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Leaked Afghan War Reports; Oil Breaking Down 'Very Quickly';
Aired July 26, 2010 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And hello again, everyone, I'm Tony Harris. Top of the hour in the "CNN NEWSROOM", where anything can happen. Here are some of the people behind today's top stories.
Fraud in the heartland. People lose $190 million after putting their faith in a Christian radio host.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything is gone. I've lost everything. And now I will be 62 in July.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Illegal immigration. Days away from an Arizona law taking effect. The issue hits home in other states.
And you are online right now. We are, too.
Josh Levs is following a top story trending on the Internet -- Josh.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tony, what you were just seeing there is a hot new video. We've got details about this guy who walks across the country. Check it out, CNN.com.
HARRIS: All right. Let's get started with our lead story.
Volumes of classified war documents leaked. Raw data from the front lines of the Afghan War to the front pages of newspapers and Web sites. The U.S. is strongly condemning the leaked military reports.
Our Atika Shubert looks at what's on the whistleblower Web site.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): WikiLeaks is publishing what it says is more than 90,000 U.S. military reports filed about the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2009, raw data from the front line, a day-by-day unvarnished view of the war by U.S. soldiers themselves.
WikiLeaks will not say how it received the documents and CNN has not been able to independently confirm their authenticity. But if confirmed, it would be the biggest leak yet of classified documents to WikiLeaks. (END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: The founder of WikiLeaks -- well, actually, we'll have more on the leak in just a couple of minutes. I am going to speak with "New York Times" correspondent Jane Perlez. She is one of the few journalists who got an early review of the leaked documents.
And 10 inches of rain in a really short period of time. And that's what happens, right? You lose a bridge.
Just too much for this dam in eastern Iowa. It gave way Saturday, flooding hundreds of homes downstream. At least 200 destroyed. Incredibly, no one hurt.
In Washington, D.C. -- we showed you these pictures last hour, they're worth seeing once again -- storms have knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people right in the middle of a heat wave. We have been talking about that for seemingly weeks now. Crews say it could be a few days, more, before all the electricity is flowing again.
Talk about miserable, and it is all over the place. It is the center of the country, it is in the east of the country, the Mid- Atlantic, out West, as well.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: You know, the founder of WikiLeaks says there is evidence of war crimes, among other things, in the reporting.
Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson has been looking at some of the documents, and he joins us now from London.
Nic, good to see you.
And based on what you have seen so far, what's the story told here by the documents?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's a huge amount of detail, Tony. And really, it's all in the detail.
The newspapers, "The New York Times" and "The Guardian" here in the U.K., who have had access to these documents for several weeks, have perhaps had the chance to do the most digging and make a comparison with some of these individual documents and then the events that happened after those documents were filed. And what they're able to show is, there is sometimes a discrepancy, or there's sometimes some very revealing information.
So it's in all that detail that you really see, you know, how the war is being played out. And that's what the WikiLeaks boss wants to do. He wants to put that all out in the public domain.
HARRIS: What's new here? What are we learning that's new in the document so far? ROBERTSON: You know, I think what we're hearing here, what a lot of people have suspected on many situations, this allegation that the Pakistani intelligence services have been supporting the Taliban fighting the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. We have known for a long time that Pakistan sees a huge importance in having a government that supports it inside Afghanistan, because they fear India, on the other side of the border. And therefore, they want a friendly government on the other side of their country.
So these are things that have been discussed before, and that's, I guess, the sort of the tone of what you're seeing across all of these. There are things that have been suspected. Now you hear you have some factual evidence about them.
HARRIS: So, Nic, I opened the paper this morning, and I see this story, and I hear and read about this huge document dump. And then I hear that this is -- some of this is classified information.
Just how sensitive is this information?
ROBERTSON: Well, all of these documents, as far as we know at the moment -- and really, we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg here, no one has really had time to go through all 92,000 of them -- are the most sensitive. They are secret, as opposed to top secret.
Some of them do say not for foreign eyes, so perhaps there's an indication they're not for coalition partners inside Afghanistan. So they're clearly very sensitive, but they're not at the most sensitive level -- Tony.
HARRIS: OK.
Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson for us.
Nic, good to see you, as always. Thank you, Nic, from London for us.
A fly-over of the oil disaster area in the Gulf revealing developments that may surprise you and give you some new hope here. A live update.
