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Prince Andrew Settles Sex Abuse Lawsuit; Russian Invasion Threat. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 15, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: There is zero prospect now, right, of Washington passing any legislation before this year's elections to change any of this.

There's a smaller Electoral College Count Act, maybe, but nothing else, right?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And that doesn't affect -- and that doesn't go into effect until the actual counting of the electoral votes.

KING: Right. Right.

Appreciate your time today on INSIDE POLITICS. Appreciate our patient reporters.

Ana Cabrera picks up right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello, and thanks for joining us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

We begin with breaking news. In just a few hours, President Biden will address the Russia-Ukraine crisis from the Situation Room. And his speech comes as the man bringing Europe to the brink of war continues to send the world mixed signals, because what Russian President Vladimir Putin is saying isn't matching what his Russian forces are doing.

Earlier today, Putin appeared to take a step toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis, saying he's ready for talks on what he calls confidence-building measures with the U.S. and NATO. And he also answered a question about the potential for war with Ukraine saying this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Do we want it or not? Of course not. That's exactly why we put forward proposals on a negotiating process, which should result in an agreement on ensuring equal security for all, including our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: If that's true, why is Putin moving troops and artillery closer to Ukraine? Why is he building field hospitals near its border?

CNN's chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, is in Kyiv, Ukraine, for us. And senior White House correspondent Phil Mattingly is at the White House.

Jim, I want to start with you. Help us make sense of these reports and the military maneuvering we're seeing by Russia.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I think it's the words of the Ukrainian foreign minister this morning, who said sort of the Ukrainian version of the saying, we will believe it when we see it, that is, this claimed partial Russian withdrawal from down south.

And I heard the same from the NATO secretary-general today. And I spoke to the Estonian prime minister, who all said they have not seen any evidence yet of a Russian de-escalation. And, meanwhile, even if, yes, you did pull a few thousand troops from one point of the border around Ukraine, there are still more than 130,000 of them.

And it's not just the forces. It's the armor. It's the tanks. It's the jets. It's the helicopters. And that's what U.S. intelligence assessments have been seeing.

So, CNN took a look at satellite photos and other videos today to see what the evidence actually shows on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO (voice-over): New video from the Russian Ministry of Defense as it claims that some units have completed their exercises and are now returning to their home bases. The Russian military did not identify the locations in the videos.

CNN, however, it geolocated one rail yard where these tanks were being loaded onto a train. It's in Crimea. Asked if NATO has been able to verify Russian assertions that some units are going home, Estonia's prime minister told me, not yet.

KAJA KALLAS, PRIME MINISTER OF ESTONIA: We believe it when we see it, but we don't see it right now. Russia has done this military buildup around Ukraine for already months. So nothing happens in a few days, a few hours. And we haven't seen any real de-escalation yet.

SCIUTTO: And there is still plenty of Russian armor near Ukraine and moving closer still, among the more recent arrivals, transport and attack helicopters, these in an improvised base near Belgorod, just a few miles from the Ukrainian border.

Perhaps most notable, these images showing more than 60 helicopters at a disused airfield in Northwest Crimea. There was nothing there just a few days ago. Helicopters shown are a mix of attack and transport aircraft about 40 miles from Ukraine's southern coast.

Just off the coast, the Russian Defense Ministry's media outlet is reporting on the Black Sea Navy drills, which involve some 30 ships. In satellite images, Maxar also detected that the Russian air force has deployed at least 10 Su-34 strike bombers to an airport near Krasnodar in Southern Russia. The airfield is some 70 miles across the Sea of Azov from the Ukrainian coast.

It will be a few days before new satellite images and video can confirm that at least part of the force of 130,000 Russian troops have indeed moved away from Ukraine. For now, a substantial force on land, in the air and at sea remains on three sides of Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: The most recent U.S. intelligence assessment, as described to me, was that, as of last night, Russian forces were moving forward and moving crucially into combat positions, that is, positions where they can, if given the order from Putin, wage war.

The U.S. also continuing to look out for a false flag attack that might be a precursor to a further invasion. It'll be interesting however, Ana, to see what the president, how he updates today. Does he have new information?

[13:05:12]

But, right now, all the people I have spoken with both in Ukraine and elsewhere are still waiting to see evidence that what Putin is saying is what he's doing.

