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New York Police Department Says It Can Connect Gun that Killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson to Suspect Luigi Mangione; State Lawmakers Demand Answers from Federal Government regarding Numerous Drones Sighted over New Jersey; Mounting Fear, Missing American Travis Timmerman Found in Syria; FBI Director Wray to Resign at End of Biden's Term. Aired 8-8:30ET

Aired December 12, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: You've got to look at this. A driver's dashcam is capturing these incredible pictures as a small plane begins to drop in the sky in southeastern Texas, before it crashes. Despite slamming into a busy roadway, hitting multiple cars, and then splitting in two, CNN affiliate KAVU says everyone involved survived that.

But several people have been hospitalized. Authorities say the plane lost contact with air traffic control shortly before crashing. The FAA and NTSB are, of course, investigating this.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: There are new details on the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO this morning. Police revealing what they now say directly connects Luigi Mangione to the murder.

And fear and frustration, dozens of sightings of drones flying over parts of New Jersey over the past month, all still unexplained. Now state officials are starting to demand answers as the FBI investigates.

And three brothers are charged with baiting and sexually assaulting dozens of women. Prosecutors say they conspired together in what became a sex trafficking scheme spanning more than a decade.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SIDNER: Important new details that may prompt new charges in the case against the suspect in the murder of the UnitedHealthcare executive. Police overnight revealing they have now matched the gun found on suspect Luigi Mangione to the weapon used to kill CEO Brian Thompson. The top prosecutor in Manhattan telling ABC News new charges could come as they keep fighting to get Mangione extradited back to New York. Also, new details from the suspects mother as well.

Brynn Gingras is leading us off this morning with a lot of new details. There's lots of things happening here, some big revelations from police, and also some revelations from his mother. What more are you learning this morning?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara. So this is the evidence that the NYPD wanted to get their hands on ever since Luigi Mangione's arrest on Monday, the gun, the fingerprints. And we now know, according to the NYPD commissioner, that both connect to Mangione. So this gives a direct link between Luigi Mangione in Philadelphia, or in Pennsylvania, rather, where he was arrested, and the crime scene here in Manhattan, according to police.

Of course, there's other evidence that they have been collecting ever since his arrest, and before that surveillance evidence, the fact that there's a fake ID that was on him, all of this is going to be, of course, used as they continue to fight for his extradition back to New York, and, of course, the broader case in general.

Now, we did hear from Mangione defense attorney who, originally, when he first gave that news conference after his arrest, said, I haven't seen anything that links my client to this crime. He updated that a little bit. I want you to hear from him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS DICKEY, ATTORNEY FOR LUIGI MANGIONE: I'm actually using different news reports as my source of information because nobody's sharing these evidentiary things with me. I'm biting at the bit, so to speak, waiting to get my hands on this stuff so we can start attacking it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: So it's clear that he will continue to fight this extradition as prosecutors, the top prosecutor, as you said, Sara, Alvin Bragg here in New York says it's possible that Mangione could face more charges.

One thing more to note from that interview that his defense attorney gave Erin Burnett, he did say that he had -- he wouldn't say, rather, if he had spoken to Mangione's family at all.

Now, what we have learned and what investigators are also trying to piece together are Mangione's whereabouts prior to this killing. Not directly before this alleged killing, not directly before, but months, weeks, days before. And we learned something from his mother, that she filed a police report with the San Francisco P.D. because she believes that is the last place that she knew of where her son was. She had told police at the time that on July 1st was the last time she actually spoke to her son. She filed that missing person's report on November 18th, again, with San Francisco P.D., and at that time she did tell police there that she didn't think that her son was a threat to himself or anyone else. Sara?

SIDNER: Wow. Lots of new details, and the country is following every single one of them, Brynn Gingras and I know, so are you. Appreciate it. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now is defense and trial attorney Misty Marris. Counselor, thank you so much for being with us. So we've got this physical evidence now, forensic evidence. You've got the motive evidence, a lot of it. If you are going to put on a defense here, how would you do it?

[08:05:00]

MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, John, the way that it's going to be leveraged as a defense is to look at all of this evidence, which is right now very forensic, right. We've got fingerprints. We've got the video evidence that's basically following now the forensic evidence where Mangione is now on the trail that the video is showing this individual.