First, though, our "Random Moment" in 90 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: All right, Josh.
Josh Levs is playing along with us on "Random Moment of the Day."
I don't know what goes on here, but usually when this happens, I end up being the butt of some joke -- Josh.
LEVS: What? No, it's an adorable baby. You know about this.
HARRIS: I do?
LEVS: Look at the adorable baby inside a watermelon. This is our "Random Moment of the Day." You like this stuff, right?
HARRIS: I do.
LEVS: This is a hot video. Take a look.
Well, let's go to that adorable baby inside the watermelon. Everyone is clicking on this online. It's all over YouTube, so many places.
So you're not falling for the fake-out, though, because, yes, you are about to --
HARRIS: OK.
LEVS: See, this is what Tony was supposed to think --
(CROSSTALK)
HARRIS: What are we going to turn this into now?
LEVS: When, in fact, yesterday was Tony's birthday.
Happy birthday. And I missed this, but apparently you made a wish last week that you wanted to see your face on a certain body.
Ladies and gentlemen, here is the new Tony Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Hello, ladies. Look at me. Now look at your man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
LEVS: Can you guys restart that from the beginning?
HARRIS: Oh, man!
LEVS: Here it is again.
Play it again. Play it again. Play it again.
HARRIS: All right.
OK. Good.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Hello, ladies. Look at me. Now look at your man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: See? I think you pulled that off beautifully. The Old Spice guy, of course. We grabbed the picture from oldspice.com.
Tony, you fit right in there.
HARRIS: That is actually my body, as a matter of fact.
LEVS: And if that isn't enough, we now have got you doing some action on the basketball court.
Check out the other side of Tony Harris you don't know.
HARRIS: Oh my God.
Because that's how old I am. I'm 13.
LEVS: Look at the face. Look at the face and the hair.
HARRIS: Oh, loving the -- what is that? Is that a fro?
LEVS: That's exactly what my hair looks like when I don't get it cut.
HARRIS: That's my fro from back in the day?
LEVS: Check out that action. Oh, look at that! Slammin'! And it's about to wish you a slammin' birthday.
HARRIS: Thank you. Thank you.
LEVS: There you go.
(CROSSTALK)
LEVS: Happy birthday, Tony.
HARRIS: Team Tony.
Can we get to break now?
LEVS: The Tony Harris you don't know.
HARRIS: Got to go. Got to get back to the news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: OK. Back to our lead story here.
Classified military documents from the Afghan War leaked, more than 90,000 raw field reports from the past six years. "The New York Times" was one of the first organizations to review the material.
Its chief Pakistan correspondent, Jane Perlez, joining me from New York.
And Jane, good to talk to you again.
You're opening up your newspaper and you're reading the reporting that you and your team did on this story. What should we make of, first of all, these documents in a general sense? Do they paint any kind of a comprehensive picture of the ongoing war effort in Afghanistan?
JANE PERLEZ, CHIEF PAKISTAN CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I think they do from my perspective in Pakistan. They show that the Pakistani spy agency, ISI, as we know it, is quite active, it seems, in supporting the Afghan Taliban.
The Afghan Taliban are the Taliban who have sanctuaries inside Pakistan and travel over the border into Afghanistan to fight American soldiers. So we have a more vivid picture of how the sanctuary works and how the Afghan Taliban get very valuable breathing room, organizing space, money, et cetera, to do the fight against the American soldiers in Afghanistan.
HARRIS: All right. Well, bear with me on this one.
What is Pakistan's real interest in the Taliban in Afghanistan? Well, we're talking about the Taliban in Afghanistan, such that it is currently constituted. Is Pakistan looking to the Afghan Taliban as an influencer in Afghanistan, a kind of proxy to hedge against India's perceived roads with the Karzai government in Kabul?
PERLEZ: Absolutely.
From the Pakistani perspective, what they're doing is really quite understandable. They see India as an encroaching force in Afghanistan, and India is their deadliest enemy. And so their goal with the Afghan Taliban is to support them as a counter force against what they see will be the Indian encroachment in Afghanistan.
So they see the Afghan Taliban as perhaps carving out a sphere of influence in southern and eastern Afghanistan when the fighting stops and Afghanistan is carved up or the end of the war comes and there is some kind of solution. Pakistan wants to have its influence in Afghanistan, and it will be probably with the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network, which is mentioned a lot in the reports that we published this morning.