CABRERA: Right. And, right now, that is not matching up.

SCIUTTO: No.

CABRERA: Jim Sciutto in Ukraine, thank you.

Let's go to the White House and CNN's Phil Mattingly now.

Phil, President Biden expected to speak on this crisis in Ukraine this afternoon. What do we know about this?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know, at least what the White House has said, about what those remarks will entail, brief remarks in the East Room. However, they will provide an update on the current situation and would focus on that the United States remains open to high-level diplomacy, in close coordination with our allies, building on multiple diplomatic off-ramps that the U.S. and their allies have put on the table.

That's the focus of what they will be talking about, though the president will also make very clear that the sanctions package that the U.S. and allies had been working on now for several months is absolutely on the table should Russia decide to move forward with an invasion.

And it comes it's such an interesting moment. We haven't seen the president speak publicly about this issue of not either answering questions about it or in prepared remarks in quite a while, despite the fact the flurry of phone calls of meetings of preparation that's been going on from the president on down to his top deputies and advisers with their Russian counterparts, with their European counterparts, with the Ukrainians as well, including the president, talking to French President Emmanuel Macron earlier today, the secretary of state, Tony Blinken, talking with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

All part of this process to try and figure out what the signals that the Russians have been sending actually mean. To Jim's point, there's a significant amount of skepticism on the U.S. side that the Russians are de-escalating in a major way, that they will be moving troops in a major way.

However, there is also interest in the fact that the language that they have seen, the choreographed meeting between President Putin and his foreign minister yesterday, all of that may present an opening. Whether or not it does, though, they are not at all sure of, and making very clear that all options remain on the table, something the president will likely stress in just a couple of hours, Ana.

CABRERA: And, Phil, U.S. officials have been expressing skepticism about the Russian statements. What have they been doing to prepare for what could happen next?

MATTINGLY: One of the most interesting elements about the last several months is just how forward the White House has been, the Biden administration has been in terms of what they believe the Russians have been doing, have been preparing, what the intelligence has shown them, and how kind of on the front foot the U.S. has been in trying to bring allies as close together as quickly as possible to try and counter that.

And, as part of that, there was a recognition early on. My colleague Kaitlan Collins reports that, back in November, the U.S., via intelligence, recognized just the scale of what was happening, was starting to build on the Russian side of things, and started to put together what's known as a Tiger Team, a kind of an across-government team to get together to start mapping out the response, on the military side, on the aid side, on the humanitarian side, kind of across the board.

And that team as it's worked over the course of the last several months has worked on two different tabletop exercises, kind of a full, large-scale gaming out of any number of different scenarios. One of those tabletop exercises included Cabinet secretaries as well.

So, it just underscores that this has been something they have been preparing for. Any different iteration of potential outcomes has been something or at least part of something that seems the U.S. has prepared for over the course of the last several months.

So, even though there's no real sense exactly what might be happening right now -- we have got, obviously, a divergence between what you're seeing on the ground and what Russian officials may be saying or implying in public -- the U.S. officials believe they're ready, regardless of where this goes -- Ana.

CABRERA: Phil Mattingly at the White House, thank you.

And joining us now, CNN national security analyst James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under President Obama.

Director Clapper, we have these mixed signals of what Russia is saying, what we're seeing different. Russia says some troops are pulling back after the exercises they have been performing. But, as far as we know, more than 100,000 forces remain near the border. We're seeing these military helicopters moving into Crimea.

The U.K. says Russian field hospitals are being constructed in Belarus near Ukraine's border. So, which signals do you pay most attention to? What do you believe?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think we're in, as Ronald Reagan would have said, a trust, but verify mode.

Right now, there's still a lot of images of those big motor pools of vehicles lined up in a military manner. And, to my knowledge, none of the trigger-pullers or bomb-droppers have left. So I think we're in a wait-and-see mode to see whether this is really going to pan out.

I guess, though, given the choice between getting unconfirmed reporting on reducing military presence on the Ukrainian border or getting unconfirmed reporting on expanding it, I will take the former. But we just have to wait and see.

[13:10:01]

CABRERA: Based on what you know of U.S. intelligence resources and capabilities, how much of a detailed knowledge does the U.S. have about what's happening behind closed doors in the Kremlin?

