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The Gentrification of Harlem; Couple Finds $10 Million Worth of Rare Coins; Pentagon Fights Sexual Assault; FBI Had Informant With Bin Laden in 1993; Couple Sues Petco After Son Dies From Rat Bite; Actor Ben Affleck Visits State Department

Aired February 26, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

MICHAELA DAVIS, CNN COMMENTATOR: The pain that he's -- and pain is a really accurate word that he's feeling, because Kim Kardashian may be into neutrals, but communities are not, right?

We need to feel that you are joining at something and helping to evolve it and not erasing it.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And I want to get to that. Don, I want your thoughts initially, because I want to get -- I love that analogy of the quilt and I want to get more on that and if there is a solution.

But, Don Lemon, I wanted to talk to you, specifically, because you are a relative Harlem newbie. You've had your place for, what, one, two years. I know you appreciate the history there.

But why did you choose Harlem?

DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I chose it because -- there are a number of reasons I chose it.

Let's not forget, too. I also lived in Brooklyn for a long time. I lived in Brooklyn the '90s, Brooke. I graduated Brooklyn College, right?

I lived on President Street between Hicks and Henry. And my landlord tried to sell my apartment then for $80,000 with back rent as a down payment.

And I said, no, I can't afford it. No, no, no. Now, I went to visit it. It's worth $2 million now. That was 1995, so I should have done that.

So I moved to Harlem for a number of reasons. I hadn't been to Harlem since probably the '80s when I used to housesit for my aunt in high school and college.

And when Whitney Houston died, I went to the Apollo Theater to do a story on Whitney Houston. And I walked out of the Apollo Theater and I started walking the streets of Harlem.

And I walked into the apartment building where I live now. And I went there and bought an apartment almost that same day. I went to the restaurant, and I said, this is Harlem? And the real estate agent said, Yes.

And quite honestly I said, Where are the black people? And she said, Don, Harlem is gentrified now. Harlem in 10, 15 years will be The Village.

And, so, if I hadn't bought in Harlem that apartment, that little one- bedroom apartment that I had when I still lived in Atlanta, if I hadn't bought that, scrimped and scraped and saved for this, I would not be able to afford it now, because of that.

And, so, Michaela is right. You may not like the way that Spike Lee is saying it, but he is not saying anything any differently than what the mayor is saying when he talks about income equality, about fair housing, about those things.

Because these are places where people have lived and saved and where they've had families and Christmases and holidays.

BALDWIN: And it's Harlem. I mean, listen --

LEMON: Yes.

BALDWIN: -- of course, it's the Harlem Renaissance, it's (inaudible).

LEMON: But can I say this? As you are talking about that, Harlem from 2000 to 2010, 81 percent African-American in 2000. In 2010, it's 64 percent. For -- whites have increased from 20 percent -- it's 20 percent now. It was six percent in 2000.

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Michaela.

DAVIS: Part of the frustration, too, is the resources that come, the protection -

BALDWIN: The police protection.

DAVIS: -- the sanitation -

BALDWIN: -- the improved public schools.

DAVIS: -- right. And so you feel like weren't those residents worthy of protection?

And often let's be clear that sometimes that added police protection becomes -- it becomes oppressive for our young boys, like stop-and- frisk.

So, what happens is that the police are coming to protect whom? So, you get this sense of frustration that they were -- trash should have been picked up for all of the communities.

So you're getting these feelings of who is worth protecting? Who is worth keeping clean? And that's the rub. BALDWIN: It's interesting that that's part of the issue. The other part of this issue is all these newer folks are coming in. The rents are going up and the people who've been there for decades are sort of forced out.

LEMON: It's not just the rent. Listen, for what I sold my three- bedroom beautiful home in Atlanta for, Brooke, you know, with a pool, I could afford a one-, maybe a two-bedroom apartment in Harlem.

Ten years ago, you could get an apartment in Harlem for nothing. They were giving away brownstones.

But also there is the other side to it. When there is gentrification, and what Michaela said we should be deciding is what is gentrification, what it does do, though, it offers the opportunity if you can afford it.

If you can afford to own your home and you do own it now, it affords people who have been living there for a long time the opportunity to possibly have wealth, if you do it properly.

So, there are some good things about gentrification, because who wanted -- who wants to hang on to a home that is worth nothing. Now -

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: If I may, this is the one issue I want to come back to, because, listen, gentrification, this is not news. This is happening across the country.

