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Today: Luigi Mangione to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court facing 11 state charges. Mangione's attorney Karen Agnifilo could offer an insanity defense. House Ethics Committee finds evidence that Matt Gaetz paid women for sex and drugs; President Biden commutes 37 death row inmates Matt Gaetz has sued House Ethics Committee to stop release of report. Luigi Mangione arrives in Manhattan Criminal Court. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 23, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: -- boyfriend Travis Kelsey, the Chiefs beating the 49ers in an overtime thriller, in the first-ever Las Vegas Superbowl.

Mahomes, Kelsey and company winning back-to-back titles in their 3rd in five years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK MAHOMES, QUARTERBACK FOR KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: I'm so proud of the team, so proud of the guys. And it was a battle to the very end. I mean, that a microcosm (ph) of our season. It really is special, just to be able to say we're back-to-back champs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: And as we head into 2025, the Chiefs are looking to become the first team ever to win three straight Super Bowls.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we are seeing some action in the court where, as we wait for CEO-killer, who was accused, Luigi Mangione, to enter a New York courtroom for arraignment. This time on state murder and terrorism charges.

That is a live look for you there inside the court.

Plus, money for drugs and sex on multiple occasions. CNN has obtained the details of the final draft of the House Ethics investigation into Matt Gaetz while he was a member of Congress.

And they started a movie about domestic violence this year. Now actress Blake Lively has filed a complaint against her "It Ends With Us" costar Justin Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and a coordinated attempt to trash her reputation.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan. John Berman is off today. This is CNN News Central.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Today, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is due back in court. We are waiting to learn when that appearance will be. It could be very soon.

Luigi Mangione will, this morning, be facing arraignment on the 11 state charges that he was indicted on, including first-degree murder, a rare charge in New York. This in addition to and separate from the federal charges that appeared in court to face last week.

Let's get over to CNN's Shimon Prokupecz live outside court once again. And Shimon, what's the very latest? What are you seeing there this morning?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So, his attorneys have arrived. So this could be happening any - at any moment, Kate. There is some activity up on the 13th floor, where the arraignment is set to take place.

We know that Mangione is in the building. He was taken this morning from the federal inmate facility in Brooklyn and brought here to the Manhattan Criminal Court, where he's going to be arraigned on those 11 counts. As you said, the murder in the first-degree charges and the murder in the second-degree charges, with special enhancements because of the additional allegations of terrorism.

Of course, this is also - was supposed to happen on Friday. We were here on Friday, expecting him to appear in court here on Friday when suddenly the FBI and federal officials came swooping in and took him over the federal courthouse where he was arraigned. And so now, he is now looking at the state charges, as you said, those 11 counts.

We saw his attorneys walking in. We'll get a chance to hear from them again today in court. They didn't say much on Friday, perhaps given the weekend and some more time, and now that this is an actual arraignment, we could hear more from his attorney Karen Agnifilo. We expect that Mangione would enter a plea of not guilty once he's arraigned on those charges.

Also significant here is that it starts the clock, it starts the movement here by his attorneys, Mangione's attorneys and decisions need to be made here soon on whether or not they're going to offer an insanity defense.

Remember, his attorney, Karen Agnifilo, when she was on as a legal analyst two weeks ago, talked about that possibility. Now she's actually his attorney, and perhaps we will start to see, maybe even today, some signs of that if she, in facts - in fact, intends to do so. But, of course, that's all up in the air.

A lot more investigative tools that the police are going to want to do here, like his DNA. We could start seeing search warrants to obtain his DNA. Remember, there is DNA that was found on some evidence that police recovered at the scene. They still need to do the DNA analysis on that. So, a lot could be happening here this morning. And hopefully, we'll hear more from his attorney once she comes out of court.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Keeping an eye, right here, on the live picture inside the - inside the court - well, it's in the hallway, in the hallway outside the courtroom. We're going to keep a close eye on this, or we'll see what we can see. And Shimon standing by with us to track it all. Thank you so much, Shimon.

Sara?

SIDNER: All right, joining us now is retired FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner and Defense and Trial Attorney Misty Marris. Thank you both for being here on this holiday week.

We're looking at these pictures from inside of the court, live pictures there, as we await this arraignment to go on.

[09:00:09]

Very different from what you're going to see in federal court, right? Because there are no cameras allowed in the court.

Misty, he's going to be arraigned on state murder charges, among other counts. How will this go down today? Just describe what we expect to see in this arraignment.

MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE AND TRIAL ATTORNEY: So today, Mangione will appear with his lawyers before the judge. The judge will ask if he understands the charges that have been brought against him. He'll say that there's been a grand jury indictment on those 11 charges. At that point, he'll be asked to enter a plea. I would presume, Sara, at this point, the plea is going to be not guilty.

