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House Speaker Assigns Select Committee Members; Letter Asks Officials to Re-analyze MH370 Search; Explosive Report on Nigerian Girl Kidnappings; Clippers Get New CEO, Richard Parsons.

Aired May 09, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Today in Washington, House Speaker John Boehner rewarded seven Republicans with highly sought spots on the Select Committee to investigate Benghazi. The committee is being led by Congressman Trey Gowdy, of South Carolina. Democrats are yet to decide whether they want to claim their spots at all. Benghazi has been the subject of eight congressional probes. House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, is calling the investigation a stunt.

Dana Bash is live for us now.

This really, Dana, seems the decision has Democrats in a bit of a pickle.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It does. There is a split and pretty much everybody you talk to in these hallways admits that, that there is a split whether that is the most effective politically or whether it is the most effective to call it what it is. As this day has been going on, there has been a back and forth between Democratic leadership and Republican leadership over whether or not Democrats can get what they want with regard to some of the process. Again, when you say process, maybe makes your eyes glaze over but in this particular case, the process for Democrats is what it's all about. What Democrats want is promises from Republicans that they're going to have -- a real seat at the table and access to witnesses and involvement in subpoenas that go out. Nancy Pelosi just went to the House speaker and it shows that they are not there yet at all. The latest back and forth was fundamentally unfair. That they are not giving Democrats the kind of participation level as they would like and they want to get answers to that before they decide whether they're going to formally sign on and fill the spots.

KEILAR: Dana, it's really hard to escape the politics there. This is a midterm election year. This also plays into 2016 as it relates to Hillary Clinton.

BASH: Absolutely. And so much of this and so much of the discussion that you hear here in the halls from Democrats is that they believe this is so much of this is about Hillary Clinton and about wanting to subpoena her and drag her before this committee. I actually asked Nancy Pelosi about what she thinks on the subject.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Do you think this is all about Hillary Clinton? REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: No. If they cared about the presidential, they would be passing an immigration bill. This is all about them. I think it's pretty clear. Their focus on the Affordable Care Act has run its course and now they have to find something else to talk about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Of course, Brianna, in the short term, there is no question that the idea of even having this committee now just a few months from the November midterm election that probably riles up the Republican base is political. No Republican with a straight face can say it's not. The fact that Nancy Pelosi answered that so quickly indicated that she has thought about this and she thinks its all about November. Other Democrats think it is very much about Hillary Clinton and trying to woo her for the presidential if she runs.

KEILAR: How do we know it's about politics? It's 2014. They're not doing anything but politics.

BASH: Not at all.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash. Thank you.

BASH: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: More than two months after flight 370 vanished, the heartbroken families have sent another open letter demanding that officials take the search back to the drawing board and reanalyze the information that they have. They question how authorities can be certain the Boeing 777 crashed into the Indian Ocean since there is no physical evidence. And concerns are being echoed in a new report today in "The Atlantic", which claims many experts claim the search could be happening not just in the wrong spot but in the wrong ocean.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI SCHULMAN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE NEW ATLANTIC: The map of the satellite pings is straightforward. It's like a game of Marco Polo played across 22,000 miles of space. You've got the satellite sending pings to the plane and it's responding. So you get these basic characteristics of what you expect the responses to look like. One of those is that the plane is stationary on the runway before take off and the satellite is not moving relative to that position, so you would expect there to be no Doppler frequency shifts. You expect that shift to be zero. If you look at the beginning of the graph they published, it's up at about 85 hertz. What it shows is the plane moving on the runway. So something is off with that interpretation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now joining me now is David Soucie, who is a CNN safety analyst, accident investigator and author of "Why Planes Crash."

David, can you explain this new report to us? Why do they doubt this data? What led to this different conclusion?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST & AUTHOR: It's important to point out that they're not questioning the data. What they're questioning is the analysis of the data. That's very important to point out. I spoke to one of the scientists quoted in the article. It is something that they are re-evaluating within themselves. It goes to the complexity of the information. Right now there is very good reason to believe that according to the report that this information was analyzed improperly and did not consider the delay that happens from the satellite to the earth's station it also doesn't consider that the aircraft itself can off set and anticipate where the signal would be. It anticipates that and does that change. So that's the things they're looking at. They still need one piece of information to make this stand and to take that from the questioned analysis and turn it into real data as far as where that aircraft would or wouldn't be. But there's a big question as to where this aircraft is and if we have been looking in the wrong place all along.