CLAPPER: Well, I thought you were going to ask, how well can we track the presence of military units? And we're pretty good at that. You know, we can count -- see and count things. And we will be doing that, I'm sure.

Now, the question you did ask, more difficult to answer, that is the elusive Holy Grail for intelligence, which is, what are plans and intentions? Has Putin actually made a decision one way or the other? And I don't believe we know that. And I'm not sure Putin knows that yet. I don't think he's made a decision.

And there's certainly one other comment I would make. All this buzz plays directly at Putin's ego, who badly wants to be seen as a major player on the world stage. And so we're playing to that need of his. CABRERA: One of the reasons I ask that question is because we have received disclosures of some of the intel the U.S. has collected when it comes to the planning of potential false flag, fake videos that would be put out in order to look like Russia was attacked. And so that would trigger an invasion, but it would look like they're doing it as a defensive mechanism vs. the opposite.

And so we have that intel that's been presented by the Biden administration. That intel is coming from somewhere. And if it's in the planning stages prior to an attack actually taking place, it makes me wonder, again, how deep our intel resources go.

CLAPPER: Well, I would comment, Ana, that this is something we weren't able to do in 2014, for lots of reasons.

But I applaud the effort to dime out the Russians, particularly on these false flag operations. Now, you keep doing it, it's going to have diminishing returns. But the Russians would prefer, I think, to have a provocation to justify an invasion, if, in fact, that's what they're going to do.

Now, what concerns me -- and others have made the same commentary -- if the separatists, who kind of on their own all, although nominally under Russian control, if they do something to provoke an attack, the false flag operation. But I think -- I completely agree with the Biden administration and the intelligence community for whenever they can diming out the Russians, because we have to engage in this information warfare process as well as they.

CABRERA: Senator Chris Murphy put out a statement yesterday in a tweet following his briefing with the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that caught my eye.

And this is what he writes about Putin: "It feels like he's in charge, holding us all hostage, but not really. He is operating from a position of severe weakness. Having failed to coax Ukraine back into its orbit, a potential disastrous invasion is his last resort."

Do you agree? Is Putin now backed into a corner and now operating from a position of weakness?

CLAPPER: Well, I don't know I'd say -- I think he is backed in a corner.

And, for one, there's no way that invading Ukraine is going to help any of the considerable problems that Putin faces at home. And he's backed himself into a corner. That's true.

And what concerns me about that is that that may provoke him or force him or he will feel under pressure to do something to justify posting 130,000 troops, or whatever it is -- it's a major military force along the Ukrainian border. And then just to back off without gaining some kind of concession, that clearly would be a sign of weakness.

CABRERA: There are so many more questions we could discuss.

Thank you so much for all of your time and expertise, sharing it with us, former DNI James Clapper.

CLAPPER: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: Breaking news now out of the U.K. Prince Andrew has reached a settlement with a woman who accused him of raping her when she was just a teen. More on that.

Plus, all eyes on the ice. The Russian skating star at the center of an Olympic doping scandal competes for the first time amid this growing controversy. We have the latest.

And how bad is it when the Trump Organization's own accounting firm says its financial statements aren't reliable? And what does this mean for investigations moving forward?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:19:14]

CABRERA: We're back now with a major development in a sex abuse scandal that's been rocking the royals.

Prince Andrew hours ago agreed to a settlement with Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre. This is all according to a new court filing. Giuffre alleged in her lawsuit that Epstein trafficked turn and forced her to have sex with his friends, including Prince Andrew, who is Queen Elizabeth's second son.

Giuffre claimed Andrew knew she was just 17 when he sexually abused her on multiple occasions in different locations.

CNN royal correspondent Max Foster is with us now. And also joining us, former Los Angeles criminal prosecutor Loni Coombs, who's also prosecuted all kinds of crime, from murder to celebrity stalkers to sex crimes.

It's so great to have both of you here.

Max, just about a week ago, you were reporting the prince had agreed to sit for a deposition. It looked like this was headed to a trial. What changed?

[13:20:08]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Who knows what the conversations were behind the scenes.

But if this had carried on to trial and Prince Andrew had sat down and given a deposition, it would have just brought out more and more embarrassing revelations about his life. It would embarrass the royal family. He seemed pretty determined to carry on with it.