HARRIS: Yes. I'm curious, again, if you're opening your news account of this story on all of these documents, and you also see that a lot of this material is classified, you might ask yourself, how sensitive are the documents? So maybe you can answer that for us in your reporting.
What do you think? How sensitive is the material that we're seeing?
PERLEZ: I think the material is, over the transom, raw intelligence. If you can imagine sergeants, soldiers, sitting in, forward-operating bases in Afghanistan, they get information from Afghan sources, some of whom may be paid for the information, may be sympathetic to the Afghan spy service. They walk in and they say, I saw such-and-such, or the Americans seek out the information. It's very raw intelligence, so I don't think that makes it particularly sensitive. It's classified, but it doesn't have the highest classification. It's not like American generals discussing with each other their upcoming plan for Kandahar.
So, the value of this is, it gives us a more intimate pore the extra, if you like, of what the American soldiers are up against, day to day, with the Afghan Taliban, who are well-funded from over the border in Pakistan, who when they arrive in Afghanistan, know the territory, know the culture, and can intimidate the people, can do all kinds of things that the American soldiers are just not able to because they're not of the culture.
HARRIS: And Jane, just in the scenario that you described of an Afghan coming to a sergeant and saying, hey, this is what I saw, it does raise the issue of how you verify this information. It does feel very raw in terms of data. But it seems to me, there is still an open question as to the value and how you verify that kind of information.
PERLEZ: I think it's very difficult to verify a lot of this information. Some of the cables (ph) are given a reasonably good rating in terms of how valuable it is. Some of it is not given any rating. And these are past events. But there are names, and there are places that I, for one, as a correspondent in Pakistan, am very familiar with.
For example, there is frequent mention of a madrassa called Haqqania (ph) Madrassa. That's a religious school which is called "Haqqania (ph) Madrassa" because the patriarch of the Haqqani network, which is kind of a fulcrum of the Afghan Taliban, the patriarch of the Haqqani network graduated from the Haqqania (ph) Madrassa.
I've been there. I know that they are very sympathetic to the Afghan Taliban. So there are many things that we know of and can verify as being true.
HARRIS: OK.
Jane Perlez with us from "The New York Times."
Jane, good to see you. Thanks for your time today. We appreciate it.
PERLEZ: Thank you.
HARRIS: And still to come, a fly-over of the Gulf reveals some surprising news about the oil spill.
We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: BP's board is meeting today. It is believed embattled CEO Tony Hayward could announce his resignation when the company reports its second quarter earnings tomorrow. Some say a possible successor would be American Bob Dudley. He is a native of the Gulf Coast region, raised in Mississippi.
Ninety-eight days into this disaster, and the federal on-scene coordinator tells CNN's David Mattingly oil on the surface of the Gulf is breaking down very quickly now, and that the flow has been cut off.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REAR ADM. PAUL ZUKUNFT, FEDERAL ON-SCENE COORDINATOR: This oil is rapidly breaking down, and there's very little oil left. We have a few streamers that we located earlier off of Grand Isle that perhaps can be skimmed, but right now we're not seeing many targets for our skimming fleet of 780 skimmers.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You realize when you say that it's so hard for people to believe, that this spill was so enormous, and yet you're having trouble finding the oil to skim it?
ZUKUNFT: Well, it's not for lack of trying. We have had 50 aircraft saturating this very location where satellites indicate there could be oil seen in the area. And so we're going to look, just like we would doing search and rescue, to see where any possible target pocket of oil might be over this area.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: My goodness.
All right. So joining me with more on what he saw during a weekend fly-over is CNN's David Mattingly.
And David, appreciate it.
Is the admiral suggesting that the oil is just gone? It is breaking down very quickly now that the flow has been cut off?
MATTINGLY: Right, Tony. There's two things happening here.
It's been 10 days since they have seen any new crude oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, and that was huge. They amassed an armada of these skimmers at the site as the work was going on to put the cap on down below, so they were catching a lot of it at the site.
What they're seeing out in the Gulf right now is a large area covered by a light sheen, and the skimmers aren't very effective against that sheen. What they're watching though is that sheen breaking up as the wave action and as the contact with the sun and the wind continues to hit it and weather it, and it evaporates. That's part of the natural process that's been aiding them all along.
So now that they don't have new oil making the slick bigger every day, those natural processes are actually working for them and having a tangible effect here.
