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Fallout from George Zimmerman Verdict; Television Star Found Dead in Vancouver; What is Snowden's Endgame?

Aired July 15, 2013 - 11:00   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Michaela Pereira in for Ashleigh Banfield.

There is a loud cry for justice coming from thousands of protesters in cities across the U.S as they come to grips with the not guilty verdict in George Zimmerman's murder trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what democracy looks like!

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PEREIRA: You can see here demonstrators in New York from across the racial spectrum. They marched from Union Square up Sixth Avenue to Times Square.

And protests like that, many peaceful, others not, are happening all across the nation.

Alina Machado is live in Sanford, Florida this morning to give us an idea of what's happening there.

Alina?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michaela, protests here in Sanford, Florida have been very small and peaceful, unlike what we've seen in some other parts of the country.

Overnight in New York City in Times Square, there were thousands of people marching. In Harlem, we heard of a scuffle between police and protesters, a scuffle that resulted in some arrests.

And in Los Angeles, we heard of a march that turned violent after protesters started throwing batteries and rocks and chunks of cement in one area and then they blocked traffic on a freeway.

We're told the LAPD responded by throwing bean bags at demonstrators.

And, Michaela, this is exactly what leaders here in Sanford, Florida and around the country have said they did not want to see.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF CECIL SMITH, SANFORD POLICE: Sanford has been put in the spotlight for the past 17, 18 months. And we are in the process of now -- of opening up a new chapter, going in a new direction, learning from the things that have taken place, and seeing how we can improve on being better to each other, how we can better communicate with one another, how we can make the community better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACHADO: And that was Sanford Police Chief Cecil Smith reacting to yesterday's protests here in Sanford, Florida.

Again, everybody calling for peace, everybody calling for calm after this verdict came down. Michaela?

PEREIRA: Alina, I'm curious, we see Chief Smith there talking about the need for the city and the community and the nation as a whole to go new directions.

I'm curious what community leaders there are doing specifically, what tangible programs or messages they are putting out to keep the peace there in Sanford.

MACHADO: Well, they were working on this well before the verdict. They had several pastors from churches actually sitting in in the courtroom actually listening to the trial so they can go back and educate their congregations.

Now that the verdict has come down, they've renewed their calls for peace and calm.

And we also know that they're going to be -- there are several churches in town here in Seminole County, Florida, that will be opening their doors every Monday afternoon starting today so people can come and pray for peace and unity. The first session will be taking place at this church we're at this afternoon.

Michaela?

PEREIRA: Yes, a lot of reaction on social media as well and a lot of people calling for peace, peace for Trayvon, et cetera.

Alina Machado, thanks so much. She's in Sanford, Florida. We appreciate that.

George Zimmerman is a free man. He's free to leave Florida. He's free to pursue his dreams.

During the trial we heard the testimony that he wanted to be a law enforcement officer. One of his college professors also testified, however, he also wanted to become an attorney and eventually a prosecutor.

In fact, Reuters is reporting one of his friends, Leanne Benjamin, who also testified, you see her there on screen in this trial, says she had dinner with him recently and he said he wants to go to law school and help other people accused of crimes just like him. But before he fights other people's legal battles, he could have some more of his own, the NAACP calling on the Justice Department to file federal civil rights charges against him.

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BEN JEALOUS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NAACP: They will make a choice about whether or not they will pursue criminal civil rights charges.

We are calling on them to do just that because when you look at his comments and when you look at comments made by young black men who lived in that neighborhood about how they felt especially targeted by him there is reason to be concerned that race was a factor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Former prosecutor Beth Karas joins me live from New York.

Beth, thanks so much for joining me today. Let's start by talking about possible federal charges against Zimmerman.

I want you to listen to some sound from Attorney General Eric Holder on hate crimes, then I'm going to get your reaction on the other side.

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ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: For a federal hate crime, we have to prove the highest standard in the law. Something that was reckless, that was negligent does not meet that standard.

We have to show that there was specific intent to do the crime with the requisite state of mind.

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PEREIRA: Requisite state of mind.

So what are the chances, Beth, in your estimation that Zimmerman will be charged on the federal level?

BETH KARAS, FORMER DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND PROSECUTOR: You know, I think the chances are remote. The investigation does continue.

The Justice Department, I'm sure, is very well aware of all of the evidence that was -- that unfolded in the courtroom, and they're doing their own investigation to see what they can dig up in George Zimmerman's background to establish that he is a racist.

I don't think the evidence is strong. This is very different from the types of cases which motivated that statute, the federal hate crimes statute.

