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Luigi Mangione Pleads Not Guilty; Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks Continue; Trump Administration Arrests Judge. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 25, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:01:02]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Courthouse arrest, but, this time, we're talking about the judge, a Milwaukee judge finding herself in federal custody, accused of helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: Is a deal imminent? The White House's special envoy is in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin for peace talks over Ukraine, while President Trump tells reporters he thinks they are closing in on a deal to end the war. The president also floating the idea that he could sit down with Ukraine's president to hash out their differences at the funeral for Pope Francis set for tomorrow.

Meantime, with the NFL draft under way, what is it like to become Mr. Irrelevant? It may not be the dream of every college football player, but it's an honor nonetheless. We're going to talk to a former Mr. Irrelevant, as we follow these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: We are following breaking news out of Wisconsin, where the FBI has arrested a Milwaukee County circuit judge for allegedly obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

FBI agents are accusing Judge Hannah Dugan of helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest. A law enforcement official tells CNN that judge is now in federal custody awaiting her initial court appearance.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is joining us now on this story.

Katelyn, what are you learning about what happened here?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: This was quite the scene and an aggressive approach by the Justice Department to arrest both this man who was wanted on an immigration violation, as well as arresting a judge, something you don't see very often at all.

So this scene dates back to the 18th of this month where this man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, he was in the court of this local judge for a domestic violence charge, set of charges. Her name is Judge Hannah Dugan. She sits in Milwaukee.

And inside the courthouse, the ICE agents from the federal immigration authorities were there waiting to apprehend him, so that they could deport him from the United States or take him through an immigration proceeding. When the judge learned that there were immigration officials outside of her courtroom, according to the court records, she got very angry.

She said, it's absurd. She left the courthouse. And the Justice Department has quite a bit of witnesses seeing this in the courtroom. And then finally Flores-Ruiz, he was taken out through the jury door, tried to leave the courthouse, apparently aided by the judge, or at least that's what she's accused of doing here in these federal criminal charges against her now.

And then ICE did end up apprehending this man, running after him outside of her courtroom. The judge in her case, what is she is charged with, it's obstructing a proceeding, which would be the immigration proceeding here against this man, as well as concealing this man to prevent his discovery and arrest.

So, very unusual charges here against this judge. She is in court now. She had a hearing this morning, was released in federal court, not the court she sits on, but the court where she now faces charges. And this really is an unusual case playing out that the FBI is quite proud of, even having a social media post today made twice by the director of the FBI, Kash Patel.

KEILAR: Yes, initially deleted, kind of interesting twist there.

Katelyn, thank you for that. We appreciate it.

Let's talk more now with Jeff Swartz. He's a former Florida judge.

All right, Judge Swartz, how unusual is an arrest like this? We know it's pretty unusual. How unusual is an arrest like this? And how unusual is what the state judge is alleged to have done here?

JEFF SWARTZ, FORMER FLORIDA JUDGE: Well, it's unusual for the judge to take action to help someone avoid a warrant. Apparently, a warrant was issued. It was not a probable cause warrant issued by a judge. Apparently, it was an administrative warrant that was issued by the FBI.

[13:05:07]

There doesn't appear to be, at least what I have been able to find, a record of a warrant from a federal judge and/or an affidavit to support that warrant. Now, the reason why she will come back to court very shortly is to have that affidavit filed before the judge in the federal case to determine whether there really was probable cause.

I have heard two or three different versions of what occurred here. It's not unusual for a judge not to avoid someone being arrested, but not to facilitate an arrest, especially in a courtroom. That's just not something judges want to have happen.

So I can understand why she may have done some of the things she did.

KEILAR: OK, explain that. Explain what the relationship would be between someone sitting on the bench and, say, ICE or federal law enforcement in a situation like this. Are they expected to work together? Is it unusual?

SWARTZ: Well, you're talking about a state judge. And this is a problem that the federal authorities have had now.

And that is, they cannot get police departments to cooperate because it's not within their duties. Now they're going after judges, asking judges to cooperate and assist in the arrest of someone for an immigration matter. And I don't think they're going to get very far with it, but they're now trying to intimidate judges.

They did this in the first Trump administration, and there was a judge in Massachusetts who they charged with obstruction. Eventually, those charges were dismissed, and she submitted herself to the state judicial authorities to determine whether she should be somehow sanctioned by them.

I think this is just an intimidation technique. I know that initially there was a tweet that was put out by the director of the FBI, which was dropped. Now, apparently, there's a second one. I'm not sure this was cleared with Pam Bondi. I'm not sure this was cleared with the White House.