LEMON: Right.

DAVIS: Right.

BALDWIN: But it's Harlem-specific and it's that rich textured quilt heritage from the Renaissance in the 20s and the 30s and the issue seems to be that these newer people are coming in and the older folks who embody and embrace that Harlem that we knew, that we studied about, that is going away.

DAVIS: Well --

BALDWIN: The African drummers in the park are no longer allowed to drum.

DAVIS: Right.

BALDWIN: Spike Lee's dad got -- the cops called the dad because he's playing his instrument a little too loud.

Is it possible to gentrify, but keep that rich history?

LEMON: Yes, it is.

DAVIS: That's -- it is, but the idea's that you don't want to silence a culture. You want to add to it. And I don't know if you have been to Sunday Sermon, Don -

LEMON: Yes.

DAVIS: -- but my boyfriend D.J. Stormin; Norman started this party in Harlem for that reason, so people -- so communities and neighbors can come together and dance together and know what services are there.

And the idea is the person that you might dance to on Sunday afternoon in the sun, you might say good morning to them on Monday on your way to get your $7 latte.

So, part of this is about communities knowing each other and talking to each other and say, Good morning, to that young brother, not just to look at his pants.

LEMON: And, Michaela -

DAVIS: Go to the bodega, like, know that you are part of something.

LEMON: And I don't want people to get the wrong idea, to think that we are not for gentrification. People want gentrification.

DAVIS: I'm for development, not gentrification.

LEMON: It depends on your definition, but they want things to get better. We want --

DAVIS: That's right. I want quinoa.

BALDWIN: I'm ready to go visit Harlem. How about that?

Michaela Davis and Don Lemon, got to leave it there, but thank you both very much. Good deal. Thanks, you guys.

And let me tell you that you can see Spike Lee tonight at 8:00 Eastern on "AC 360." He is sitting down with Anderson Cooper, so definitely don't want to miss that.

Coming up next here on CNN, this couple finds this real-life buried treasure in their own back yard. We are talking possibly here $10 million worth of these rare gold coins.

What such a rare find was doing in the back yard in the first place and what this couple plans to do with their new fortune, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Picture this. You go out and take your dog for a walk and come across something shiny and you dig around and find jars and jars of gold.

This actually happened to this California couple last year. They found eight metal cans containing hundreds of rare gold coins, and the coins are some 150 years old.

Don Kagin of Kagin's, Inc, is helping these owners of the coins, who wish to remain anonymous, and he joins me by phone from New Orleans.

And, Don, tell me about these coins. How much are they worth today?

DON KAGIN, KAGIN'S, INC. (via telephone): This whole group of coins is worth over $10 million today. It has a face-value of about $28,000.

BALDWIN: And what is this couple telling you? Have they wrapped their brains around such a find yet?

KAGIN (via telephone): They're actually pretty mellow about it. They don't want their lives to be changed. That's why they want to be anonymous.

And they've asked that we respect their anonymity and we do, and they just -- they want to give back to the community. They want to give to some charities with the money.

But, basically, they are thankful that -- and they think it's wonderful they're going to be able to save their property that they thought they might lose.

And, again, they want to give back to the community and to needy people, so it's a wonderful --

BALDWIN: Which is wonderful to hear, but, listen, this is your wheelhouse. You know about rare coins.

Help me understand how a couple of jars of coins can be worth this kind of cash.

KAGIN (via telephone): What's really fantastic about this is it isn't just a bunch of gold or gold nuggets or even gold coins. These are rare U.S.-issue gold coins from 1847 to 1894.

And not only that, they are in pristine condition. Almost all of them are as if they came right from the mint.

Many of these coins are rare. Some are worth up to a million dollars apiece.

And, so, you have not only over 70 different coins of different dates and mint-marks, but you have over 14 or 15 coins that we consider to be the finest known for the date and mint-mark.

BALDWIN: It's incredible. Here's what I want to know. I want the story of how they ended up in jars buried to begin with.

But I suppose that's for another day when we do that kind of digging, Don Kagin.

Don, thank you so much for calling in. Appreciate that. Incredible what this couple's doing.

Coming up here, a new report in "The Washington Times" today says that the FBI had a source who was in contact with Osama bin Laden as far back as 1993 and that this source was able to provide a lot of key information about potential attacks, thwarting attacks.