HARRIS: All right. You know, I can almost hear the e-mails as I ask this question, because I know we don't know the long-term disaster and the effects of this event. But I will tell you, a lot of people will hear what the admiral said here, that the oil is breaking down very quickly now that the flow has been shut off, and will be wondering, is this thing over?
How would you respond to that, and maybe even better, how would the admiral respond to that?
MATTINGLY: Well, you heard me asking him the question. A lot of people are going to find this a little hard to believe, that you're having trouble finding oil out there, but he says that is absolutely the case.
And he's talking about oil that is on the surface, the slick that we have seen from the spill. He is talking about that surface oil. And that's what they have had an ability to go after with the skimmers, to go out there and clean up the pockets of the black, thick crude oil that he is talking about. That's what they have been attacking.
Now, this doesn't apply to the oil that is in the water column, and the tar balls and the tar patties and all those other things that we have heard talked about that is underneath the surface of the water. That is still there, and that's something that is still going to be affecting the shoreline for quite some time.
But at this point, as far as the oil on the surface, just the oil on the surface, Tony, he says we're looking at possibly weeks, maybe a month or so, before that oil finally disappears.
HARRIS: So then the question is, when does the oil that is below the surface, when does that come to the surface and start to pose real problems? That's a question for down the road, I suppose.
David Mattingly for us.
MATTINGLY: Right. Absolutely.
HARRIS: David, good to see you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Yes.
In other top stories we're following for you, closing arguments under way in the federal corruption trial of Rod Blagojevich. Testimony wrapped up Wednesday without the former Illinois governor taking the stand in his own defense.
U.S. troops in Afghanistan searching for two U.S. sailors missing since Friday. Afghan officials say one of them was killed, the other captured by the Taliban. The Pentagon has only confirmed the two disappeared south of Kabul.
And survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime are calling the U.N. war crimes tribunal in Cambodia a sham. The man who ran a torture prison during that period has been sentenced to 35 years in prison, but because of time served, he will spend only about 19 years in prison.
The battle over illegal immigration in America. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty sad and scary, because if somebody comes to your door and knocks, hey, let's go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They swam here, they walked here, they crawled here. By whatever way they got here, they can go back that way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: We will take a look at a battle brewing in Utah over a list.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: So the countdown is on. Arizona's new controversial immigration law goes into effect on Thursday, and CNN is kicking off a weeklong look at the immigration issue around the country.
A CNN poll asks, "What should the U.S. government's main focus be in dealing with the illegal immigration?" When given a choice, 42 percent said to develop a plan that would allow illegal immigrants who have jobs to become legal U.S. residents. The majority, 57 percent, said to deport them and stop more from coming to the United States.
Another question: "Do people who support tough laws against illegal immigrants feel that way because they dislike Hispanics?" Twenty percent say yes, 77 percent say no.
Outing illegal immigrants is one way Utah is taking aim at its undocumented residents.
CNN's Ted Rowlands explains from Salt Lake City.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in the state of Utah, the immigration debate is raging. State lawmakers are drafting a bill similar to Arizona's 1070.
Then there is this: names, addresses and birth dates of 1,300 alleged illegal immigrants known here simply as "The List."
(voice-over): In the back room of a Salt Lake City market, Latino activist Tony Yapias has a hotline for people to call to find out if they're on "The List."
TONY YAPIAS, LATINO ACTIVIST: It has sent a chilling effect into our community.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's not on the list, OK? No.
ROWLANDS: The list surfaced two weeks ago. Two state employees who are now being terminated allegedly used medical data to come up with the personal information of 1,300 reported illegal immigrants. The list was sent to government agencies, law enforcement and the media with this letter demanding that the people on the list be deported immediately.
JESUS, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: I got here illegally. So -- but I didn't know I was doing a bad thing because I was young by then, but now I know that it's a bad thing.
ROWLANDS: We met 25-year-old Jesus at a park. He didn't want us to show his home or use his last name. Jesus is on the list. He says he's lived in Utah illegally since he was 15, when he says his father brought him here from Mexico.
He has a wife, who is also here illegally, and a 2-year-old daughter who was born in Utah.
JESUS: It's pretty sad and scary, because if somebody comes to your door and knocks, hey, let's go.
ROWLANDS: Jesus says the tension he feels living in Utah is growing, but the ongoing immigration debate and now the list.
