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Latest on the Russian Airliner Crash Investigation; Gliniewicz Case Update; A Look at the Presidential Nomination Races. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired November 07, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:34] VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: All right, right now we are waiting on a news conference from Egyptian investigators expecting an update on the crash of the Russian passenger jet minutes after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: You are looking there at an empty podium, we're waiting for somebody to step up to it there at the civil aviation ministry headquarters in Cairo as we wait to hear from them, so grateful to have your company as always. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. And one of the key points we'll be looking for from Egyptian officials. Question, was it a bomb that took down that Russian airliner with 224 people on board? A French media reports that European analysis of the plane's data recorders uphold the theory that an explosive device inside that plane and yes, brought it down.

PAUL: We want to go to Mary Schiavo because she is waiting with us to listen to what they have to say and Michael Weiss, he is also with us as well. Mary, you know, there has been some criticism we've heard from analyst who say "Listen, a bomb is the culprit - a bomb is why this plane went down." But we have yet to hear that from Egyptian officials.

When you see the evidence that has been presented thus far, do you believe that it was a bomb inside that plane?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, certainly points to a bomb, but as an investigator, you know, and an air crash investigator and an aviation lawyer, I mean I need more evidence and more proof than that. So it's very, very important that they keep pressing on for those answers because we are several crashes in the past where they were convinced one way or the other, like TWA 800, people thought it was a bomb, it was mechanical and Pan Am 103 of course which was a bombing along with UTA and others.

There are signatures on those bomb, on those blast devices and on the scatter patterns of the explosions, which they must verify.

Now the sounds of the CVR are important, but there are steps they need to take in addition to that. So, yes, it certainly does look like a bomb, but they need to take the additional investigative steps to confirm it. The evidence is there, they just have to find it.

BLACKWELL: All right, hold on for just a second. We want the two of you to stay with us. We want to go to Cairo now, where we have a Senior International Correspondent Ben Wedeman.

Ben, are we expecting details? I mean, I'd imagine there wouldn't be too many details they would give and so early this in investigation, but is this kind of give us a framework of what we should expect from this news conference.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well we're expecting, Ayman el-Muqadem who is the head of this investigation to be the soul speaker at this press conference specifically what he's going to be talking about. We simply don't know.

This crash took place last Saturday that's just eight days ago. Now there's been a lot of speculation, there's been a lot of suggestions from British and American officials that perhaps could have been a bomb on that plane. But in terms of solid information and evidence that's available and visible we haven't seen anything yet.

The Egyptian officials have not ruled out the possibility that there could have been a bomb on-board. But they've been very keen to stress that that's just one possibility among many. And then that they say that's simply in terms of the investigation it's way too early to draw any conclusions. Clearly they are hesitant to jump to any conclusions to make any claims that there could have been a bomb on-board that plane.

So I think we shouldn't have too high expectations as far as solid information coming out of this press conference.

Now we understand that they have begun looking through the cockpit voice recorder as well as the data recorder for the flight. The voice recorder was somewhat damaged in the crash, so it's not clear how much information is there. Now we did hear via European investigators who are part of the Egyptian investigation telling an affiliate of ours in France (inaudible) that in fact after 24 minutes suddenly the cockpit voice recorder goes blank which, I mean that sort of aviation experts indicate or suggested that could have been a bomb, but as I say until now, nothing official, nothing solid coming out of this Egyptian-led investigation.

[10:05:07] BLACKWELL: All right. Yeah, let's go back now to Michael Weiss and Ben you stay with us as well. Michael, author of Inside the Army of Terror -- ISIS: inside the Army the Terror.

I want to ask you about, you know, the British are taking this suggestion and the information that this is possibly a bomb seriously, the Americans, obviously we heard from President Obama.

What we heard from ISIS several months ago was the call to attack where you are. And they were moving away what appeared to be from the large exclamation-point-style attacks. How, if this is indeed a bomb placed by ISIS, does this change that narrative? How does this fit into the chronology of what we've seen from ISIS? MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well I mean it's actually not all that remarkable. In July of 2014, during his Ramadan sermon, Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi he said that, you know, we're at war with this global conspiracy that is led by the Americans, the Russians, backed by the Jews.