Apparently, someone authorized someone to do something. That's all we know.

KEILAR: OK, so the chief judge of the state district court, this is according to "The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel," e-mailed other judges that ICE agents had presented a warrant and obeyed courthouse protocols, but then, in a later reply, Judge Dugan wrote that -- quote -- "A warrant was not presented in the hallway to her."

What do you make of all of that? Tell us the significance of that.

SWARTZ: Well, without a warrant, there obviously would literally be no obligation for her to cooperate. It would only happen if there was a warrant.

The chief judge of the district apparently sent everybody an e-mail saying, a warrant was presented to him and they agreed not to go into a courtroom to arrest the defendant. If, in fact, there was a confrontation between the judge and the FBI -- or the immigration agents and she asked for a warrant, and they could not present one, then that's a different story.

She has no obligation to assist at all with the apprehension of that particular defendant in a civil matter. He wasn't there in a criminal matter. Apparently, he was there in a civil matter.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: All right, a lot obviously that -- yes, a lot obviously that we still need to figure out what went down here.

SWARTZ: Right.

KEILAR: Judge Jeff Swartz, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

SWARTZ: My pleasure.

KEILAR: Boris.

SANCHEZ: Happening now, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is in Moscow, apparently just emerging from meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Their sit-down comes only a few hours after Russia launched another deadly wave of strikes across Ukraine and one day after the president made a rare public plea for Putin to halt attacks like this one, posting on social media -- quote -- "Vladimir, stop. "

In a new interview with "TIME," Trump suggested a peace deal may be within reach, though, to get it across the finish line -- quote -- "Crimea will stay with Russia," a concession that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has flatly rejected, saying it violates Ukraine's Constitution.

CNN has also learned that, behind closed doors, President Trump is frustrated that he hasn't been able to end the war quickly, telling advisers that it's been more difficult than he thought.

Here's the president earlier today before he departed for the funeral of Pope Francis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to save 5,000 young men. They happen to be mostly Ukrainian, Russian, 5,000 young Ukrainian and Russian men. And that's a big honor if I could do it. And I think we're pretty close.

No deadline. I just want to do it as fast as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt is with us to bring us the latest.

So, Alex, what are you hearing about this meeting between Witkoff and Putin?

[13:10:02]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, this meeting is over, and Witkoff is heading to his next major negotiation, which is the Iranian nuclear deal that he will be sitting down tomorrow to talk about.

Boris, it's unclear whether anything major was accomplished at this meeting in Moscow today. We haven't heard from the Trump administration. We have heard from the Russian side, one of the Russian negotiators there at the table talking about how the U.S. and Russia got their positions closer together.

He did, notably, talk about the possibility of Ukrainian and Russian negotiators sitting down directly to talk to each other, which hasn't happened in years. So that would be significant. But that, Boris, is exactly what Rubio was talking about a couple of days ago, in that they don't want more talks about talks.

The Trump administration wants something immediate. We heard that from Trump right before he left to Rome. So it's unclear what happens next, because, clearly, the Trump administration is very impatient. All these world leaders going to Rome, Zelenskyy and Trump will be there. So will the French and British leaders.

Will they get together? Will they try to move this forward? I have been told there has been progress on the Ukrainian side this week. They got together with the Europeans and the U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg in London this week. And the Ukrainians have moved closer to a place where they could talk about territorial concessions at some point once a cease-fire begins.

But, Boris, that is so far from what we have heard from the American side, J.D. Vance talking today -- or -- sorry -- a couple of days ago about essentially the lines of the conflict being frozen where they are now. That is not -- they are not on the same page as the Ukrainians.

We know essentially what the U.S. expects Ukraine to give up in terms of concessions. And now we have also heard President Trump talking about the concessions he expects from Russia. And that's simply to stop the fighting and to give up their hope of taking the rest of the country.

That's a very low bar. And, Boris, there is almost no one outside that circle around Trump who believes that Putin is going to give up on that eventual goal of taking all of Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this has been a long-held goal of Russia's.

Alex Marquardt, thank you so much for the update.

Let's get some perspective now. Let's take a deeper dive with retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, who's patiently waiting for us at the Magic Wall.

Colonel, I wanted to start with this issue of Crimea. Why is it so important to Ukraine? And walk us through how the U.S. has dealt with the issue of Russia's annexation back in 2014.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Boris, this is very interesting.