We'll talk with the guy who wrote the article about what exactly he found out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The Pentagon is stepping up its fight against sexual assault in the military, a review that led to the disqualification of some 588 soldiers as sexual-assault counselors, recruiters and drill sergeants for a range of infractions.

We are talking child abuse all the way to drunk driving.

Jake Tapper, host of "THE LEAD," joins me now, and I know two senators, two Dems, are leading this charge to really change the system, but with two very different approaches.

You talked to Kirsten Gillibrand. What did she tell you?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": She's hoping that her legislation, which would take sexual-assault prosecution and investigations out of the military chain of command, which is opposed by the Pentagon -- she is hoping that legislation, which now has 55 supporters in the U.S. Senate, will come to the floor of the Senate for a vote sometime in the next few weeks.

But as you note, Senator Claire McCaskill, a fellow female Democrat, is not in support of that bill and has been the leading opponent.

Another interesting angle, Brooke, and I don't mean to make light of it, but as you know, this issue of sexual assault in the military and whether or not these cases should be removed from the chain of command so that female soldiers and male soldiers who are victimized are more likely to come forward and the perpetrators are more likely to be prosecuted was a major plot point in the very popular, buzzy TV show, Netflix's "House of Cards."

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Civilian oversight is not the answer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband is a civilian who oversees the military. Are you suggesting that civilians can offer no guidance in matters like this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forgive me, Mrs. Walker. I didn't mean to suggest that at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then maybe you should listen to the civilian sitting across from you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, of course, this is just a show, but I wondered, this was one of the last questions I asked, I wondered if Senator Gillibrand had an opinion on whether an issue like this being voiced on a fictional show helps the cause or threatens to diminish it in any way.

Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D), NEW YORK: Even though a popular series has taken this as their issue, it's another vehicle for victims' stories to be heard.

And, so, what we are talking about is many women have been talking the halls of Congress for almost a year now, and, frankly, they deserve a vote.

And to have more people talking about it, both in the media and in a popular TV series, is important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, there you go. It's a good thing whether fictional or in reality for people to be aware of the problem and talking about it.

I was actually kind of surprised by her answer.

BALDWIN: I look forward to hearing more of the interview, and I was about to scream at you if I needed a spoiler alert on our favorite TV show.

TAPPER: No spoiler alerts. I have learned my lesson. I learned my lesson early on.

BALDWIN: All right, Jake Tapper, we will see you in 10 minutes on "THE LEAD." Thank you for that.

TAPPER: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We are learning some new information about a very old enemy. This report says the FBI planted an informant who was in direct contact with Osama bin Laden, and this goes all the way back to 1993.

This information surfaced in court during this employee-dispute case. The course reportedly provided very specific information to the FBI, even helped stop a terror plot in Los Angeles.

Guy Taylor is the national security team leader at "The Washington Times," co-author of the report. He joins me live.

So, Guy, welcome to you and congrats on the scoop. But I want to hear more about this story. How did you come across the information, specifically?

GUY TAYLOR, "WASHINGTON TIMES": Yeah, it is such an interesting story.

This is really a classic case of digging through old court documents and finding something on obscure, 9/11-related case from 2010 where the former head of the Los Angeles field office for the FBI testified on behalf of an FBI employee who had brought a case against the bureau.

And in the testimony before basically an empty courtroom, this was in 2010, basically dropped this bomb that, in fact, the FBI had penetrated very close within Osama bin Laden's immediate circle, as far back as 1993, right after the time of the first World Trade Center bombing that you'll remember happened in 1993.

BALDWIN: So, as we learn in your piece, this Masonic Temple bombing was thwarted in L.A.

But at the same time I'm wondering why this information never got to the 9/11 Commission, why it was never public.

TAYLOR: That is the big mystery of this story. And what is so sexy about it is it deals with this that's probably the most difficult question that the media has to deal with in reporting on the FBI and the CIA's relationship with al-Qaeda over the years.

It has to deal with the issue of penetrations, that right now the CIA has penetrations into Islamic terrorist groups around the world. All the way back in 1993 the FBI had this penetration.

Why didn't it come up? I went and talked to the former head of the 9/11 Commission. He said he hadn't heard of this. This is Philip Zelikow. He's now at the University of Virginia. He hadn't heard of this.