KEILAR: It's amazing to this that might be the case. Let's try to break this down into layman terms. This report compares the Inmarsat pings to a game of Marco Polo. But the article says the pings only tell you how far away the pings are, not what direction. What do you think led searchers to this southern arc initially?

SOUCIE: Let's talk about in terms of handshakes rather than pingers because the word "ping" is so over used right now.

KEILAR: Yeah.

SOUCIE: But if we talk about handshakes, it's saying, how long did it take to make this handshake. Once the handshake was made, the communication that went through that connection takes an amount of time. Not only do they know how far away it is from the satellite but they can also learn from that how quickly it's moving away from the satellite while your hands are connected. Once the handshake is done, they can measure that through Doppler and that is what this Doppler term is all about.

But remember, this is the tough thing. If the satellite was stationary it would be so much easier. We would know that we had a fixed place in space but that is not the case. This satellite is losing energy. Its batteries are not at full power. It's unable to stay in a continuous earth orbit, so it's doing this elliptical movement, moving north and south in a number of miles, not just a few feet. It's going two or three miles in this pattern, so it depends on what time and wear that Doppler was received as to whether or not it's accurate. And that's what this report is partially pointing out. There are other points. I think that's the most critical change is how it's related to the location. They don't think that was considered properly in the Inmarsat analysis.

KEILAR: David, stick around. We have more questions to ask you.

SOUCIE: Sure.

KEILAR: And we will get to that right after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We're going to continue our conversation with David Soucie, CNN safety analyst, also an accident investigator and the author of the book why planes crash.

We're discussing this new report in "The Atlantic." A lot of satellite experts believe that it's happening not just in the wrong spot but entirely in the wrong ocean.

I wanted to bring you back, David, because this is the crux of what we're hearing from families. They say they want all of the original data handed to the groups that found the remains of the missing Air France flight two years after it crashed. Do you think that's a good idea?

SOUCIE: Yes. These are not just some hat group out there trying to look at things, throw out tweets and become famous. One of them lives in boulder, Colorado. I have heard of them. We have talked before through cu, university of Colorado. This guy knows what he is talking about. I trust him and believe him. I just got off the phone with him and he has some questions even about what was published but that's not a prop. It's something that you would expect because of the highly technical nature of this report. This is way above my skill level. These guys are really the real deal and they have very good reasons to question. But there's still one piece of information that hasn't been released so the families keep the pressure on. The voice 370, I spoke with Sara Bajc the other day, I read the report, the letter that was sent forward, begging and pleading for this information. It's reasonable. It's not protected or intellectual property. It's simply a piece of data that is missing.

KEILAR: As you talk to these experts, what would they say needs to be done differently by this other team that found the other plane after a really laborious search?

SOUCIE: What was missing was this base frequency offset, which is the amount of time and the relationship, something about the relationship between the satellite and the airplane, and the satellite and airplane moving together versus moving apart.

KEILAR: Two moving objects.

SOUCIE: Exactly. And then you have this air-to-earth satellite frequency adjustment. We're going to pretend that we're not really where they are. That identification is kind of what is missing now. This is called the AES. That is still the piece of information that we need. And from there they can do a whole other analysis and make sure. We don't know that the Inmarsat didn't consider this information until you start looking at the results that they did publish. That is why this report by Ari is so important. There's discrepancies between their output. They say here is where it was and you compare that to calculations, and they don't line up. They really don't line up. There is something that wasn't considered. We don't know what it was but we can speculate that what was missing was this compensation for the fact that the Doppler is also being transmitted, the time that it goes from the satellite down to the earth. That relationship is moving, too. So this is really complicated extremely high math, we will call it new math, because it's new to me.

KEILAR: And there's nothing the matter with asking more very informed and smart people to take a look at it.

David Soucie, thank you so much.

SOUCIE: Thank you.

KEILAR: U.S. military advisors arrived in Nigeria today forming an elite group to help find hundreds of school girls kidnapped last month by the terror group Boko Haram. This rescue attempt happening as an explosive report surfaces, how much did the Nigerian government know or when? Amnesty International claims it has evidence that the Nigerian security forces knew of the impending attack hours ahead of time but failed to act on the information as the girls were being herded out of their beds into the jungles of northern Nigeria.