You have the hashed areas right here of Crimea, and up there is the Donbass. Those areas were annexed by Russia in 2014. And now the way the U.S. dealt With that at that time was, we basically let it happen. So that was under the Obama administration. They did not respond forcibly to the Russian takeover here.

This was where the little green men happened and they came in without wearing any name tags or anything else. They were there. They occupied all the different major points, such as Sevastopol and all the other areas right here along the coast.

And that basically took Crimea away, an area that had been given to Ukraine actually under the old Soviet Union in 1956. When they did that, when Khrushchev, who was a leader at the time, did that, he basically promised Crimea to Ukraine in perpetuity.

And that is the internationally recognized state of play when it comes to Crimea. It belongs to Ukraine according to international law.

SANCHEZ: And it's not just according to international law. It's according to Donald Trump during his first administration, because his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put out a statement saying that the U.S. will never recognize Russia's sovereignty over Crimea.

This is not only a big leap in U.S. foreign policy, but also the widely held belief over the last 70 years or so, since World War II, that you can't just invade somebody's country and take their territory, right?

LEIGHTON: That's exactly right, because once you do that, you upset the whole international order.

The entire area, when you look at the entire map of Ukraine, all of this area is really an area that the Russians occupy right now. And, here, this was the area that the Ukrainians took back from the Russians. So back in February and March of 2022, all of this was actually under Russian control.

That meant that 27 percent of Ukraine was under Russian control. Right now, once the Ukrainians moved them back, and there's been very little movement -- there's been some movement, but there's been relatively little movement since that time. Basically, the Russians control about 18 to 19 percent of Ukrainian territory right in this area.

SANCHEZ: What would it mean for Vladimir Putin if he's able to keep all of this?

LEIGHTON: If he's able to keep all of this, that means that he has basically upended the international order. And, in essence, what he's done is created a situation where we go back to the 19th century, where might makes right.

And that is what he wants. He wants to take all of this area. The basic idea here was that, because you have people who speak Russian or ethnically Russian, that they belong to Russia, very similar to what Hitler did with Czechoslovakia back in the 1930s.

[13:15:05]

So, when you see all of this, that's what Putin wants. But there's more to it than that. There are also natural resources, industrial areas. All of that, before the war, at least, was very rich for Ukraine. But the rest of Ukraine was primarily agricultural. And that really creates a difference in the type of economy that you have in each area.

SANCHEZ: And even expanded control over the Black Sea as well.

I do wonder, given that Ukraine was hit by another wave of strikes overnight, this is despite President Trump's plea on social media for Vladimir Putin to stop, what do you make of the timing of these strikes, the message that Vladimir Putin is trying to send, not through words, but through actions?

LEIGHTON: Well, actions mean most to Vladimir Putin.

SANCHEZ: Right.

LEIGHTON: And so he's taking a look at things. So, when he attacks places like Kyiv and creates scenes of destruction like this, or you go to other places like Okhtyrka, for example, which is a new area when it comes to the actual striking of these targets, that becomes a critical element for Putin's effort.

And so what he's trying to do is, he's trying to say, I'm going to not only force Ukraine to the table. I'm going to force Ukraine to abandon even more territory than what I have already taken. That's what his goal is. Whether or not he's successful, of course, is another matter.

But what he really wants to do, Boris, is, he wants to take over the entire country, because he sees it as not a legitimate state. He sees it as a country that should not exist, because it is basically the heart of Russian civilization.

And for that reason, he believes that it should belong to Russia. The Ukrainians, of course, differ from that because they see it as the heart of Ukrainian civilization. And that is why this conflict has taken on the current phase that it's in.

SANCHEZ: And to your point about actions meaning more than words to the Russian leader, even if this agreement is in place, he may only see it as temporary until he gets another shot to take the whole thing.

LEIGHTON: I think he most certainly will see it only as a temporary agreement.

And that's why any success that we have in terms of negotiations or that Mr. Witkoff has in terms of negotiations, I think will be only temporary.

SANCHEZ: They have to come with security guarantees, right?

LEIGHTON: That's right. That would be the key. If you have security guarantees, then Ukraine can maintain its sovereignty. If you don't have those security guarantees, then that becomes a real question.

SANCHEZ: Colonel Cedric Leighton, appreciate you walking us through there. Thank you so much.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still plenty more to come this hour.

China denying that trade talks are happening, despite President Trump saying they are. Some miscommunication here. We have the latest on the trade war just ahead.

Plus, Luigi Mangione back in federal court, just entering a plea on charges of stalking and murdering the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. We have the latest from court.