There could be a discussion of definitely scheduling, but there could be raising issues regarding evidentiary issues if the defense does. So that could be something that will give us some insight as to how that defense may play out down the road. This is going to be largely procedural appearance, however, there's the added complication that we know we have the parallel federal court case, so there's certainly going to be some discussion about how that logistically is going to move forward in state court.

But, certainly, keep an ear out because we may hear some information that will give us some insight as to how that defense may formulate and shape.

SIDNER: Yes, and those parallel cases, he has attorneys who would have to do both, whereas a state and federal courts have two different prosecutors. So there has to be some coordination there.

Daniel, when he was brought to court, you know, we saw these extraordinary scenes when he was brought from Pennsylvania to New York. We saw the NYPD, the FBI, the mayor, the police commissioner, all surrounding them. Can we assume that this going to look nothing like that as he - as that transfer from Philadelphia - or from Pennsylvania? DANIEL BRUNNER, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: No, I think that the transfer from Pennsylvania has gotten enough backlash as to the overage and way over the top, you know, perp walk, as was said, in conducting that operation.

I understand when NYPD's, you know, presence was in the New York City administration, that they want to show that there. But in - with an attack like this, he - this was - this was a rhetoric. He was, in my opinion, a domestic terrorist. This is exactly what he wants. He wants the attention. So I think the focus is going to shift now to, let's keep it, you know, in the courts. Let's keep it under wraps. We're not going to do the perp walk. We're not going to be walking him and showing them.

In federal it's very - you know - it's very covered. So everything transferred is typically done at sally ports. So you - you know, it's not available to the public eye, to media, to press, to cameras. So, it's going to be conducted very much in coverage because he's in federal custody now, even though he'll be arraigned for the - today. But he's going to go back to federal holding at the conclusion of this, back to MDC Brooklyn, where he will be held and it will be, like I said, it'll be much tighter, much controlled, less fanfare, because what he wants is the fanfare. He wants the attention.

So I believe, I agree that I don't know if the insanity defense is really going to come up because he controls it. And I think that he wants his day in court. He wants to argue about this. He wants everybody to talk about this. So doing it in court, I think, is going to be ultimately what he's going to do.

SIDNER: Daniel, just ceasing upon that quickly, you talked about the sort of this attention and it is enormous. He has enormous attention and support online. Do you - it sounds like you think that, perhaps, what law enforcement did, including having the mayor show up for this, as you call it a perp walk, lionized him. Do you think that actually was a negative?

BRUNNER: No, I think it was - it played to his favor. As a domestic terrorist, you think about Ted Kaczynski and all - and Timothy McVeigh, all of them want attention. They want attention to what they believe is their cause. They want - the believe that they are the person, they are the flagbearer, they are the person who's going to move forward the cause what they are fighting for.

He clearly was fighting for a cause which he believed in and he's going to show. Listen, we saw that - you know, that small walk from the car to the Pennsylvania courthouse where he had a burst out. And I'm sure his lawyers told him, stop that.

So now, this, right here what you're showing, these types of photos, this where's show - I mean, this isn't even safe for cartel members, top 10 most wanted get very, very little fanfare like this. So, to get him this type of attention is exactly what he wants and exactly what his - you know, what - the people that are following him, the people that are adoring him, this is what they want. To put him on t-shirts, to have attention brought to his cause. So, I think it did not play into the - you know, law enforcement's favor. I think that it definitely was in his favor on that walk. So I think everything's going to be calmed down now after this.

[09:10:04]

SIDNER: All right, Misty, I do want to ask you about Mangione, you know, you touched on this a little bit, that he is also, of course, facing federal charges and he was arraigned on those on Friday. How is it decided which case goes first?

MARRIS: So there could be a little push-pull behind the scenes, Sara, where the Feds and the state-level prosecutors may have arguments about whose case is going to take priority and what case is going to go first.

Now because the New York State charges have been filed. They were the first to be filed, it's likely, and it looks like the state case will likely be proceeding before the federal case. The federal case, procedurally, is a step or two behind. That being said, there's a major change coming our way, as far as who's in charge of the Department of Justice and the attorney general come January 20th. So could that shift? Could there be a push for the federal charges to go first? Absolutely.

But as of now, there's - it's likely the state court case is going first. And look, there's a lot of coordination behind the scenes, especially with respect to a joint investigation and what materials will ultimately be disclosed to the defense team from those prosecutors. So having those two parallel prosecutions on the state and federal level opens a whole other host of discovery obligations for what needs to be turned over to the defense side.

So there's a level of coordination. But to your point, Sara, they do proceed individually. So there's two different prosecutors, two different courtrooms, two different evidentiary decisions that will be made. Sometimes having that state case from a prosecutor's perspective, where that case goes forward on the state level but the federal charges are looming, that's a huge leverage point.