And that, you know, both he and his spokesman Abu Muhammad Al Adnani have essentially called for any and all styles of terrorist attacks against targets in the west and in the region.

Since ISIS broke away from Al Qaeda, and now is competing with Jabhat Al-nusra and Syria and with his sort of global Al Qaeda brand for essentially dominance as the vanguard Jihadist force on the planet.

The way that they're trying to one up each other, the way that they trying to get the better of the other franchise is by doing exactly this carrying out spectacular attacks. We saw it in France you know, the "Charlie Hebdo" massacre, perpetrated by AQAP and then, you know, a day later, two days later you have the kosher marketplace massacre perpetrated by an ISIS-inspired Lone Wolf.

In this particular instance though, it speaks a level of operational capability that I think should put the Egyptian Government very much on guard because if this was a bomb and it was smuggled to board a, you know, a commercial airliner in the luggage compartment or the cargo hold. That indicates that there was somebody on the inside that ISIS had been recruited or bribed or who had been a fellow traveler or an ideological sympathizer all along.

So somebody in the Sharm el-Sheikh Airport Security Services, or perhaps even in the Egyptian government, I mean, it's not all that uncommon especially in the Middle East officials from the regimes essentially flip. They play both sides. They're double agents. I mean that they're members of the Egyptian military who've gone up to join Salati (ph) groups in Gaza.

So this is -- a very, very dire sort of events because it shows that now ISIS can do two things. It can sort of conduct this conventional style on military operations, take and maintain territory, establish a form of governance and under so the-called caliphate banner.

And also revert to classic terrorism operations, bomb's aboard planes, you know, blowing up civilians. If they had their brothers, they would with doing this everywhere, everyday. And yes, to us in the United States.

PAUL: So I want to bring in David Soucie, he's CNN Safety Analyst and Former FAA Safety Inspector.

David, Egyptian officials we know did not investigate this from the get-go as a terrorist incident. With that in mind, what may have been lost in the last week in terms of the time and the resources and how damaging might that have been to the investigation?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well what the biggest problem is not what the immediate results will be from this, but the fact that down the road when a criminal investigation happens, when they start to try to prosecute someone for this, the criminal trail or the documentation of the evidence could have been damaged. And then there it's very difficult to continue a case and to prosecute and conclude a case because you may not have had that forensic evidence trail in that chain of custody. So that's really the biggest problem.

The second is, of course, if there is something on site that they did not gather because they weren't thinking along those lines. But I would hope that they did this, at least in a professional way. They are experienced investigators, so the immediate determination of what happened may not have been damaged. But the ability to prosecute is what may have been damaged.

BLACKWELL: Are right we're waiting this news conference from Cairo, an update on the investigation into the crash of a Metrojet Flight 9268. We have our reporters there in Cairo, also in Sharm el-Sheikh. We have our aviation analyst, our terror analyst here covering this from all angles.

[10:09:45] Stay with us, we'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Live pictures here out of Cairo. You see there, well, somebody's head, but this gentleman obviously just walking up to a seat. We are expecting somebody to get sit up at the podium. As we're waiting for Egyptian officials to give us a briefing, this press conference hopefully to hear more about the investigation into what downed Metrojet 9268, that Russian plane crash in Sinai Peninsula last week. But again, these are live pictures. They look like they're checking the microphones, we're getting ready to listen to them.

We do want to go -- do we to go to Erin McLaughlin right now? I know that Erin is in Sharm el-Sheikh.

As we wait we see somebody sitting down here. So I don't want to interrupt if they do start talking. But Erin, I want to go to you to get the latest from again. You are in Sharm el Sheikh, just so viewers know. And I want to apologize in advance if we happen to cut you off, we certainly don't mean to, if they do start speaking, we need to get to them. But please, go ahead.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was unclear what we're going to be hearing from the press conference that you see is just about now, now about to begin.

But earlier today, we did hear from the Egyptian Foreign Minister yet a press conference of his own in Cairo when he expressed his frustrations at the media reports that have been coming out at a France that would indicate that investigators, that have analyzed the black boxes, are looking like they could conclude that a bomb was indeed put on the plane, saying that that information was leaked to the media, instead of being shared with Egyptian authorities.