ELI CAWLEY, UTAH MINUTEMAN PROJECT: To think there's fear in the hearts of these illegal aliens, I celebrate that.
ROWLANDS: Utah Minuteman Eli Cawley is pretty clear on where he stands.
CAWLEY: They swam here, they walked, they crawled here, by whatever way they got here, they can go back that way.
ROWLANDS: Cawley says people may call him a bigot but he believes a lot of Utah is on his side when it comes to illegal immigration.
In an April poll, 65 percent of Utah voters surveyed said they support an Arizona 1070 type law here. One is in the works and is expected to pass next year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm tired of the lack of civility. I'm tired of the hatred. And I'm tired of the hostility. I think Utahans or the majority of Utahans are above that.
ROWLANDS: Last week Republican Governor Gary Herbert hosted a discussion on illegal immigration. While there were disagreements on what if anything the state should do about it, all sides were quick to blame the federal government for not doing something years ago.
GOV. GARY HERBERT (R), UTAH: But in the absence of federal action on this, there may be no other alternative but for states like Utah to move forward.
ROWLANDS: As for the list, the attorney general announced a criminal investigation into the leak. Although Jesus admits he is in the country illegally, officials say some of the people on the list are here legally.
(on camera): Do you think you should be able to stay?
JESUS: Yes, I think I should have the chance to stay here.
ROWLANDS (on camera): You can see Jesus's name here on the list. What he is hoping is that the federal government will pass some sort of immigration reform that has a path to citizenship for he and his wife. He says if that doesn't happen, however, he does have plans to move back to Mexico, if forced.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Salt Lake City, Utah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Well, in contrast to the Utah list, there are sanctuary cities across the country that go the other way.
Ines Ferre is in New York to tell us more about this.
And Ines, maybe we can start with a bit of an explanation of exactly what a sanctuary city is.
INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it's a term that's been developed over time, since the '80s, cities that are relatively safe for illegal immigrants.
And some of them have policies, Tony, where city employees and police aren't allowed to inquire about immigration status. They also don't have to report people who are here illegally.
Now, the most current report on sanctuary policies we could find by the Congressional Research Service is from 2006. They list here 31 cities and counties with these types of policies, including San Francisco, L.A., New York.
Now, supporters of Arizona's immigration law want the government to go after sanctuary cities. Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter recently introduced a bill demanding that. He says if immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, then the government should go after cities that impede federal law.
Now, the Justice Department says there's a difference between a jurisdiction deciding not to use its resources to enforce federal law and a state coming up with its own law that interferes with it, Tony.
HARRIS: OK, got you.
Well, Ines, what do the cities say about all of this?
FERRE: Well, these cities are saying, look, they don't hold back information from ICE when it comes to criminals, when they've been arrested, or for felonies, for example. And their policies help build a better relationship between local law enforcement and illegal immigrants when it comes to reporting crimes.
Tony.
HARRIS: Got you. All right, Ines, appreciate it. Thank you.
One hundred days until the midterm elections, but this race is about more than just candidates. John King is on the road in Arizona. "John King USA" live from Arizona starting Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
You know, they don't trust Wall Street or Washington, so they look closer to home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARY DINGMAN, COOKS' OFFICE MANAGER, LOST LIFE SAVINGS: Everything is gone. I've lost everything. And now I will be 62 in July.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Fraud in the heartland. You won't believe how these people were deceived. We're back in a moment. You're in the "CNN NEWSROOM".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: CNN, of course, is your source for financial news. Cnnmoney.com is the home page. Actually, you should make it your home page. OK, cnn.com. And then cnnmoney.com.
The Dow back in positive territory. We are three hours into the trading day here. Let's take a look at the numbers. We've been in positive territory all day, up 64 points. I think that is slightly off of session highs, though. And the NASDAQ is positive as well, up 16 points.
Have you ever heard of affinity fraud. It is a scheme that targets a specific ethnic or religious group. Bernie Madoff made the term famous, targeting high profile Jewish charities in the multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme that put him in jail for life. Now Poppy Harlow has a story of two men who preyed on religious Christians in Minnesota. It is a CNN and cnnmoney.com special investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a story about huge financial fraud. The feds say Trevor Cook took in $190 million. It's about trust, it's about faith, and it's about the people that abuse them.