But whenever you have that scientific evidence, there's two ways to attack it from a defense perspective. One way, you have your own experts review it and try and undercut it. The other way, you see how it was collected, how it was handled, and work arguments to maybe get some of that precluded so it would never make it into the courtroom.

Is that going to happen here? I don't know, but I would imagine the defense attorney is going to look at it from that perspective to see if they can keep something out, whether or not the gun in the backpack that was found, the I.D.s, is there a way to keep that out and create a fruits of the poisonous tree argument that would make it more difficult to connect those dots.

BERMAN: One of the big problems you would have as a defense attorney, the writings, the extensive writings. You can't wish those away.

MARRIS: Yes, that is a huge problem, especially since the writings not only talk about what a motive is -- you don't even need a motive to prosecute a case -- but it also says, well, by the way, just to let you know, I acted alone. And please look at my spiral notebook because you'll learn more information about how I actually went about planning this crime.

And again, John, so difficult. There's a mountain of evidence here. But from a defense perspective, you're going to look at ways to potentially keep that ultimately out of the courtroom.

BERMAN: So I want to be careful how I talk about this, because this guy is not a hero at all. If in fact, he did kill the CEO, this was a heinous act, a violent act here. Yet there are people out there who are supporting him in different ways. As a defense attorney, is that something you could try to use, get people on a jury mad at the health care industry?

MARRIS: Well, certainly, I think from a from a jury perspective, a jury is ultimately going to make a determination. If you have some folks on the jury that might be angry at the health care industry, and your job is to raise reasonable doubt, that could be a strategy, so a million years down the road when were at trial. But for the purposes of extradition, it's almost certain that he's coming back to New York.

BERMAN: That's why I'm not even asking you about that, because he's coming back to New York. The question essentially is when. I'm just trying to look down the road and see what the defense here is playing out here, and what fears they may be trying to put on the prosecution about how the prosecution investigators handled this. If this suspect wants to put on a show, right, and we have seen evidence that he does -- the markings on the shell casings, the shouting going into prison, obviously, the various ways he's sending messages to the world here, how uncomfortable could he make this for a prosecution?

MARRIS: Yes, Monopoly money and all of his writings. Well, so, John, a couple of ways that defense proceeds. One way is what we've been hearing so far, the "it wasn't me" defense, right. But as that evolves and it becomes impossible based on all of this evidence to say "it wasn't me," then it's, "it was me, but." And so that "it was me, but" is the way that the defense is going to try and posture this at trial. And to your point, it's an absolutely heinous crime. He's a suspect right now. But trying to raise reasonable doubt or trying to say that there's for some reason why this should not be charged at that higher level murder, maybe jury don't find him guilty of that because of all these reasons. So those are the two strategies right now. Tough defense case. Obviously, a lot coming together for the prosecution.

BERMAN: All right, Misty, Marris, thank you very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up still for us, anger boiling over in New Jersey after weeks of still unexplained and disconcerting drone sightings. Some state officials have gone from asking questions to now demanding answers. What are these drones doing? Who is behind them?

A new study suggests that seniors falling for financial scams, mismanaging their money, could be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease.

And no, that is not Santa. But a police chase does end with the suspect stuck in a chimney.

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[08:13:40]

BOLDUAN: Mysterious drone sightings in the skies above New Jersey continue to spark fear, anger, and lots of questions. The first reported sighting was on November 18th, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Some have been described as being as big as the size of a car. Dozens of mysterious nighttime flights, some over critical infrastructure, all now raising growing concern among residents and state officials.

So yesterday, state lawmakers met with police and Homeland Security officials about all of this. Some left the briefing still looking for answers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ASSEMBLYMAN BRIAN BERGEN, (R-NJ): It was ridiculous. There were no answers. Every question that was asked by a member of the state legislature, great questions, no answers, no resolution. They don't know where the drones are coming from. They don't know who's doing it. They don't know why they're doing it. But they say there's no credible threat. It was annoying to be there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That's from one state lawmaker. Joining us now is another state lawmaker, Republican New Jersey Assemblyman John DiMaio. Thank you so much for being here. Your district is where some of these drones have been spotted. So you've been hearing this from residents. You wrote a letter to the governor looking for answers. And in the letter, I saw that you said that the leadership silence have only amplified fears. Clearly, a lot is not known. What answers have you received about these drones?

ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN DIMAIO, (R-NJ): Well, so far, no response to the letters from Governor Murphy. But the more I see this play out, the more I believe it's a federal issue.

[08:15:00]

I was able to have a private briefing with the state police superintendent the other night. The colonel was pretty straight up straightforward, and he really doesn't give answers himself from the federal government. This is, in my mind, now become a federal issue. And if I were the governor, I'd be calling out to the president and say, President Biden, you need to take action.

You know, in a post 9/11 era, this has been going on for weeks. You know, things that may be a threat to our country, could be a threat to New Jersey, New York City. There's a great population based in this area.

Are they testing our ability to respond to this by keep sending these things? They only come at night. You can't see them. The State Police took their helicopter out of the sky because they're afraid that they would -- one of these things would hit it, and bring it down.

The federal government should be defending our shores. They can't even tell us where these things are coming from. They're coming from offshore, Coast Guard, other assets that we have? The federal government should be stepping up to deal with this or if this is our government, tell us. Tell us, we're working on something and everybody will say, okay, fine, it's you.

It is just, unconscionable. It's either they're complicit or they're just not able to do the job. Some things need to be happening here. FBI is asking the public to help. FBI should be looking at parts suppliers.

If there's a great supply going to people that are putting these together from within the country or we should be finding where they are, if they are coming offshore, we're hearing reports of police videos, body cams that are showing, these things flying in over our beaches.

So, we need to get one on the ground, however, way we can. The military can do that. They should do that. So we can take it apart and see who made it.

BOLDUAN: The governor has continued to stress that the way he says it is, there is no known threat from these drones. What I hear from you is that's just not -- that's not good enough. That's not good enough for you, that's not good enough for the residents in your district.

DIMAIO: Not good enough for the residents of the United States of America. These things are flying over New Jersey. With a population of nine million. New York State next door, eight million, big group of people. And you see and know that they're using drones in warfare in Ukraine, both directions. They can put things on these devices. We need to get one of these things on the ground, take it apart, find out who's it is.

Going forward, the FAA should either make rules or change the rules where any of these commercial-sized devices have some kind of transponder on it that will have a signal, identifying itself. Right now, they're running around. We can't identify them. Our government is telling us they don't know whose they are.

Well, they should be grounded. And if they continue to come, then we'll know for sure that they're coming from an adversary rather than from within.

BOLDUAN: So let me ask you about that and, obviously, this is in the vacuum of the absence of knowing anything, meaning that there are so many more questions than answers of what these really are and who's behind it.

Jeff Van Drew, Republican congressman from the state, he threw out a theory yesterday that the drones are a result of -- the way he said it is an Iranian mothership that he says was sitting off the coast and launching the reported drones.

The Pentagon was asked about this, and the Pentagon spokesperson said it is not true. There's no Iranian ship off the coast. There's no so- called mothership launching drones toward the United States. What's your reaction to that?

DIMAIO: Well, look, people are hearing things all over the place, and I know that, congressman, you know, he's pretty straight up guy.

Frankly, Washington, DC is asleep on this. Our Department of Defense should be engaged in this process. The federal government owes us answers. They're there to defend our shores. I mean, we can't (AUDIO GAP) thought, 15 miles from where I live, whatever by air. They might be testing things. fine.

But they're saying they're not testing anything. They're not putting drones up in that kind of quantity or whatever. So again, ground them all. No more drones fly until you figure out what's going on. And if they keep coming, then they're not people that are listening to -- (AUDIO GAP).

[08:20:06]

BOLDUAN: Technology is messing with us again. But John DiMaio, thank you so much for coming on, raising a very important point, Sara, which is just have answers.

If it's someone we know, then know it. If it's not, then you take the next step, it's the absence of answers and the absence know of knowing anything that's really does concern people in Jersey

SARA SIDNER:, CNN ANCHOR: And residents keep seeing them and they're becoming fearful as to what they are. I think everyone just wants to know what is going on above New Jersey.