But several managed to flee. And one is sharing her escape. CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of this video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): They us to gather around. They said it's nothing. There's nothing that will happen to you. Then we gathered and asked us where was the food and said if we didn't tell them they would kill us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining me now, John Campbell, former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria from 2004 to 2007.

Ambassador, thanks for joining us.

I want to talk to you a lot about this report. It claims that Nigeria did not act on intelligence because apparently commanders could not raise enough forces to respond. CNN has reached out to the Nigerian government but we do not have a response yet. What can you tell us about their military's abilities or inabilities when it comes to destabilizing.

JOHN CAMPBELL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NIGERIA: The security services are overstretched. It is frequently said that Boko Haram outguns military forces. Boko Haram is unbelievable murderous when it comes to the security forces. Any I member of the army or police who fall into their hands is liable or even likely to have his throat cut.

KEILAR: So they're afraid. They're very afraid. Security forces are afraid. Do you think they might not want to gather to address the situation? Is that how bad it is?

CAMPBELL: They are afraid but there is also the question of actual resources. The Amnesty report implies that military could not gather sufficient troops fast enough to respond. By the way, in my own experience, Amnesty International in Nigeria is quite credible.

KEILAR: OK. That is good to know.

Right now, you have military advisors in Nigeria. What should their plan be now? In your experience, have you ever seen something like a kidnapping like this probably not on this scale but resolved in a way that you don't have deaths?

CAMPBELL: Yes. It happened during the insurgency in the Niger Delta. But there was a huge difference between the insurgency in the Niger Delta and what is going on now. In the Niger Delta, it was finally all about money. When you're talking about money you can do deals. The insurgency in northern Nigeria, at least if you pay attention to Boko Haram rhetoric, their goal is to establish god's kingdom on earth with justice for the poor through the imposition of Islamic law. I would submit this is not a political program and it's also not about money. That means it is extraordinarily difficult to deal with. You are asking what essentially the next step should be. The first thing is to consult with the Nigerians about what they want, what they are willing to take, and then together figure out what the next steps are going to be.

It's the Nigerians who will have to take the lead in this. It's the Nigerians who will have to find the schoolgirls. All outsiders can do is try to facilitate their efforts.

KEILAR: Let's hope that there is progress made on that front.

Ambassador Campbell, thank you so much.

CAMPBELL: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Definitely.

And we mentioned that Amnesty International's claim the Nigerian security forces knew of the attack hours before it happened. You heard the ambassador say this is a very credible group when it comes to a claim like this. In the next hour of NEWSROOM, we are talking to a representative of Amnesty International about this developing issue.

And coming up next, police in Georgia are scrambling to find clues to a gruesome crime. An 88-year-old man murdered in his home. The man was decapitated and his head is missing from the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD SILLS, PUTNAM COUNTY SHERIFF: Mr. Berman's head was decapitated and we do not know the whereabouts of his head.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: More on this chilling story right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We have breaking news about the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. You know there's this leadership shakeup that has gone on following the racist comments of long-time team owner, Donald Sterling. We have just learned, CNN has just learned that the Clippers will have a new CEO, Richard Parsons. He's a former Citigroup and Time Warner chairman.

Let's go to our senior legal analyst, Jeffery Toobin, for more on this.

What does this mean? Break it down for us.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST (voice-over): He is a very familiar person to us here at CNN because Time Warner is a parent company of CNN. He is a respected former corporate executive, Time Warner and Citigroup. It means that the NBA is moving methodically to exclude Donald Sterling from any role and to try to get the franchise running in a reasonably orderly way in preparation, presumably, for its sale, which Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, said he wanted to do.

KEILAR: And so it's kind of a bit of cleaning house. We saw a leadership shakeup that happened following this scandal as it broke. So should we be expecting more than just this? Or is this really the one big position that we were expecting to be filled?

TOOBIN: No. There is another big step still to come. This is simply to establish management of the company. The really big issue, which the NBA has not yet addressed, is will they vote, three-quarters of the owners, to force Sterling to sell the team. That's the step staff that they have not yet taken. That procedure is underway. That is a much more complicated step than putting in a caretaker, which is what Richard Parsons is. It's an important step, but it's a preliminary step to the more important issue of figuring out who really owns this team.

KEILAR: Jeffrey Toobin, thanks so much for that.

We're going to have more on this breaking news in a couple of minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)