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Nine-Year-Old Dies from Astroworld Concert Injuries; Bannon Surrenders after Indictment; Standoff at Belarus-Poland Border; Russia's Military Activity Raises Alarms. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 15, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:57]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A nine-year-old boy trampled and severely injured when the crowd surged at the Astroworld Music Festival in Houston. That little boy there has now died. Ezra Blount is the tenth and youngest victim of last week's tragedy.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: He was placed in a medically induced coma after suffering brain, liver and kidney trauma, but never recovered.

CNN's Rosa Flores joining us now live from Houston.

I know his family is behind one of these dozens of lawsuits that's been filed against festival organizers. I can only begin to imagine, though, the pain they must be feeling this morning having to actually say good-bye.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, hearts are heavy here in Houston. His attorney represents more than 200 concertgoers. But, again, Ezra Blount, the youngest victim, only nine years old. According to his family, this concert was supposed to be a bonding moment between son and father. His father saying that he had Ezra on his shoulders. At points during that concert he couldn't breathe. He eventually passed out. Little Ezra fell onto the crowd and had been fighting for his life ever since. And, tragically, he died over the weekend.

His attorney's family, excuse me, the attorney representing his family issuing this statement, saying, quote, the Blount family tonight is grieving the incomprehensible loss of their precious young son. This should not have been the outcome of taking their son to a concert, what should have been a joyful celebration.

The statement goes on to say that they are asking for answers and for justice for Ezra Blount, only nine years old.

This as the ninth victim's family is also grieving. Twenty-two-year- old Bharti Shahani. She died last week. Her sister and her cousin were on CNN's "NEW DAY" today saying that they were at the concert as well and they remember those intense moments when they didn't know if they were going to make it out alive.

Now, of course, they're grieving 22-year-old Bharti Shahani's death and they want answers as well.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHIT BELLANI, COUSIN OF ASTROWORLD CONCERT VICTIM BHARTI SHAHANI: We just want to know like what happened, like why exactly -- why exactly this happened and make sure that it like never happens again to anyone, because this is a feeling that no one should ever experience.

NAMRATA SHAHANI, SISTER OF ASTROWORLD CONCERT VICTIM BHARTI SHAHANI: Go -- go through.

BELLANI: It's absolutely terrible.

SHAHANI: Exactly. Like, I feel like no family should ever see what we're having to see today and they should never feel as broken as we feel, like, in this this moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: I just checked in with the Houston Police Department. They do not have updates on the investigation. They're not expecting any press conferences today.

Again, this as the death toll increases to ten individuals. The ages of the victims between nine and 27 years old.

Erica.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Those poor families. My heart goes out to them.

Rosa Flores, good to have you there. Thanks very much.

Still ahead this hour, migrants facing razor wire and water cannons. We're live at the scene of an intense standoff, this on the border between Poland and Belarus. What's behind it all, coming up next.

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SCIUTTO: Breaking news in to CNN.

Steve Bannon, the -- former President Trump's senior adviser, has now appeared at the FBI field office here in the District of Columbia to turn himself in. This following his indictment on two counts of contempt of Congress. This is just moments ago. And there you see him arriving at the FBI field office following this indictment.

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Let's watch these pictures as it happens.

QUESTION: Mr. Bannon, any comments to the cameras over here? Any comments? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me.

QUESTION: Any thoughts, Mr. Bannon?

QUESTION: Sir, Mr. Bannon, any comment on this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me.

QUESTION: How are you feeling today, Mr. Bannon?

QUESTION: Mr. Bannon, what are your plans now ahead of this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). Thank you. Thank you. Everybody move back. Move back.

QUESTION: Mr. Bannon, (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me.

(INAUDIBLE).

SCIUTTO: You see Steve Bannon there making comments, difficult to hear those comments given there's a scrum of photographers between us and the president's former chief strategist. Now he's walking in to the FBI field office.

I believe we have Renato Mariotti, former federal prosecutor with us now.

Renato, can you -- can you walk us through what happens next?

RENATO MARIOTTI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Sure.

So, he's inside. He's going to be asked a bunch of routine booking questions. He can't take the fifth. He has to answer those. They're going to be routine things asking questions about his -- where he lives, his background, who he -- you know, that sort of thing, just basic stuff that they get down. They're going to be -- generally be fingerprinting him. There's -- there can be a mandatory DNA swab, things like that.