So he sounded pretty angry when he was talking, he also said that the international partners that are now pulling their citizens out of Egypt did not heed Egypt's warnings to deal with terrorism. Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMEH SHOUKRY, EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): They did not show a level of cooperation and a direct targeting of these organizations that we hoped for.

[10:15:05] I can't say these calls were not heeded by many other parties who are now working to protect the interest of their citizens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCLAUGHLIN: Now in terms of that evacuation operation still on going. You can see just in the distance there, Sharm el Sheikh International Airport all day. We've been seeing planes arriving from Russia from the United Kingdom to evacuate their citizens back home. Those citizens will be getting on board those planes without their luggage because of concerns about security surrounding the luggage area of the planes. That luggage has, or will rather be loaded on separate cargo planes and returned to the passengers at a later date.

And it's this kind of process that's really concerning to Egyptian authorities. They have expressed concern about all of the speculation surrounding this. The intelligence reports coming from Britain, coming from the United States, intelligence reports that have not been shared with Egypt.

They're concerned about the potential impact that could have on the Egyptians Tourism Industry which is seen as very important to this country, Egyptian authorities saying that the facts need to be established first before jumping to any sort of conclusions.

PAUL: OK, Erin, we appreciate it. We would do want get to you there to Cairo as the gentleman there is starting to speak.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AYMAN EL-MUQADEM, HEAD OF THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY: I must careful as the Chair of this investigation team to have to just meet in order to acquaint you with the latest developments related to the work of the investigation committee within the framework of transparency and our keenness to give the public opinion locally and globally of every variables in the investigations.

The committee has met and has issued statements. I believe out to you, the statement of the investigation commits you with the participation of its members and representatives of the foreign countries. But before I start...

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: We as investigation team of the accident of Metrojet Flight number KGL 9268, extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the Russian aircraft that crashed in the Middle Sinai last Saturday, 31st of October 15th.

After the accident occurred, the Government of Egypt dispatch its emergency personnel, and accident investigators to the crash site, the Prime Minister, who visited the crashed site in the first few hours after the accident. The armed forces guarded the sites of the wreckage.

The flight recorders, black boxes, were recovered on the same day and the bodies of the victims were recovered and taken at the hospitals in Cairo.

On the same day of the accident, the Minister of Civil of Aviation of Egypt formed an investigation committee. In compliance with the Egyptian low number 28 and ICAO Annex 13. To take the charge of the investigation of the accident, the Government of Egypt extended invitations to representatives from Russia, as state of operator, Ireland, State of Registry, France, State of Design, and Germany, State of Manufacturing.

And advisors from engine manufacturers and from airbus, me, myself, I represent Egypt in leading the technical investigation committee. Egyptian air force operated five flights to the crash site, carrying various members of all the investigation team, including Egyptian investigators and all other state investigators involved.

The investigators examined and photographed what was found, including recording the coordinates of each major piece. It is planned that the committee would conduct further visits to the accident site in the incoming days. The investigation team composed of 47 investigators as follows. From Egypt, we have 29, from Russia seven, from France six, from Germany two, and from Ireland three. The accidents advisers from airbus are 10, from the Gaza (ph), one adviser. This comes to a total of 58 participants in this investigation.

[10:20:31] To meet all technical needs and requirements, five subgroups were created as follows. One, recorders group. Two, accident site group. Three, operations, responsible for crew, for air traffic control, for airline information and metrology. Four, aircraft and systems. Five, medical and forensic, this is the fifth one. The committee is undertaking its work in accordance with annex 13 to Chicago Convention, which is consistent with the Egyptian Law number 28.

All groups who are working in parallel are currently in the information gathering phase. We are still in the information gathering phase. Since Wednesday, visits to the accident sites were hampered by bad weathers. As soon as the weather improves, future visits will be arranged.

The wreckage will be recovered to a safe and secured place in Cairo for further examination for each part during which metrology specialist will be involved. The committee will recover the aircraft system computers which have a special nonvolatile memory.