SIDNER: Misty Marris, Daniel Brunner, thank you both so much. And again, we're just watching live pictures there from inside court as we wait for Luigi Mangione to go to his first court appearance in state court for his arraignment. We will bring you the details as soon as we get them.

Kate?

BOULDUAN: Also breaking news, we are following this morning, the House Ethics Committee has says that it has found evidence that former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz took a part in illegal behavior.

CNN has obtained the final draft of the House Ethics report on Matt Gaetz. And in part, the Committee concludes this. They found substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz has more details for us. We're bringing it in, gathering it all right.

And Katelyn, this is a pretty damming review of him and what he's done.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is. And the Committee outlines not just what their findings were, but also the extent they went to try and get information, both out of Matt Gaetz and out of witnesses or even some of the victims here.

The most searing part of this is the discussion of Gaetz having sex with a woman who was a minor at the time, who was 17 at the time, in high school. This is the finding here that they write, "The Committee received testimony that Victim A," that would be the underage girl, "and Representative Gaetz had sex twice during a party," this is in July of 2017, "including at least once in the presence of other party attendees. Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex. At the time, she had just completed her junior year of high school."

One of the things also in the report is that the 17-year-old did not tell Gaetz she was a minor at the time. He was not asking her age. But she did speak to the Committee. She did testify about this. The Committee says that they weren't able to speak with every woman that as - may have been victimized by Gaetz or may have received payment from Gaetz. He was paying tens of thousands of dollars for sex and drugs on at least 20 occasions. That's what the report that was obtained by CNN has found.

But many of the women did tell the Committee that they believed that the payments were for a general expectation to have sex with Matt Gaetz. And that sometimes in text messages, the Committee was able to see that he was asking women to bring drugs to the meet-ups. So all of this is being put together.

At the same time, Matt Gaetz is denying this. He is saying, a few days ago on X, he wrote, "In my single days I often sent funds to women I dated, even some I never dated but who asked. I dated several of these women for years. I never had sexual contact with someone under 18. Any claim that I have would be destroyed in court, which is why no such claim was ever made in court." The Justice Department did look at this. They chose not to charge him. That is why the House Ethics Committee was then able to pick up this investigation.

[09:15:02]

Matt Gaetz has already gone to court on his own. This morning, Kate, he has sued the Committee to try to stop the public release of this report that has been obtained by CNN. And he's claiming defamation and an invasion of privacy there. He's also putting in that lawsuit that his attorneys had sent the Committee - or he had sent the Committee denials of these things that they found, the whole laundry list, prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges and obstruction of Congress.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Wow, there's a lot there and a lot that people are going to be working through - you know - CNN has obtained it. We know other news outlets have obtained it as well. And regardless of whether it technically is released to the public or not from the Committee, it is now out there.

And a reminder, this is - well, this is - these allegations are during a period of time when Matt Gaetz was a sitting member of Congress, just to put a fine point on that. This was not - this was nothing - none of these allegations were before his time in Congress.

Katelyn, thank you so much.

Also overnight, President Biden commuting the sentences of more than three dozen people on federal death row. Why he says he is showing mercy to convicted murders.

And director and actor Justin Baldoni now dropped from his talent agency, just after Blake Lively accuses of him of sexual harassment.

Honda and Nissan, they're shaking up the auto industry, or at least trying to, officially beginning talks to create the world's third- largest automaker.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:36]

BOLDUAN: The breaking news this morning, CNN obtaining the final draft of the House Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz.

Part of the Committee's conclusion after this long investigation is that it found evidence that Matt Gaetz violated several state laws. The scathing report found evidence paid numerous women, including a 17-year-old girl, for sex.

Investigators also writing in this final draft that they found that he bought and used illegal drugs, including from his Capitol Hill office. The draft concludes saying this, "The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House rules and other standards of conduct, prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges and obstruction of Congress.

Now, Matt Gaetz has denied all of these claims and he has now sued the Committee, we've learned this morning, to try to stop the public release of this report that has been obtained by CNN.

He is claiming defamation and an invasion of privacy there.

Joining us right now to talk more about this and much more is Democratic Congressman from Illinois, Mike Quigley.

Congressman, thank you so much for jumping on. This closes a long, drawn-out chapter for the now-former congressman and for the House.

What's the end result here?

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): You know, it's pretty damming, obviously, allegations of statutory rape and having sex with women who may have been impaired by drugs. But I think what's also very telling is that President Trump-elect, appointed him to the highest law enforcement office in the world despite these allegations. Makes you wonder if he even asked for the report.

And I think the second point is, the Republican-controlled Ethics Committee had refused to release this report while Mr. Gaetz was still under consideration for that position. Would they ever have released it if he had not resigned and if he was no longer under consideration? That's very disturbing.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and what happens now with Matt Gaetz and his future? TBD. We don't need to read the tea leaves on that one, Congressman.