And, later, they may be called last at the NFL draft, but they do receive an honor that lasts forever. We're going to speak to a Mr. Irrelevant who's now very relevant to us.

You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We will be right back.

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[13:22:24]

SANCHEZ: Just moments ago, Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to all federal charges in the high-profile killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Mangione was arraigned on murder, two counts of stalking and a firearms charge. This comes just one day after the Justice Department filed a formal notice saying that it intends to seek the death penalty against the 26-year-old.

Prosecutors say he shot Thompson in the back on a Manhattan sidewalk as he was headed to an investors conference last December, Attorney General Pam Bondi calling it a premeditated cold-blooded assassination. A lawyer for Mangione says the decision to seek the death penalty is barbaric.

We're joined now to discuss with defense attorney Misty Marris.

Misty, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

So, prosecutors cited in part Mangione's alleged desire to provoke broad-based resistance against the health care industry as part of justifying their seeking the death penalty. I wonder how that factors in.

MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE AND TRIAL ATTORNEY: So, Boris, it's a great question because prosecutors, in order to move for the death penalty, and now they formally filed their intention to do so, have to show aggravating factors that would put this case in the bucket of cases that have been -- the death penalty has been sought previously based on legal precedent.

So what the prosecutors are doing in this document is laying out what those factors are. And it's not only that you have a premeditated killing, but you have a premeditated killing with a broader purpose, to impact the insurance industry and to make a broader statement on society.

So that's where prosecutors are going. And you see that the defense is actually using that against them by saying that basically Luigi Mangione was deprived of due process. These were extrajudicial statements that were made before the government filed this petition, and, therefore, the death penalty should be off the table.

So expect to see this issue continue to play out before the court.

SANCHEZ: That was going to be my next question, how you see the defense approaching this.

And it's especially interesting because Mangione clearly thought through what he was going to do, given that he wrote a manifesto about it. I wonder how that factors into what you're describing.

MARRIS: So Luigi Mangione is charged in federal court with murder with use of a firearm. That is a death-eligible case.

But not every death-eligible case actually goes so far as prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So, say the death penalty was not on the table of this case. It would be a life without the possibility of parole.

[13:25:04]

So, what the defense is doing is making several arguments to preclude the death penalty from ever coming into the courtroom. The first is what we spoke about before, extrajudicial statements which they say violated Mangione's due process.

The second is that defense says they didn't have the opportunity to submit information about mitigating factors, meaning factors that would tend to show this should not be a death penalty case. And then, Boris, on that front, there's also legal precedent.

And what the defense laid out is that other cases where the death penalty is sought in general had multiple killings or the four in the past 30 years where there was one killing were related to larger drug rings, RICO cases, larger conspiracies.

And so what they're doing is making a distinction about Luigi Mangione versus that other precedent. But this shows a real shift with the Department of Justice and the attorney general to seek the death penalty in a state -- now, this is federal court, but we're talking about a state where the death penalty doesn't exist.

So this is a shift in the Department of Justice, and the defense is really going to capitalize on that and say that this is politically motivated. This isn't because it should fit into this rubric. Look at the precedent that's been before. So those are all the arguments the defense is raising.

SANCHEZ: And that's the federal case, but he's also facing some state charges. I believe it's murder and terrorism in New York. He's pled not guilty to those. He's yet to enter a plea on firearm and forgery charges in Pennsylvania, where he was apprehended.

Do these local charges in any way impact his federal case?

MARRIS: Certainly, and especially the murder charges in New York.

We know that there's a handshake deal between the Manhattan district attorney and the Department of Justice that that state case will go first. That could change at any time, especially given the severity of the penalty that the federal government is seeking against Mangione, the death penalty.

But all of the evidence is going to be interlinked, Boris. And you're talking about an investigation that was multijurisdictional, New York, federal, and Pennsylvania law enforcement. You're also talking about cases that are going to have evidentiary issues that will overlap.

And we're already seeing that. That Pennsylvania case, that will go last. That's the least serious of the charges, but they're already challenging the admissibility of the evidence. Expect to see that happen in all three of these cases.

SANCHEZ: Misty Marris, always appreciate you sharing your expertise. Thanks.

MARRIS: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: So, President Trump claims he's made 200 deals on trade and is now in talks with China, but Beijing has a very different take on what's happening. Why they say the U.S. should stop putting out false information about where trade talks stand.

Plus, the Vatican preparing to close Pope Francis' coffin ahead of tomorrow's funeral. We will take you live to Rome in just a few minutes.

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