordan Chiles of her bronze medal. Chiles was awarded the bronze after her coaches submitted an inquiry over a deduction that she had received in the women's floor exercise final.
DEAN: And so the judges agreed with the coach's argument and that elevated her to third place, getting that bronze medal.
But Romanian officials successfully appealed that decision, claiming the inquiry was filed after the one-minute deadline. And so here we are.
CNN's Don Riddell joins us now.
And, Don, what are we learning now from USA Gymnastics?
DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Hey, guys. Well, they are confident that their repeal of the appeal of the appeal should be successful.
Because as you say, they have found this video evidence that demonstrates that they were actually as quick as they should have been in order to get this first appealing in, in the first place.
But they were told by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that they were, I think, four seconds over the 60 seconds they had to get that appeal in. But they now think that they can prove that actually they did it within a minute.
Let's just bring you a part of the statement that the U.S. Olympic Committee have released today. Here's a statement:
"We firmly believe that Jordan rightfully earned the bronze medal and there were critical errors in both the initial scoring by the International Gymnastics Federation and the subsequent CAS," which is the Court of Arbitration for Sport, "appeal process that needs to be addressed.
"We remain dedicated to supporting her as an Olympic champion and will continue to work diligently to resolve this matter swiftly and fairly."
And I think everybody involved will be looking at those last couple of words, "swift and fair," because I think everybody feels really, really hard done by here.
The Romanian gymnast, Ana Barbosu, was absolutely heartbroken when she first thought she had the bronze and then she didn't. She was holding the Romanian flag. She just kind of dropped it to the ground. She was absolutely devastated.
And now you have the reversal with Jordan Chiles being told she's not the bronze medalist either. And she's now had to take herself or social media because of just the impact that this is taking on her emotional and mental well-being.
And everybody must hope that they get to the bottom of this quickly because one of the more bizarre sights we just saw in Paris was the U.S. Winter Olympic figure skating team in Paris receiving their medals from two-and-a-half years ago. Nobody wants it to take that long.
[13:54:59]
And we're all now wondering if this amazing image of the three black gymnasts on the podium, which was a first in the sport of gymnastics, if that stands true or not, is Jordan Chiles a bronze medalist or not? We don't know.
DEAN: It is. It is a mess and just ridiculous that she's being attacked on social media enough to have to get off of it.
All right. We'll see how this resolves itself.
Don Riddell, thanks so much.
Battleground momentum. New numbers showing the Harris-walz ticket gaining ground in three key states. Meantime, former President Donald Trump zeroing in on crowd size. We'll discuss the state of the 2024 race. That's next.
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