Observations of the committee until today. One, debris is scattered over a wide area more than 13 kilometers in length, which is consistent with an in-flights break up. Some parts of the wreckage are missing, and it is hoped to locate them in the incoming days. Two, the initial observation of the aircraft wreckage does not yet allow for identifying the origins of the in-flights break up. Three, the flight recorders were recovered on the first day of the accidents and they were successfully downloaded.

The preliminary review of the FDR flight data recorder indicates the following, take off time, UTC time is 3 hours and 50 minutes and six seconds, with recording stopped at UTC time, 4 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds. So, duration from take-off to the end of recordings is 23 minutes and 14 seconds.

Last recorded altitude is 30,000 feet and 888 feet while the aircraft is still in climbing modes.

Last recorded airspeed is 281 knots with autopilots, one was in digit until the end of recordings.

Four, the CVR was successfully downloaded. And the first listening was done.

All though the CVR team is still in the phase of writing the transcript which will take time to finalize, a noise was heard in the last second of the CVR recording.

A spectral analysis will be carried out by specialized labs in order to identify the nature of this noise. The committee in audience, media reports and analysis, some of which, claim to be based on official intelligence which favors a certain scenario for the cause of the accidents.

The committee was not provided with any information or evidence in this regard. The committee -- those resources of such reports to provide it with all information that could help us to undertake our mission.

[10:25:19] Six the committee is considered -- considering to put a great attention. All possible scenarios for the cause of the accident, and did not reach until the moment any conclusion in this regards. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, we have time for very few questions because...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My people are waiting. I'm afraid they have a very limited time. And (inaudible) was awaiting for me...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): OK, hang on.

You are president without -- I feel like it was. And yes -- I could not -- I did not. Why no one will assisted this conference. There's no planning.

Can you -- it's going to be transported in Arabic. We want to talk in Arabic, yes. Yeah, I can talk in Arabic if you would like to, I can talk a minute with you for...

OK, that's fine. I can read in Arabic if you'd like too.

I don't know of any planning. I am inviting you -- I was -- I insisted for them to be present. But they decided not to come over. That is not -- they decided not to participate. Maybe they have issues and I don't know -- I want to make clear, please sir, please sir, I would like to let you know they are aware of this situation and this conference.

EL-MUQADEM: KBL 9268

EL-MUQADEM, (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to present in this investigations of -- in regards to the flight. Of two -- or condolences -- deepest -- that crashed, last Saturday, October 31st, 2015.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): You guys are -- please be quiet, please everybody to be quiet, please calm down. I will wait, I'll be patience.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: All right, this is really interesting here because you could hear the anger, we don't know what that first question was necessarily. But you could certainly hear the anger in the man's voice it then finally became transparent or evident to us that -- there were some real -- there was some anger about the fact that he was not speaking Arabic.

They asked him to speak in Arabic which he now has said, that he will do, but there is still a lot of animosity. And you hear anger in the voices of the people that are there as this had the commission of inquiry is trying address everybody about their latest findings in the investigation of Metrojet 9268.

And some of the findings are interesting, the debris is more than 13 kilometers in length, it indicates an in flight break up, that the black -- he made this point. And I'm sure you notice this too...

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

PAUL: It seems like, they were really trying to cover their bases, and let everybody know that Egyptian official have done everything that they can, talking about the fact that they had emergency teams there right away, that they were able to recover the black boxes within the first day. And that those not being analyzed.

[10:30:00] But what was interesting was, the CVR he said that was downloaded, they're finalizing the transcripts. But there was a noise heard in the last second, and if that CVR will be analyze by special labs to try to determine the nature of the noise and you have to wonder if that noise is going to be the key to tell us what happened.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, let's bring in our panel here. We have our aviation analysts, Mary Schiavo and David Soucie, also a CNN Contributor, Michael Weiss, author of ISIS "Inside the army of terror". And David, I want to start with you with what's the big headline from you. I'd imagine that that noise heard in the last second will be where this investigation begins.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: They also said the they're going to do spectral analysis of that noise, what that does is it breaks down literally every frequency within the noise so they can use that to pattern previous noises, previous things that have happened and match that along. it's like a digital fingerprint of the noise itself. So when we get that, I'll be very anxious to find out if that actually indicates an explosion or if it was an abrupt fire which two different things.