I do want to ask you about the other breaking news that we saw happening this morning, coming from President Biden, commuting the sentences of all but three people on federal death row. A move that was meant to stop the president-elect from restarting stalled executions. He suggests that and points to it in his statement saying, "In good conscious I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."

Are you okay with that?

QUIGLEY: You know, I have real concerns overall with the death penalty. But I also have concerns with the Executive Branch overturning cases that have been decided by courts across the country. We had to have some autonomy there. So, and I understand the concerns, the threats of a Trump administration going forward on these. But I think the baseline is, I think you commute sentences or pardon people when you think justice was not done in those cases. It sets a precedent here that goes well beyond his pardoning his own son, which again, I think was a mistake because no one is above the law.

BOLDUAN: Because it does - what I think you're getting at is an interesting point, which is almost like using commutations as a point of policy in order to stop the administration coming in next, putting in place policy that they believe, which does seem to be different from what you're looking at with Hunter Biden.

QUIGLEY: You know, absolutely, but it's a concern with how presidents handle pardons and how they handle commutations for their own reasons, their own personal reasons. And back to the pardoning of his own son, I heard people say, well it's the love of a father. I get that. But there's a lot of parents out there whose children who are in harm's way in the justice system and they don't have the ability to do what President Biden did.

BOLDUAN: One thing that happened, you are the Co-Chair of the Ukraine Caucus, and Donald Trump just - well, he was speaking yesterday at a conference in Phoenix, Arizona. And in talking and speaking from the podium, he was talking about his first moves that he wants to make as president. Like he called it kind of a preview of his second-term agenda.

[09:25:00]

And part of that he talked about his first moves he wants to make to end the war in Ukraine.

Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: These crazy wars that we're in, one of the things I want to do and quickly and President Putin said that he wants to meet with me as soon as possible, so we have to wait for this. But we have to end that war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Says he wants - Putin wants to meet with him as soon as possible. There's a lot - I was just talking to Jim Sciutto, Congressman, about what are the options of what people really do believe that Donald Trump will do in terms of the U.S. approach to Ukraine.

When you hear that, what do you really think is going to happen?

QUIGLEY: Oh, I think he will try to end the war as quickly as possible. And that's a concern. The final analysis, we got engaged with this war with our allies from NATO, for the same reasons we fought the Second -

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Congressman, stick with me for just one second because we're showing live pictures right now from inside New York courthouse. And you see Luigi Mangione being walked to the courtroom.

Let's just pause and listen and watch. He's right behind that first man right there. Let's watch this.

(Inaudible)

Let's bring in Shimon Prokupecz, he's been tracking all of this and watching from outside the courthouse. And Shimon, no longer in that orange jumpsuit that we saw from last week.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: No, well that orange jumpsuit, let me just do something here to my phone for a second, is long gone. That was the property of the Pennsylvania State Prison there. So, he'll how - every time we see him, if we see him again, he will be in street clothes for his court appearances. We saw him in street clothes at his last court appearance and now today, again, he's walking.

That is that hallway that what happens is, after the NYPD takes someone into custody, they process the individual. And Mangione needed to be processed. He was never officially booked by the NYPD. So, those are the detectives, the detectives that you're seeing around him, those are the detectives that worked on this case.

That is the detective who will have the arrest. Those are those detectives. And it's essentially what we saw happen when he first came here from Pennsylvania when the NYPD flew him in on their plane and then choppered him over from Long Island to the South Steet seaport area.

And essentially, now we're getting a second walk of him through that hallway. And many, many famous celebrity-type people who have been arrested, Harvey Weinstein comes to mind, who have walked through that hallway after they have been arrested by either the Manhattan DA's office or the NYPD. And that is what we're seeing play out here. He's walking through that hallway for the cameras to see him, for the world to see him, yet again. You see him there shackled, his hands are in front of him.

And now, he's going to be entering the courtroom on the 13th floor, where he's going to see the judge. Judge Carro will be doing the arraignment. He will be arraigned on the indictment, the 11-count indictment that the grand jury voted on last week. Of course, the murder one charges with the terrorism enhancement being the most serious, where he would face life in prison if convicted. That's separate, of course, from the federal charges that we know about.

So, this is all procedural. It will get underway. We will, hopefully, hear from his attorneys some more, perhaps, now that we've had several days to get some inkling, perhaps, of where this case is going to go. I suspect it will be a lot of legal motions in the future here and the weeks and months ahead.

But the other key thing here is, and I brought this up earlier, is the whether or not, I think most of us are going to be looking for, is whether or not Karen Agnifilo, his attorney, is going to put up an insanity defense here. She will have only a limited time to do that under state law. I believe it's about 30 days from the day he's arraigned. So, we should start getting some indication -