There are two sides to this story at least. The neighbors see things that are consistent with George Zimmerman's version. Trayvon Martin is not here to explain his side. And just looking at the facts, although there is a dead unarmed teen, it's just not blatantly obvious that he was motivated by racial animus.

And as Eric Holder was saying, he's alluding to -- or actually not alluding. He was very directly saying this is a hard and high standard.

PEREIRA: Yes. He made a point of making that point very clear.

I want to speak to this idea of Zimmerman having a future as an attorney. It's interesting.

What kind of future does the man hold? Obviously, the time going forward is going to be a very challenging time for he and his family. He had an interest in law enforcement, speaking to a family friend or a friend of his that he was interested in going to law school.

What do you see? You as an attorney, what do you think when you hear that?

KARAS: You know, I suppose it's possible, but he needs the heat to die down, and he needs to lay low for a while.

And we saw a lot of anger and hatred against Casey Anthony a few years ago, totally different case, but it too was an acquittal. And it didn't sit well with people, and people thought the system failed, the jury failed. And she still isn't a very public person two years later.

George Zimmerman has supporters, and he has detractors. So I think that there's probably a little area where he can go and be among some supporters and start a new life, but it's certainly not going to be in central Florida.

PEREIRA: That's Beth Karas, CNN legal analyst and former prosecutor. We appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

More fireworks are likely this week at the trial of alleged Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. Key prosecution witness Steven "The Rifleman" Flemmi is expected to implicate Bulger in the murders of 10 people 10 years ago.

Flemmi has already pleaded guilty to those killings. Bulger is charged in the deaths of 19 people. He also is facing charges of extortion, racketeering, and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty.

An autopsy is being performed today on actor Cory Monteith. It's unknown what killed the 31-year-old actor best known for his starring role on the TV show "Glee."

His body was found in a hotel room in Vancouver, Canada on Saturday. Police are only saying at this point that they have ruled out foul play.

Monteith checked out of a rehab center in March. He's been very public about his ongoing struggle with addiction.

Former president George H. W. Bush is coming back to the White House today for a very special event. Want to show you a live picture here. There it is, the White House, beautiful day in Washington.

Along with the former first lady Barbara Bush, the pair will be joining the current first family, paying tribute to volunteers. This will happen this afternoon.

They'll honor an Iowa couple as the 5,000th recipients of the Daily Points of Light Award for community service. Congratulations to them.

Edward Snowden, the man behind one of the most notorious intelligence leaks in American history, now telling journalists he has even more documents to share, and the reporter who broke the story says it could be America's, quote, "worst nightmare."

We'll have that story, next.

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PEREIRA: More damaging information that could be a nightmare for the U.S. government. That's the latest word from NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Glenn Greenwald, who first broke the story in the "Guardian" newspaper, says the information contains specific details on the operations and the structure of the NSA.

This new development comes as Snowden remains holed up in that Moscow airport. He's been there quite some time.

Phil Black joins us live from Moscow now. We say hello to you, Phil. And I'm curious. Snowden has said he's not wanting to hurt America with this new information. But if not what's his endgame here?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's an interesting question indeed.

And Glenn Greenwald, the journalist you mentioned, doesn't go into that sort of detail necessarily except to say that when he fled the country, when he fled the United States, he took more information than he actually required, essentially to maintain credibility, if you like, in any discussions he needed to have with journalists such as himself.

So as a result Greenwald says Snowden has taken thousands of documents, the sort of information that will allow him to do so much damage to the United States, more damage within one brief moment than Greenwald says has ever been possible before by just one person, thousands of documents.

He describes it as effectively an instruction manual for the way the NSA is built, how it does what it does, and the sort of information that will allow people to evade and possibly replicate that sort of surveillance. But he insists that Snowden does not want that information to be made public, Michaela.

PEREIRA: This as we still await word on where he's actually going to get asylum if he gets it at all.

Phil Black, thank you very much.

Let's move to Cairo now. Pro- and anti-government protesters continue to pack the streets, this as the number two diplomat in the U.S. State Department meets with interim government officials.

Deputy Secretary of State William Burns is the first high-level U.S. official to visit Cairo since the military ouster of president Mohamed Morsy.

Nick Paton Walsh joins us live from Cairo. We say hi to you. Tell us what is the scene in the streets there today in Cairo?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, behind me the anti-Morsy protests for so many days fill Tahrir Square. They're really ebbing at this point.

Their supporters say pretty much they've won. They're able to go home.

But across town what's key is the pro-Morsy crowds seem to be digging in in their thousands, even in the basking heat of the Ramadan religious fast here. We were there a few days ago. There were even key leaders within that crowd who were sought by prosecutors.

But they seem to be saying they'll stay until the end, and they see no real sign of reconciliation between the interim government and the former government, led by many Muslim Brotherhood key figures.