We've had trouble reaching the actual agent, who's the former head of the FBI field office. Maybe he'll want to see this and want to talk to me now, Ed Curran. What happened with this information?

What the 9/11 commission did find -- also the 9/11 commission folks very much on the years right before the September 11th attacks and didn't dig that deeply back to 1993.

But this raises questions about what happened to this source. Was the CIA or the FBI still running this source up into the 1995, 1996, 1997? And that question isn't answered.

Our sources for the story say that the FBI, Los Angeles field office lost track of the source. So it's not clear now what happened.

When you look at this, we tried really hard not to bring this story as something that would just feed the landscape of conspiracy theories about 9/11, because we know it's a rich landscape.

We really wanted to look at it with a very sober eye and say there are clearly facts that are out there about the whole narrative of the U.S. law enforcement, intelligence communities relationship with al-Qaeda that we just don't know about.

And now as we move forward into a new generation, 20 years on from the early '90s, 10, 15 years on from 9/11, some of us who are still reporting on it are coming across nuggets like this and it adds to the overall narrative of what that is.

BALDWIN: And let me just say in this age of technology and media and 2014, here you are digging through court documents. I say good for you.

Guy Taylor, if you want to read his piece, it's in "The Washington Times." Guy, thank you very much.

TAYLOR: Thanks for having me on.

BALDWIN: And coming up next, a 10-year-old little boy bitten by his pet rat. Yes, his pet rat. Gets this disease known as rat-bite fever. He dies as a result of that.

Now, his family is suing the pet store where they bought this thing. Do they have a case? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A 10-year-old boy dies from the bite of his pet rat, and now, CNN affiliates are reporting that the family of 10-year-old Aiden Pankey is suing Petco for selling them this rat in the first place that carried this bacteria that causes rat-bite fever.

Petco couldn't comment on the lawsuit. They did say this, quote, "As it relates to companion animals, including rats, we provide all new pet parents with an outline of potential health risks, along with our recommendation to seek medical attention any time they receive a bite, scratch or other questionable contact with their pet."

It goes on. "All pet parents must review and sign this document before taking home their new pet."

Sunny Hostin, our CNN legal analyst, on this one here, and, I mean, listen, we have a 10-year-old who died because of this. This is serious stuff

But the fact that they're suing Petco, is Petco to blame?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, I think it's a close call, actually.

We want our corporations to not sell us sick animal, infected animals, not sell us bad goods, and so I think on the corporation's end, yes, they do have that responsibility.

But as the corporation is pointing out, well, parents, you have responsibility, too, to make sure that if there is a bite or if there is an issue that you get the proper care and you were notified.

But, again, I mean, you know, we know that pet stores are regulated, but do they have to check -- do they have to, you know, vaccinate pets? Do they have to check rats --

BALDWIN: Rats especially?

HOSTIN: -- for these kinds of infections? Probably not.

I looked all through the regs. I couldn't find anything that said they had to do this kind of thing, that required this kind of thing.

But as good corporate citizen you would think perhaps they would check to make sure they didn't have any rabid rats or infected rats.

So, I think this is going to be a close call. I smell a settlement, as I often tell you, Brooke.

This is not the kind of case that you would ever go to trial on, so I suspect that this case will go away.

But it really is unfortunate and I think it's a wake-up call to so many of us that have hamsters, like I did and ,gerbils as a kid, you know. There are some issues there.

BALDWIN: Yes. Sonny Hostin, thank you very much.

HOSTIN: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Before I let you go, Ben Affleck, he lent his famous name to a good cause today on Capitol Hill. Award winner, Academy Award winner appeared at the state department today to talk about violence in the Congo.

He is the founder of the Eastern Congo Initiative. It's a four-year- old organization working for peace in the region.

And here he was, he was appearing with secretary of state John Kerry, and Ben Affleck says he thinks there is a chance the U.S. can make a difference in Africa.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN AFFLECK, ACTOR: This is a region that's suffered enormous damage and trauma, and this fire is now abating a little bit, and we have a window where engagement on the part of secretary, the president, Congress, all collectively, can make a real difference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And a little bit of a lighter note, Ben Affleck mentioned his film "Argo," poked a little fun at the Hollywood version of the State Department, saying the real one where he was today was much more impressive.

That's it for me. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for joining me. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper begins right now.