Abrupt fire would indicate that it had possibly broken up in flight causing the rupture of the fuel tank and then the fire comes off of that. But because of the fact that the -- what I didn't hear, was that the cockpit voice recorders times aligned with the flight data recorder times which we had heard yesterday that that's what would happened so he didn't confirm that today. That would have been conclusive if it was an explosion had they been gone to a blackout mode simultaneously, it would have been indicative of a explosion, but that's not what we heard from him today. He just said that the -- he gave us specific times of the flight data recorder, but he did not on the cockpit voice recorder, it might just be because they're still documenting it, but what came to me mostly is that there was no conclusion here. That no one's concluded that it's a bomb, that it's not a bomb, or anything else. I think that's what I take away from it most.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, there are no conclusion reached based on the analysis of the recordings, also, reached on the -- based on the analysis of the wreckage there across these 13 kilometers. What's the headline for you here?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, like David, and I think that the Egyptians are right, this is far too early to be concluding, oh, it was a bomb because as David that was mentioning, the way they're going to have to do this sound analysis is they're going to have to compare this with the universe of the cockpit voice recordings sounds that they have from other crashes, from Pan Am103, from the French plane UTA, from the TWA 800 and importantly planes or accidents like United Airline 811 where it lost the cargo door. And those sounds will be distinct and different, but that takes a tremendous amount of work.

And so, I think that the Egyptians are correct, it is too early to be pronouncing that it is a bomb, though it certainly looks like it and common sense would say, oh come on, just say it. They have a lot of work to do and sometimes if you jump to the conclusions too early, it contains the investigation. So I have to say that it is right that they're looking at all possibilities and have not just jumped to a conclusion.

PAUL: And they were very, very adamant in proclaiming that that is exactly what they're doing. They are considering all possible scenarios and cannot yet conclude. How long then, based on what we heard today on what we know about the investigations? How long, David, before we might have some definitive answers?

SOUCIE: Well, your announcements and when you make those announcements are driven a lot by the environment, what's going on politically, what's happening a lot. Especially in international investigations like this. So this investigator is very, very adamant or this person that made this announcement was very adamant about not releasing information, his sticking to the facts. It's clearly upset by the fact that there's information intelligence out there that hasn't been shared with that investigative team.

So, I don't think it's going to be immediate. They're going to be very cautious about what they release and how they release it, so they're going to be very -- they're going to try to take control of this information again so it could take, I'm thinking, at least a couple of weeks before we might even hear from them again.

BLACKWELL: Michael, let me come to you, and I just want our viewers who are watching on the right side of your screen, the head of this commission of inquiry is re-reading this statement now in Arabic because there was a call for him to do so.

And Michael, I wonder if you can just kind of characterize that for us because what we heard was not just, you know, a request, but there was some passion behind that request to read it in Arabic, is that simple my based on just a language barrier? Or is that a level of mistrust?

MICHAEL WEISS, CCN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I mean put yourself in the position of an Egyptian citizen. This, you know, crisis, this disaster takes place on your soil or in the skies above your soil, and everybody, but your government has come out and said it sure looks like terrorism to us.

[10:35:09] That includes the United States, Great Britain, and even to some extent, the Russian government, by cancelling all flights to Egypt. So, and then for this guy to come out and read a statement in English, a language that probably, you know, most of the people who sat in that auditorium or in that chamber don't have.

It's insulting, isn't it? It makes the Egyptians look sort of like they're playing catch-up with the international community rather than responding to their immediate constituency which is the Egyptian populous. So I think, you know, I'm sort of torn here, because on the one hand, you know, it is true that this is not -- there is nothing approaching a conclusive forensic investigation that has been done, this has been driven by leaks to the media, coming from U.S. and British intelligence and government officials. Maybe even from the investigative team itself. We just don't know.