Many cabinet appointments over the weekend to try and push through this interim government road map toward new presidential elections.

But the outstanding question really, Michaela, is how do they get the political reconciliation together to bring the brotherhood off the streets and back into the political process?

Michaela?

PEREIRA: I'm curious, is there any word on who Deputy Secretary of State Burns is planning on meeting with while he's there and what his goal is?

WALSH: As far as he's aware, he's already had two key meetings, had another (inaudible) with the interim prime minister and General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, the minister of defense, the head of the army here, two key figures in the interim government here, Al-Sisi, the real kind of figurehead behind the military's intervention here.

That's surely about shoring up the vital Washington-Cairo relationship. There's been a thorn in that, though. Washington on Friday did explicitly call for the release of Mohamed Morsy, the former president and key Muslim Brotherhood figure.

That simply hasn't happened, and until that's really addressed Washington and Cairo are going to have a bit of a rocky time talking.

Michaela?

PEREIRA: To be sure. Big thank you to Nick Paton Walsh there in Cairo. We appreciate that.

Still ahead, prosecutors under fire after the George Zimmerman verdict. Today opening up about their case.

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BERNIE DE LA RIONDA, ZIMMERMAN PROSECUTOR: We're left with a defendant's story, and what we attempted to do as best we could is to prove that his story was false.

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PERIERA: We'll have more from the prosecutors, including their views on the case and the witnesses coming up next.

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PERIERA: Back now to the fallout from the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. As with any high-profile acquittal like this one, the prosecution has come under fire for the loss. The loudest criticism has come under the decision to file murder charges. Earlier this morning prosecutors sat down with Vinnie Politan from our sister station HLN. I want you to take a listen.

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DE LA RIONDA: You know, we're stuck with the evidence we have. We would --

VINNE POLITAN, HLN HOST: Are you being nice right now?

DE LA RIONDA: Well, no. This is the truth. You know, we don't get to pick our witnesses. We've got to deal with what we've got and we've got to do the best we can.

ANGELA COREY, FLORIDA STATE ATTORNEY: There was a wealth of hard, cold physical evidence, DNA and everything else, that showed that George Zimmerman lied in his statements to the police.

POLITAN: There was no sort of narrative that this jury could follow, that America could follow.

DE LA RIONDA: Well, the problem you've got in the trial is you can't say jury don't speculate and then ask them to speculate. And so we're left with the defendant's story, and what we attempted to do as best we could is to prove that his story was false. Therefore, why would he be lying about something? Something minor like trying to get an address. I mean, I thought that was blatantly obviously a lie. And when I was talking to the jury, when I was arguing to the jury, I saw them nodding their heads.

POLITAN: So what was the deciding factor --

DE LA RIONDA: The problem --

POLITAN: -- and was it a group decision?

DE LA RIONDA: Yes.

And the problem you have is there was enough evidence, even though I would argue it was insignificant or very little, that there was self- defense. You had John Good. You had other people. So they were going to be able to get an instruction as to self-defense. And once we knew that was coming on, we felt we needed to put his statement on and just disprove it.

COREYL: And we had the injuries. And the injuries indicate there was some sort of a struggle. Our position all along, we never said that Trayvon didn't do something to George Zimmerman. What we said is you can't take a concealed weapon and encourage or incite a fistfight, which is what he did by stalking a teenager who didn't know who he was, and then whip your gun out and shoot. And that's what he said. I just got my gun out and shot him.

Never explaining the details of how he was able to pull his gun if he was being beaten as brutally as he claimed. And so we had to put all of that in. And then we clearly refuted it with the physical evidence. No DNA on Trayvon Martin's hands, who supposedly were covering his bloody nose. You know, so many other things. And those lives were put in front of the jury one after the other after the other.

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PERIERA: You can hear more of Vinnie's interview tonight at 10:00 p.m. That will be on our sister station, the sister network, rather, HLN. Probably the loudest critic of the prosecution was Don West, one of George Zimmerman's defense attorneys. Among other things, he accused them of playing dirty tricks during the trial. Joining me now is defense attorney Danny Cevallos and Faith Jenkins, attorney and former prosecutor. Thank you both for coming on and talk to us.

I know you've been talking about it a lot this week and the last few months for sure. I want to do something here, there's so much emotion, so much riding on this. Let's assess the prosecution here for a minute, the job they did. Danny, do you think they missed a slam dunk here?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: A slam dunk? I'm not much for sports analogies. It would be more like missing a half-court shot. This was a hard, hard case for the prosecution to win. And you heard them say it themselves. They do not get to choose their witnesses. And to me they're essentially conceding that some of their witnesses weren't so great. And again, they don't get to choose them.