A lot of the people that invested with them were Bible-believing Christians. They didn't want Wall Street. They didn't want Washington. They trusted people here at home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Once upon a time in Minneapolis, yo, I damn near had to steal the show. I stepped on the stage (INAUDIBLE).
ON SCREEN WORDS: Minneapolis, Minnesota. Breaking Faith. How two money men used God to take $190 million from 1,200 people. Trevor Cook, the boss. Pat Kiley, radio pitchman.
"PIONEER PRESS" MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: Their message to investors was simple: trust us. Guilty plea is expected in a scam with a pitch that sounded so good.
MIKE PATTERSON, FOLLOWED KILEY'S RADIO SHOW: He went after and targeted a group of people. Their faith in the Lord is what they're all about.
MARY DINGMAN, COOK'S OFFICE MANAGER, LOST LIFE SAVINGS: Everything is gone. I have lost everything. And now I will be 62 in July.
KYLE GARMAN, INVESTOR: It's been rough. Really rough.
TREVOR COOK: There's no risk, OK? A riskless transaction.
HARLOW (voice-over): Cook ran the operation, telling investors he had a system to cash in on moves in the foreign currency market. Cook talked a good game, but it was just an illusion. Behind his high-tech office and glossy brochures were a host of shell companies that sounded like global powerhouses but were nothing of the sort. Pat Kiley was Cook's business partner. He pedaled their scheme on his show, "Follow the Money," broadcast over hundreds of Christian radio stations.
PAT KILEY (voice-over): I'm probably the only senior economist and senior analyst in the United States that also uses the good book.
HARLOW (on camera): Were Christians targeted in a sense? Were faith-based people targeted in these frauds?
B. TODD JONES, U.S. ATTORNEY, MINNEAPOLIS: I think any good fraudster is going to leverage whatever means they can to get that trust connection there.
HARLOW (voice-over): Cook pled guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of tax evasion. And it seems he spent plenty of his investors' money in ways that were decided unchristian.
HARLOW (on camera): You said there were, what, strippers there, hookers?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
HARLOW: Yes.
DINGMAN: They would call up ladies of the evening, their prostitutes or whatever you want to call them, and have them come in.
HARLOW: This was another side of Trevor Cook, the heavy drinking, frequenting strip clubs, and even several arrests. One for assaulting an escort at this Minnesota hotel.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HARLOW: And, Tony, that is just the beginning of a story that is much longer, much more in depth. You can see the whole thing here, "Fraud in the Heartland" on CNN Money. But as we followed this story for a few months, this is what's resulted. Trevor Cook, that you saw in the piece, he struck a plea deal with prosecutors. He'll be sentenced next month to a maximum 25-year sentence. Obviously the investors say that's not enough.
As for Kiley, we've called him time and time again. He won't answer the phone. He's being criminally investigated. But he filed a lawsuit saying he didn't participate in any criminal wrongdoing. He believed investors' accounts were liquid, that they were segregated. He says he didn't squander the money or mismanage it. His lawyer says to us, "Pat Kiley never expected there was anything wrong with these investments. He continued to believe he was doing good for all his clients."
A lot of outstanding questions, Tony, on this one. And more than 1,000 investors who lost pretty much everything.
Tony.
HARRIS: Amazing. Hey, Poppy, I'm going ask you a question that we certainly asked you when the Madoff story came to light.
HARLOW: Yes.
HARRIS: Where were the regulators? Why weren't, in this case, these two arrested before all of that money was lost?
HARLOW: It's a great question. I mean when we dug on this story, we saw back in 2006 the National Futures Association had looked into Cook and said that, listen, this was not a man that could be trusted or was reputable with people's investment money, but he was allowed to operate.
So we flew no Chicago, that's where his SEC is headquartered, that has to look over a nine-state area, including Minnesota. We asked them, are we any better protected now? They said, no. I said why does this happen? They said we simply don't have enough people. We have 100 enforcers to cover nine states. We don't have enough people. We don't have enough money to watch out for this.
It was amazing to hear the SEC say, we cannot protect you, you have to protect yourself. I think sobering for the investors. And clearly this can -- this can happen to absolutely anyone. It's not just the Madoff victims. It's what we saw in this story, as well, Tony.
HARRIS: And that woman in your story, 62 years old.
HARLOW: Yes.
HARRIS: And she is just -- there's not enough time for her to make herself whole again. That is so sad.