So, on the one hand I think sympathetic toward the Egyptian government, but on the other hand, they have really, I think, you know, let a lot of this go themselves. They should have -- is this press conference could have taken place, you know, very, very early on. I mean, a week into this disaster. They should have come out front and said, you know, we will spare no expense, we're doing everything we can. We urge caution, don't jump to any conclusions ignore what you see in the press until all the facts are in.

So for them to play catch-up like this, they fashioned a rod for their own back and as you as you promptly pointed out, the anger in that man's voice, I mean it was palpable and you're going to see more of this I think, not just in Egypt too, but in the region itself.

PAUL: So Mary, I wanted to ask you, he mentioned the debris field. He talked about the black box. He talks about the cockpit voice recorder. One thing he did not talk about that I think people are wondering about, are surveillance cameras that may be there in the airport, at Sharm el Sheikh, because so many people have been discussing the theory that this was an inside job. When we know and we have heard so many analysts talk about the lack of security at airports in this region.

What do you know about the possibility of surveillance cameras there in the airport that may give any sort of inkling to what happened and to the fact that he did not mention any investigation or that being part of the investigation?

SCHIAVO: Well, that's a great point because in the -- I mean, I spent 12 years on September 11, 2001 cases, and from, you know, the beginning to the end and I think I was able to see every document and litigation who presented the cases. And then what was astonishing is the learning process as we went along. And so the on of the first things out of the box that the investigators were trying to do was grab all the surveillance tape. And our own regulations at the time said that we were supposed to have closed circuit television coverage on all security check points and throughout the airport and secure area of the airport. And we learned in that case that we did not.

It just simply didn't do it. So whether Egypt and after that time of course, the whole world switched the way we do security including us, and all countries are supposed to now match our security, our supposedly higher level of security, Britain's level is much higher too, but it will depend if they did it.

So they should have closer surveillance camera coverage on all check points, all key areas of the airport, perimeter coverage as well, and it's supposed to be monitored. But we haven't heard a word about that. And it's possible it's there and they're still analyzing it, or they just don't have it. And that would be a situation just like that, after September 11, 2001.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's bring in Michael Balboni into this conversation, former head of New York homeland security. Michael what does this mean for U.S. safety requirements? We heard from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson that there will be an increase of security at airports in the region with flights heading to the U.S., but what will this mean? Flush it out for us.

MICHAEL BALBONI, FORMER N.Y. STATE HOMELAND SECUIRTY ADVISER: So, my sources tell me that what they're really focussing on is the insider threat in this airport which means that someone could have taken a device and secreted upon a plane. That goes, not just to airports in this region and this part of the world, but frankly airports throughout the world. Including in the United States and one of the things that investigators are going to be looking at and Homeland Security officials is really what is the pattern of activity in conduct at an airport? So for example, if you have pilfering, if you have criminal behavior of involving planes, well that's an indication, and if you could go and can steal something, then you can go and plant something. And this has always been a vulnerability that folks in this nation have been looking at. So I think what this is going to do is oftentimes happens, we're going to react to this situation by kind of resetting what the standards are, what type of information we're going to require from airports, and to say to folks, are you really certain you've locked down the secure side, the air side of the airport operations?

[10:40:14] That is also going to involve going to places like this and say, you know, if there is a U.S. interest in particular, for they travel back and forth, what type of requirements are we going to add on to their operations in order for us to continue doing business with them? You know, following the days of 2001, we had -- we obviously changed our security profile, and then we tried to export that across the globe with some success, but not a lot of success. And now its years and years afterwards, and the question is, what is the level, what's the amount of resources that's put towards aviation security across the globe?

PAUL: All right. Michael Balboni, we appreciate it. Also want to thank Mary schiavo, David Soucie, and Michael Weiss. al-Muqaddam (ph) still that. On the right side of your screen, you do still see the Head of the Commissioner to Inquiry there in Cairo, talking about the investigation into what brought down Metrojet 9268.

We'll continue to monitor this behind the scenes. Going to take a quick break. We'll back in just a moment. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: 44 minutes past the hour right now. And it's a Ben Carson you probably haven't really seen on the campaign trail thus far.

[10:45:04] The candidate known for his soft spoken demeanor is very demently disputing reports about his past, after questions were raised about violent incidents in his past, and he's claimed that West Point offering the full scholarship.