So the -- once that all happens, then he will be proceeding later today to the U.S. district court. And once he's there, a judge is going to be essentially reading him his rights and telling him what he's facing. The prosecutor's going to tell him the maximum punishment. And she's going to advise him, for example, the judge, as to whether or not, you know, he should not speak -- speak without -- speak to the government without an attorney, that sort of thing.

HILL: And Whitney Wild is at the district court.

So, Whitney, this indictment includes two counts of contempt. Walk us through those two counts, if you would.

Whitney may not be able to hear us right now, so we're going to work on that audio. So, Renato, as we look at these two counts, refusal to appear for a

deposition, also refusal to produce documents, that's what we're working with here.

You noted to us earlier this morning, one of the things that really stood out to you is a change in attorneys for Steve Bannon. Why is that important?

MARIOTTI: Well, Steve Bannon -- one of I think the best defenses for him is going to be what's called an advice of counsel defense. It's rarely asserted, because usually attorneys aren't advising people to do things that later are indictable for criminal activity, but here I could see the attorney taking the stand and saying, yes, I advised Steve Bannon that he should not comply with the subpoena. And as long as Steve Bannon can demonstrate to the jury or convince the jury that he relied in good faith on the attorney's advice, that is a defense.

And so you have to waive attorney/client privilege, but, you know, that is something that is viable, which means, of course, that he needs a new attorney to do that.

SCIUTTO: Renato, over what time period does this now play out as the judge considers? Are we talking days? Are we talking weeks?

MARIOTTI: Oh, it's going to be -- it's going to be weeks, months. So what's going to happen, for example, is the indictment's going to, you know, be presented to him today, but then there's going to be discovery that's going to be produced to Mr. Bannon. There will be a schedule for motions to be filed, so where he could challenge certain aspects of the indictment of the prosecution. Once the judge rules on those motions, which could take some time, they would set a trial date. Right now the courts are very backed up. I have clients that are waiting for years for their criminal trials. So I think, as a practical matter, this is going to play out over an extended period of time.

HILL: Hurry up and wait.

Renato, always good to have you with us, thank you.

Still to come, stay with us for this dramatic standoff we've been following in Europe. We are live on the border between Poland and Belarus. That's next.

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HILL: This just in to CNN.

Beto O'Rourke, the former congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, has just launched his campaign to unseat Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2022. O'Rourke tweeting this morning, I'm running for governor. Together we can push past the small and divisive politics that we see in Texas today and get back to the big, bold vision that used to define Texas, a Texas big enough, he writes, for all of us. We'll continue to follow those developments.

SCIUTTO: Right now the standoff intensifying at the border between Belarus and Poland in eastern Europe as thousands of migrants try to cross into Poland. New video this morning shows some of those migrants being confronted with razor wire, water cannons.

CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is live at the border.

Matthew, tell us what you're seeing there.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim. Yes, sorry, we're having a few little technical glitches here on the border between Belarus and Poland. It's a pretty chaotic situation. There have been some dramatic scenes unfolding over the course of the past three, four hours.

All of the thousands of people that have gathered in that camp, in the forest, right up against the barbed wire fence suddenly, earlier on today, picked up their staff, packed up their sleeping bags, and trekked all the way down here right to the main border checkpoint with Poland.

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There had been a rumor circulating in the camp that the Poles were going to open up this corridor into the European Union and allow them to go on to Germany, where most of these people, who are from Iraqi, Kurdistan, for the most part, wanted to go. The Poles have been trying to dispel that rumor. They've given people text messages on their telephones saying that's not true, we're going to keep the border closed. And look what they've been confronted with, razor wire fences, water cannon with the barrels pointed towards the crowd in cases of breach attempted, although there's nothing been fired at this point. And military police and border police all categorically sending a message that these refugees are not welcome in Poland and in the European Union. So, a desperate situation for them.

Of course, Washington, the EU, other countries like Poland, they accuse Belarus of orchestrating this crisis, Weaponizing, I think, is the phrase they're using. Weaponizing migrants in order to put pressure on the EU and revenge for the sanctions that the EU has placed against Belarus for its various human rights abuses.

But these migrants are stuck in the middle. They've got Belarusian force at their back and they've got this razor wire and the Polish border guards in front of them. And they are quite literally stuck in the middle. And it's a truly desperate situation.