HARLOW: I know.
HARRIS: Terrific reporting. Thanks, Poppy.
HARLOW: You got it.
HARRIS: And still to come, what's hot on the Internet? It is a scene made for Yogi Bear. A peanut butter sandwich inside a car. Wait until you hear what happens after the bear got behind the wheel.
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HARRIS: Day 98 of the oil disaster. Ships and crews are back at work in the Gulf of Mexico after evacuating for two days because of tropical storm Bonnie. There are reports BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, may resign tomorrow. An announcement could come when the company reports its second quarter earnings.
Other top stories we're following for you.
Volumes of classified war documents leaked. Tens of thousands of documents from the Afghan war. They were posted on the website Wikileaks.
And President Obama is scheduled to appear on "The View" Thursday. It also marks the return of Barbara Walters to the program. Walters had heart surgery in May.
From slavery to salvation. He came to the United States with a dream, but he had to go through hell and back before he achieved it.
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HARRIS: You know, literally, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, a man with a troubled past found freedom and a promising future. He overcame being a virtual slave and a disability. Adriana Hauser has the story.
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ADRIANA HAUSER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A deaf mute immigrant, Jose Gutierrez's' journey began in Mexico 13 years ago with a dream to come to the United States for a better opportunity.
JOSE GUTIERREZ, SMUGGLING VICTIM (through interpreter): My parents said, no. We decided to trick my parents and told them that I was going to be going to play soccer.
HAUSER: Gutierrez, who speaks through an interpreter, was packed into a bus full of other deaf immigrants.
GUTIERREZ: They sort of tricked me. They told me I'd get work here. And, you know -- and they told me I'd be able to see my parents. But I wasn't able to see my parents. My papers were gone.
HAUSER: Gutierrez, just 15 at the time, was the victim of a major smuggling ring whose leaders were arrested and convicted of extortion and are serving prison terms of nearly 13 years. Gutierrez was one of more than 50 deaf children forced to sell trinkets on streets and subways.
GUTIERREZ: We'd arrive back at the house in the evening. The boss would come and meet us and collect -- take all of the money from us. And I was frightened, you know. You know, I thought, you know, this should be for us. But this was -- it was a very tough life. It was very hard. And inside I just felt very stuck and didn't know what to do.
HAUSER: He and the others were virtual slaves, living in squalor. Two of the children ultimately filed a complaint with New York City Police. CNN covered the story.
MAYOR RUDY GIULIANI, NEW YORK: People should be able to exercise a choice about whether they want to go back to Mexico and what other rights might be available to them here in the United States.
HAUSER: As a crime victim, Gutierrez was allowed to stay in the United States. And since those dark days, his life has turned around.
GUTIERREZ: I work here, and I work in the Statue of Liberty. And I'm very happy with this work here. I've been working here for three years. And it gives me great joy.
HAUSER: That's right, 13 years after losing his freedom, Gutierrez works on Liberty Island as a janitor. He has a girlfriend and a daughter, and he just received his green card. But even though Gutierrez has found something close to happiness, all these years, after leaving Mexico, he still hasn't been able to get back in touch with his parents.
GUTIERREZ: I know my parents have been worried about me all these years. I can't contact them, and I don't know how. And I want them to know that I'm here in New York now and that I'm working. I want to let them know that.
HAUSER (on camera): He plans to head back to Mexico in the fall in hopes of being reunited with his parents. A trip that will bring this incredible journey back to where it all began.
Adriana Hauser, CNN, New York.
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HARRIS: A group of Benedictine nuns may live in seclusion, but their music is going public. I will tell you what they have in common with -- wait for it -- Lady Gaga!
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HARRIS: So I'm not sure why Ines Ferre is in New York, but she is. I need to check the schedule on these things. She there with "What's Hot." And it is firecracker hot in New York.
So, all right, Benedictine nuns and Lady Gaga? I can't wait for this one.
FERRE: Yes. An order of Benedictine nuns from southern France. Take a listen. They just signed a record deal with the company behind Lady Gaga and U2.
HARRIS: Oh they did not. Did they really?
FERRE: Yes, they did! Yes, they did! They're going to be recording a record. This is amazing. They live in strict seclusion, Tony, but their music is going public. And they won a search for the world's greatest female Gregorian singers. And it's the most ancient form of music ever written. And since they took a vow of poverty, all royalties will be used to help the monastery.