Kate, thank you so much, great interview.

Coming up, Donald Trump is getting his way as Christopher Wray will step down at the FBI. How much does this clear the path for controversial replacement, Kash Patel?

And scary scenes of drivers caught in flash flooding inside a tunnel in Boston. Look.

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[08:25:16]

SIDNER: Breaking news out of Syria this morning. A man identifying himself as a missing man from Missouri was found just south of Damascus.

Travis Timmerman told reporters there had recently -- that he had recently been freed from jail, and he was found. The search is still ongoing, of course, for missing American, Austin Tice.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is joining us now.

What do we know about Timmerman, who was in Syria and why he was there?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

So, this American from Missouri, 29 years old, appeared barefoot, wandering, disoriented in a suburb just South of Damascus. That's when he came to the attention with social media videos popping up of him online. I want to show you one of those. You can get a sense of just his voice and his state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN, AMERICAN, IMPRISONED IN SYRIA: My name is Travis, I'm from the --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One minute only. What's your name?

TIMMERMAN: Travis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Travis.

TIMMERMAN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Country?

TIMMERMAN: United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: United States?

TIMMERMAN: United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: Now, Timmerman has told journalists on the ground that he has spoken to -- that he travelled by foot from Lebanon to Syria. To clarify this for our viewers, that is something that has not been possible under Assad's regime. If you cross from Lebanon into Syria, you will be stopped by government forces. And that's exactly what seems to have taken place.

He says, he was picked up quite quickly by security forces taken to a regime prison. Now, he says, he was treated relatively well. He was kept in that prison for seven months, but given food, given water, given bathroom breaks. But he says he heard the sound of people being tortured inside that prison every single day.

The US says it is aware that he has been found in is working to provide support -- Sara.

SIDNER: Incredibly Bizarre case with lots of questions needed to be answered.

Thank you Salma Abdelaziz for keeping up on this, appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, the FBI Director Christopher Wray gives Donald Trump what he wants and says he plans to step aside at the end of President Biden's term next month. Sources tell CNN that Wray wrestled with the decision, but he ultimately wanted to go out on his own terms.

Now, this paves the way for trump loyalists Kash Patel to become the next director if he can get confirmed.

CNN's Evan Perez broke this story as it was all happening. He is with us now from Washington.

So, what's the latest here, Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Well, the FBI director, as you pointed out, wrestled with what to do about making way for Kash Patel and the incoming administration. The president-elect obviously has made clear that he was unhappy with Wray and with the FBI leadership, and that he had already nominated or planned to nominate Kash Patel to replace him.

So, in the last few weeks, what we had was the FBI director trying to decide whether it was better for him to wait until Donald Trump took office and be fired, or to try to find a way to make an orderly transition. In the end, you saw the decision he made yesterday.

He spoke to employees at the FBI in a town hall yesterday afternoon, got a standing ovation. Listen to some of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: I love this place. I love our mission and I love our people. But my focus is and always has been on us and on doing what's right for the FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And you can see in recent days, John, some of the pressure building, you saw Republicans sending letters saying that they had lost confidence in Chris Wray and in the FBI leadership, making it clear that he had to go.

BERMAN: Evan, what does this mean for Kash Patel, as he now tries to get confirmed?

PEREZ: Well, look, I mean, it definitely clears the way for the incoming president to remake the entire leadership of the FBI because in addition to Chris Wray leaving, he leaves in place, Paul Abbate, who's the deputy director of the FBI, career FBI agent. But he's retiring in April of next year.

So really, what Trump has a chance to do here is to remake the entire leadership of the FBI. And you can see on Capitol Hill yesterday, Kash Patel was making the rounds with some Republican senators. And it's clear that they believe he has the votes to get through, at least at this point. We'll see what the confirmation process still has in store in the coming weeks -- John.

BERMAN: Yes we will. Evan Perez, great reporting as always. Thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: New details about a decades-long sex trafficking ring allegedly run by three brothers. Investigators say they found many of their victims on dating apps, lured them in with promises of luxury vacations. Allegations against them now are very serious.

And a brand new interview with Donald Trump out this hour, weighing in with some important new quotes on aid to Ukraine and also vaccines.

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[08:30:33]