The other thing that's astounding is that they concede that there was some kind of altercation. Just now in that sound we just heard. Which is astounding considering the narrative that's going on, that a child can't go to 7-Eleven and buy Skittles. The prosecution is conceding more than that happened.

PERIERA: Faith, in an interview with Chris Cuomo on "NEW DAY," which you'll see a little later coming up, in fact defense attorney Mark O'Mara said the prosecution should never have brought the case in the first place. He said the state should have waited for a grand jury to decide instead of appointing a special prosecutor. Is he right?

FAITH JENKINS, ATTORNEY: Michaela, as a prosecutor your job is always to do justice. And they thought clearly here that there was a murder and it wasn't justified. So they decided to move forward with the case without the grand jury. The problem with the case is Trayvon Martin was dead. So his side of the story, his testimony, his version died with him.

So of course they had an uphill battle. There was no real true eyewitness. But based on what we heard in the interview, the inconsistencies they believed in George Zimmerman's story, they believed he lied, they went ahead and went forward with the case.

We get cases all the time. They are hard to prove. They are tough. It's going to be an uphill battle. But when you think a murder has been committed, when you think justice needs to be served, you go forward anyway and risk the chance of an acquittal, risk the chance of losing. But you take the chance anyway.

PERIERA: We're polling all of our legal panels today. I want to ask you both, Danny and Faith. Do you think the verdict was accurate? Danny?

CEVALLOS: Yes. It was not guilty from the beginning. It was not guilty throughout the trial. And I am not surprised by the verdict. Although I admit the last few minutes before the verdict comes out everyone always has their doubts. Me included.

PERIERA: You too. You say you always do that. How about you, Faith? Do you think they got it right?

JENKINS: No. I don't think justice was served in this case. I really don't. When you look at the facts that never change, that this 17- year-old was walking home. And so what if there was a struggle? So what if he fought back if someone was following him with a gun? George Zimmerman made the ultimate decision to take his life. And I just don't think that it was an accurate verdict here and there was not justice.

PERIERA: Well, and I'll add to this, two families forever changed. Danny Cevallos and Faith Jenkins, I want to thank you both for joining us today. We appreciate it.

The American soldier who first turned over secrets to Wikileaks is being court-martialed. Bradley Manning charged with aiding the enemy. Up next find out just how much time he could spend in prison.

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PERIERA: At Fort Meade, Maryland the judge overseeing the court- martial of Army Private Bradley Manning will hear arguments today on some of the most contentious charges. Manning admits giving Wikileaks thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is here with the very latest. Barbara, both prosecution and defense have presented their cases. What is next in the court-martial of Bradley Manning?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Michaela. Bradley Manning back in court later today. And the judge will start hearing the argument from the prosecution as the defense over this whole issue of dropping some of the most contentious charges. The one of course the defense wants to see either dropped or get a summary judgment on, in other words, the judge simply says you're not guilty, is the charge of aiding the enemy because that could put Bradley Manning in a military jail for the rest of his life.

He's already pled guilty to some lesser charges that could get him the maximum of 20 years in prison. So this will be very key. Both sides have rested their initial cases. The judge, there is no jury in this matter, will hear the motions today for dismissal of some charges, summary judgment, a finding of not guilty on other charges, and then we could see the prosecution come back one more time for rebuttal. The big issue on the table, the defense says at least, is did the prosecution prove that national security was truly harmed in this case. Michaela?

PERIERA: You know, Barbara, earlier in the hour we talked about the latest with NSA leaker Edward Snowden. I'm curious if there's any implications for him in this court-martial case.

STARR: Well, you know, I think it's exactly what a lot of people are watching. In both cases you have people who had access to massive amounts of classified information by all accounts illegally, took charge of it and then distributed it to unauthorized persons, essentially the public. And so the government is trying to bring a case in Snowden, brought the case in Manning. But the burden is on the government to prove perhaps that national security is harmed.

And in the Wikileaks case with Manning many people will tell you that the government hasn't shown that national security has been harmed. Embarrassment, yes. Many of the cables leaked to the Wikileaks organization are hugely embarrassing to the United States, about government diplomacy, that sort of thing. But harm to national security. So I think it's fair to say a lot of people watching the Manning case to see if that's a case that can be made or not made in Edward Snowden's matter.

PERIERA: You can't try someone on the basis of embarrassment. Thank goodness for both you and I. I'm sure we've had instances ourselves. Barbara Starr, Pentagon correspondent. We appreciate it. Great chatting with you today,

STARR: Sure. PERIERA: Still ahead, the jury found George Zimmerman not guilty.