You see how cold it is here. It's getting absolutely freezing. This mother here, I've watched her wrap up her children as tightly as she can in these sleeping bags in the hope that they can, you know, get through the night without freezing.

There was a little girl here, that was just horrible, I'm just -- as a father myself, I'm told, these little girls here, they're playing on the razor wire, you know, and they keep getting stuck. And, you know, it's just a matter of time before one of them sort of cuts their -- I mean gets cut or badly injured. I've tried to get them off and they keep on going back.

Anyway, so, a bleak situation, a desperate situation with these people who are, you know -- had a terrible plight. They've got a terrible experience now and they've got a cold night ahead of them.

HILL: And so important, though, that you are there and that we're continuing to follow this story.

Matthew Chance, thank you.

SCIUTTO: New reporting in to CNN this hour with my colleagues Natasha Bertrand and Katie Bowls-Lilis (ph). Right now the U.S. intelligence community is struggling with a fear that could be an intelligence blind spot. This because it has dwindling sources inside Russian President Vladimir's inner circle. This is important because U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about Russia's military buildup along the border with Ukraine.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins me now to share this reporting.

I mean it's a combination of things here because they look at what's happening on the border. They're concerned about the size of the force, the components of that force, but also, at the same time, worried they don't have the intel to read what Russia's true intentions are here.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's exactly right, Jim. So they don't know for sure whether Russia intends to launch a full- scale invasion into Ukraine, and that's largely because they have not had great intelligence into Vladimir Putin and his inner circle since around 2017 when a very high-level source was extracted from the Russian government by the U.S. amid concerns over that source's safety.

So what we're seeing now is kind of a blind spot by the U.S. intelligence community. One congressional source telling CNN that this is actually increasingly becoming a denied area for the intelligence community. And it's particularly concerning because Russia is engaging in very concerning military activity near Ukraine's borders.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BERTRAND: So, U.S. officials have said publicly in recent days that they are still trying to figure out what Russia's true intentions are. Privately, they say that is because of this blind spot. But they don't want it to get to the point that it was at in 2014 when Russia moved to invade Ukraine, kind of in Crimea, under everyone's noses, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BERTRAND: So they've been signaling publicly, to the extent that they can, that, look, this is very serious to the European allies, to NATO allies, this is very serious. This is not a bluff. This is something that we need to monitor very closely. And, of course, trying to signal as much as they can that, hey, Vladimir Putin, hey, Russia, we are watching what you are doing.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

I mean and Russia to be, in effect, a denied area, deeply concerning because of the increasing tensions between the two countries there.

So in the midst of that, you have some very public messaging about U.S. support for Ukraine. I think we have a picture of what the U.S. embassy and Ukraine tweeted out last night about what is a significant shipment of munitions to Ukraine.

Tell us what the importance of that signaling is right now in terms of western support.

BERTRAND: Yes, so, Ukraine always wants kind of more weapons from the United States, wants more protection, as much as they can get, from the west as they try to fend off this Russian threat, which they emphasize has been hanging over their heads for the better part of, you know, six, eight years now.

So, this signaling of support for Ukraine also shows Russia that, hey, the United States, NATO, the European allies are all backing Ukraine here and that they have to be careful with their military maneuvering around the border. Ukraine's defense minister is actually coming to Washington this week to meet with Secretary -- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

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That will be their first meeting since this new defense secretary in Ukraine has been sworn in. And so all of this kind of diplomatic flurry of activity is meant to convey to Russia, to the extent possible, that they need to be careful with their movements here because the world really is watching.

SCIUTTO: Very quickly, we did have the NATO secretary-general note that while Ukraine wants to be in NATO, it is not in NATO and therefore there is not a defense treaty obligation, right, to defend Ukraine from Russian attack.

BERTRAND: Exactly right. And NATO really wants to be a member -- or Ukraine really wants to be a member of NATO. They have been pushing for this. And, of course, that is one of the main sources of tension with Russia.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BERTRAND: Russia has said that if Ukraine does, in fact, joins NATO, that is a direct threat to Russia and they will be forced to respond.

SCIUTTO: Natasha Bertrand, good working with you on this story.

BERTRAND: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Thanks very much.

Erica.

HILL: Still ahead, we are just moments away from the jury arriving to hear closing arguments in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. We will take you live to Wisconsin after this quick break.

Stay with us.

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