CNN Sunlen Serfaty was there to see it. Sunlen, what did you see?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Victor and Christi. Well, it's very clear that all of this intensive scrutiny is getting under Ben Carson's skin. He's taken it much more aggressive, a much more combative tone in speaking to press here in Florida. He really tried to redirect some of the attention about his past on to the media calling it he believed a witch hunt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think it's well going to be love, but I think what it shows, and these kinds of the things show, is that there is a desperation on behalf of some to try to find a way to tarnish me, because they have been looking through everything. They have been talking to everyone I have ever known and everybody I have ever seen. There has got to be a scandal, they've got to be some mercy kind of affair with, there's got to be something. They're getting desperate.

So next week, it would be my kindergarten teacher who said I peed in my pants, I mean it's just so ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And opening up his speech later, he almost schemed a bit reflective about making the decisions to run for president which certainly took on a new meeting given the attention on him this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSON: You know a lot of times people say, "Why would somebody who's had a wonderful career in medicine get involve in the dirty world of politics." I frequently ask myself that when I wake up in the morning. It is dirty world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And Carson will now have some Puerto Rico where he'll have a few campaign events this weekend even as these controversies continue and swirl (ph) around him. Christi and Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Sunlen thank you so much. Now today Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders, they are campaigning in South Caroline and this comes after the candidates were part of reform addressing issues that included racism the death penalty, the prominent, the special interest in politics. And that last one has become a key criticism made by Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton. He also accused the former Secretary of State of being too close to Wall Street. Here what her response.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But anybody who thinks that they can influence what I will do doesn't know me very well and they can actually look and see what I had said and done throughout my career.

Take Wall Street for example, I've went to Wall Street, I went to NASDAQ in December of 2007. And basically said, "You guys have got to stop it."

BLACKWELL: Our CNN Politics Eric Bradner joined us now with more. What was discussed beyond of those issues, I mean, was this ignite to create some separations, some differences between the candidates or talk about brother theme move of with the Democratic hope to do in 2016?

ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: It was a little of both. I mean, Victor we might soon have in your boss because Bernie Sanders joked that he wants to be the president of CNN. He was sort of complaining about the media, complaining about the way president for politics are covered saying the people are kind of go to him and to take him shots at Hillary Clinton.

And then he sort of did just that, he was talking about Wall Street as you just showed but also the Keystone XL Pipeline that was the big news story yesterday. The Obama administrations decision to reject that pipeline and Sanders and Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland Governor and other Democratic candidate were both sort of portraying Clinton as a new comer, you know at the new kid on the liberal block, right, someone who is just taken positions on these issues that they've been out in front of for months or even years.

For her part Hillary Clinton didn't really take shot at the other candidates, she focused on sort of Democratic bread and butter issues like gun control, criminal justice reform, she brought up Eric Garner, the case out of Staten Island where the man was killed in a choke hold after at selling cigarettes.

And that sort of a way in South Carolina a state with much larger African-American population in Iowa or New Hampshire, to sort of get at the key issues there, the things that we're going hear the candidates talking about on the stamp today.

BLACKWELL: Eric takes a look at that the ladies Quinnipiac poll showing Hillary Clinton means she's got a double digit lead here nationally with a just a week before the next debate. You see Martin O'Malley, there with just a hush mark in the latest Quinnipiac poll. And possibly, you know, she's not going after the other candidates because she doesn't think she needs to.

ERIC BRADNER: Right, absolutely. Now that Joe Biden has decided not to run for president, Hillary Clinton is much stronger, a lot of that support has sort tilted her way and so she's feeling a bit more comfortable. I mean, she jokes last night about being an extra introvert, right? Sort of how she's acknowledged in the past that she loves to stay at home reading and watching "The Good Wife" but now we see her getting a lot more comfortable sort of working the rope lines and just chatting with people.

[10:50:12] This is a candidate who's sort of in her element. She's riding of a strong debate performance and she's seen as serious bump in her polls since Joe Biden decided not to run. So now the challenge is maintaining momentum. There are still obviously a few months to go before people actually vote. So it's a question of whether Clinton can keep this traction she's sort of built up in the last few weeks.