I think probably the monarchy would prefer that he reached some sort of settlement. He's got that settlement. Virginia Giuffre wasn't giving any indication either that she was interested in the settlement. So we will wait to hear from both sides some more detail about why they agreed to this.

But we're not being given the settlement amount. Prince Andrew is not accepting any guilt on any of the charges here. He does accept that he -- that Giuffre has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks.

Now, this is all to do with Prince Andrew's associations with Epstein, of course, a convicted pedophile, the late convicted pedophile. And what he goes on to say in this statement -- or this is a joint statement, but it speaks much more for Prince Andrew.

"Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein and commends the bravery of Mr. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others. He pledges to demonstrate his regret for his association with Epstein by supporting the fight against the evils of sex trafficking and by supporting its victims."

Now, all along, Prince Andrew has been accused of massive mishandling of this case, going right back to the BBC interview, not expressing enough sympathy for the victims, only defending himself. The case is over, but you have to question whether or not he can come back to any sort of public role, because his damage -- his reputation is so massively damaged.

CABRERA: And, Loni, we heard the statement, and it was very carefully worded there. A settlement is not an admission of guilt.

But people wonder, if you didn't do it, why pay?

LONI COOMBS, FORMER LOS ANGELES COUNTY CRIMINAL PROSECUTOR: Absolutely.

And I think, as Max said, going to trial in this case would have been a huge disaster for Prince Andrew, because I think, especially in the public eye, they already feel like he has shown what -- shown himself to not be forthright about this. His interview was disastrous.

And yet, just in January, he was demanding that he still be able to go to trial. His attorneys had tried to dismiss Ms. Giuffre's lawsuit with a motion to dismiss, which was denied. And Prince Andrew's response was, OK, I'm going to trial. And Virginia Giuffre's attorney had also said, look, I don't think she's going to be satisfied with just a financial settlement, because that's not allowing her to make her statement in court, make her case.

And this settlement statement that we're hearing was carefully worded, obviously, by both sides to try and satisfy what both sides wanted to have said. And so you have these statements about, I didn't mean to malign her character, which is in stark contrast with what Prince Andrew's attorneys were saying in the motion to dismiss, alleging that her -- essentially is out for a big payday, that she had made more money off of these allegations than most people would dream of having in their lifetime.

And now he's saying, not only did I not want to malign her character, but I also applaud her bravery for standing up. It's interesting to see what said and not said in that statement. He

does admit that she was a victim of abuse, but it doesn't say sexual abuse. And he said that she was a victim of these public attacks. But then he goes on to throw Jeffrey Epstein under the bus and says, really, all I did was I was associated with him, and that's what I regret.

CABRERA: Right.

And so, already, the queen has sort of cast away Prince Andrew from his direct ties to the royal family, although he's still a prince because of his blood, but no more military titles, his access to royal financing, gone as well as of last month. This was after a judge here in New York allowed this civil lawsuit to proceed.

I know, Max, the palace isn't commenting on this settlement specifically. But given everything that the queen has already done, how she's responded in the past, what does his future look like? What does he do now?

FOSTER: It's difficult to imagine, isn't it?

As you say, he doesn't get public funding anymore. Of course, he has been stripped of his titles. He doesn't represent the queen. And he's got a small military pension. He's selling his ski chalet, according to various reports, to pay for all of this. You wonder where the money from the settlement is going to come from.

Can't really imagine the queen wanting to be associated with the case at all by paying for it. I think the only option really at the moment for him is to maybe get some support from the queen, then go out and get a private sector job or borrow some money from the private sector.

The one advantage of not having an HRH title is that he is now able to go out and get work from the private sector, in the same way that Prince Harry has done. So, he is able to do that, but you can't really imagine him taking any public role. His reputation is so massively damaged.

[13:25:03]

He's focused all his efforts, as we were hearing there, really winning this case, but at the sacrifice of his public relations all the way along, and that has suffered. And it's suffered for so long now, to the extent where the queen, even before he was -- faced any sort of sentence or was let off this case, basically threw him out of the working royalty.

So it's hard to imagine how he's going to make a comeback.

CABRERA: Max Foster and Loni Coombs, I appreciate both of you. Thanks so much.

Blame it on a mixup with grandpa's medicine? The Russian skating star at the center of a doping scandal says that's why she failed a drug test. She just got back on the ice this morning. We have got the latest.

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