HARRIS: So a concert and what is this about some bird droppings? Are you -- you're not making stuff up again, are you?
FERRE: Yes, switching -- no, no, no, switching gears now. All right.
HARRIS: OK.
FERRE: Kings of Leon performing in St. Louis. Their band suddenly walked out of their concert after three songs. There you see them before they walked out because of an infestation of birds that were popping on the band while they jammed. That's right. I'm not kidding. This is unbelievable. One of their -- their bassists saying, not only is it disgusting, but it's a health hazard. The concert organizers kept it a secret, but a band member tweeted what really happened. So that's why they left the stage (ph).
HARRIS: OK, that is terrific. That is -- all right, so we've been teasing this next piece. This is about a bear stuck in a car?
FERRE: Yes. This is so -- this is one of those stories where you're like, OK, I heard it all, but not this one. A bear that goes into a car -- apparently he was -- he was attracted by a peanut butter sandwich that was left in the car. Police responded to a call of a honking car and a lot of commotion inside the car. They see a bear.
HARRIS: Yes.
FERRE: And that bear --
HARRIS: Oh, man.
FERRE: Yes, so that's the kind of damage that he did to the car. Actually, what police say that he did was, he somehow put the gear in neutral.
HARRIS: Oh, come on.
FERRE: And then the car went down the hill. No, I'm not kidding you. You cannot make this stuff up. It's unbelievable. And the family that owns this car, well, of course, it was a 17-year-old boy that said, oh my gosh, I left my car open and now I'm going to be in trouble. So, anyways, unbelievable, Tony, out in Colorado.
HARRIS: Yes, you are. Wow. That is what's hot online.
FERRE: That was --
HARRIS: Yes, what were you going to say?
FERRE: Yes, what's hot online. And that one was the most e-mailed -- one of the most e-mailed stories on cnn.com.
HARRIS: That bear destroyed that vehicle.
Ines, appreciate it. See you back here in Atlanta soon, I think.
All right. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a father's fight to help his child.
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ERIC COLE, RYAN'S FATHER: I think individuals with disabilities, you know, what everybody wants is they want a hand up, not a handout.
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HARRIS: Twenty years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, one family says there is still work to be done.
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HARRIS: It has been 20 years since the law changed life for millions of Americans with disabilities. We know it as the ADA. Kyra Phillips look at what it has meant and what's ahead.
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KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the stroke of a pen, it was done. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. You've seen the results. Curb cuts in ramps, wider doors, parking spaces, and Braille on elevators and ATMs for the blind. Enough? Former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, who helped push the ADA through, says no.
RICHARD THORNBURGH, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, I am gratified, but impatient. Gratified that we've expressed in a formal way through legislative action the importance of the civil rights of people with disabilities, and their rights to participate in the mainstream of our lives without being discriminated against. And disappointed in a way because we haven't reached the promise land yet.
PHILLIPS: By promise land, Thornburgh means economic opportunity for the disabled. So people like Ryan Cole can compete on a level playing field.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was this the day you were born?
PHILLIPS: Ryan represents the second generation of the ADA. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ryan was diagnosed when I was about 18 weeks pregnant with Danny Walker malformation, which is a brain malformation which effects the cerebellum. And in his case, he is missing a portion of his cerebellum.
ERIC COLE, RYAN'S FATHER: Let's go to your room.
Ryan's had two brain surgeries. He's had abdominal surgeries to place a g-tube. He's had hernia surgeries. He's had seizures. They were brought under control. We've had some mobility issues.
PHILLIPS: Ryan's parents want their son to grow up to be self- sufficient, and advocates say society can do its part to make that happen.
ANDREW IMPARATO, AMERICAN ASSN. OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: I think one of our challenges as we move into the next decade is how can we create more economic opportunities so that more people with disabilities are working, more people are in the middle class, own their own homes, and are able to participate fully in the mainstream of the economy.
COLE: I think individuals with disabilities, you know, what everybody wants is, they want a hand up, not a handout.
PHILLIPS: And for Ryan's father, and many others, it's about common decency.
COLE: I think there are many stereotypes that we still battle today. I think there are some derogatory terms out there that are still used for individuals with cognitive and intellectual disabilities. And understand that individuals like Ryan have hopes and dreams, and aspirations, just like the rest of us.
Kyra Phillips, CNN.
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