BLACKWELL: All right. Next debate is one week from today in Des Moines, Iowa. We'll see if this trend continues as we head into that next one. Eric Bradner, thanks so much.

PAUL: Sex, lies and suspensions. A look at the racy past of a small- town cop who staged his own suicide.

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[10:55:08] PAUL: So as if the bizarre story of a small-town cop who police say staged his own suicide could not get any more bizarre. CNN has now obtains new details from Lieutenant Joe, Gliniewicz his personal file and shows the veteran officer had a troubling history or misconduct while he was on the job.

CNN's Rosa Flores joining us now from Fox Lake, Illinois. Rosa, what did you find?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christi the more we dig, the more we find. Now, sources telling CNN to the Lieutenants widow and his son are being investigated possibly in connection with the embezzlements of thousands of dollars. But about that personal file it shed light into a shady past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Sex, lies, and drugs new revelations downgrading a man hailed a hero to a new law. Lieutenant Joe Gliniewicz his personal file exposing serious character flaws. The document showed led to at least five suspensions, where things like being involved in the incorrect release of information for not reporting to duty and for negligence that resulted in damage to village property.

The file also explains in detailed how a deputy found Lieutenant Gliniewicz completely passed out inside his truck on the side of the road, the engine still running his foot on the gas full throttle. It would take 2 deputies to wake him up. Lieutenant Gliniewicz would later tell his superiors he had been awake all day long, had played the volleyball consume six beers and several shot.

But perhaps, the most shocking revelation this law suit filed by a subordinate police officer in 2003, alleged Gliniewicz asked her to meet him in a hotel to give her, her son's police explore uniform, but once inside the mood changed according to the filing.

He gave her a box of chocolates foe Valentines Day, grabbed her shoulders and pressured her to perform oral sex. It didn't stop there according to court documents the subordinate claimed she performed oral sex on Gliniewicz five times in total between February 2000 and October of the same year. With Gliniewicz indicating to her that the sexual favors were strongly encouraged and/or required to protect her job. The suit would eventually dismiss. But, not erased from his personal file were it's noted along with the slew of other complains about him, drugs were not reference.

Authorities say they found those in an unmarked evidence bag in his desk. Like every thing else surrounding Gliniewicz death, it's raising more questions about his life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, about those drugs it was actually cocaine according to authorities. It was found inside in unmarked evidence bag. Now, authorities tell us that they looked into the cases that he was working and he wasn't working any cases of controlled substances. But they did find were deleted messages, they say that a looted to planting evidence on the village administrator. The same woman authority says, that the lieutenant was thinking of possibly exploring having killed. Christi?

CRISTI: Rosa, are we hearing anything from his family about these revelations of this report?

FLORES: You know, we've talked to the family attorney and the only comments that they have so far is no comment when Lieutenant Gliniewicz first past, they did sent out a statements saying that the family was looking for privacy.

PAUL: OK, Rosa Flores, boy, thank you so much. Crazy story.

BLACKWELL: Now Texas judge is in the hospital after being shot over night. Police say that Julie Kocurek was struck outside her home in Austin. They say that the judges injuries are not life threatening but they are serious. Authorities are still trying to track down who shot her and why.

The cyber criminals who broke into the AOL e-mail account of CIA Director John Brennan are at it again. And now the lead suspects in the hack of LEO.gov. A sensitive FBI run law enforcement portal as well as the private e-mail of the FBIs number two official. Officials there were confident that they would make arrest within days of last months attack but the investigation has proved more complicated than first thought.

PAUL: All right, it is the weekend, so, we hope that you make some good memories today but we're always grateful that you spend sometime with us.

BLACKWELL: Yes, there is a lot more a head in the next hour of CNN News room though. We are turning it over to our colleague Fredricka Whitfield.

[11:00:00] FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: All right. Good to see you guys.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Thanks a lot.

WHITFIELD: Why I feel like it's been a long time:

PAUL: It's has been a long week.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it is...

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: You're right. And I know you've got a lot to talk about today.

WHITFIELD: I know. We do indeed. All right, good to see. Have a great day.

PAUL: Thanks Fred so much.