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U.S. Troops Arriving Near Poland's Border with Ukraine; National Archives Informs Trump It Plans to Send White House Visitor Logs to January 6 Committee; Prosecution Presents Evidence of Racist Text Messages; New Jersey Police Response to Fight Between Teens Sparks Outrage; Republican Senators Push Back at Idea of Government Blacklist of Unruly Passengers. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired February 17, 2022 - 04:30   ET

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

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NED PRICE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: They are moving, concerning into fighting positions.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: And what we see is no meaningful pull back.

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: At the pace that Russia continues their military buildup.

URSULA VAN DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: We face the largest buildup of troops on European soil since the darkest days of the cold war.

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: But the Kremlin keeps insisting that it considers any NATO expansion to the east a direct threat to them. And you can see the countries there in the darker blue that are NATO's newest additions right on the border there with Russia.

The Pentagon has long argued, is military bases in Poland and Romania are for defensive purposes only. But that's done little to soothe Moscow's fears. Nor will the latest deployment of U.S. forces to Poland. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh with the details.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice-over): They don't really want you to see this, but it's hard to hide. These are U.S. troops landing near the Polish border with Ukraine.

High-end Black Hawks, C-17 cargo planes, dozens in the past days. Media haven't been given official access, but they're pretty hard to miss. Trucks, pallets, signs these 82nd Airborne from Fort Bragg are not here, an hour's drive from Ukraine just overnight.

They even came this day with a Cessna light aircraft, which seems to be innocently carrying top brass, who get onto a nearby helicopter. Moscow may point to these scenes as NATO amassing troops on Ukraine's border, but these are here with the approval of Poland, a NATO member.

WALSH: In a standoff that's all about messaging. These American troops are about ensuring U.S. allies feel their presence.

WALSH (voice-over): The unit we saw decamped to a nearby conference center. They're here just in case, to help stranded American in Ukraine if the need arises. These sort of movements in NATO war games and drills have been practiced for years. They don't really want us to see this, the larger base where they are.

WALSH: Are the Americans over here? This is their main base, yes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't talk about this.

WALSH: I understand. Can we talk to somebody about this, or --?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

WALSH (voice-over): They walk right by us.

WALSH: Come and talk. Don't be afraid. It's all right.

WALSH(voice-over): And the size of the operation -- these are a lot of tents over a wide area -- is both what you might expect to support that many soldiers but also something that is almost definitely not for show and betrays a lot of readiness, even if you hope they all stay bored and cold under canvas in the weeks ahead.

The border with Ukraine an hour away, is normally busy. But Sasha is on his way back in, as his visa has run out.

"Ukraine is my country, and I have to stay," he says. "Yes, in the army, if need be, but no running away."

At another crossing, Ukrainians returning are pretty blunt.

"He won't be as far as Kyiv. We won't let him," one says. "We'll raise a resistance, fighting in the woods. It'll be like Stalin. His own people will kill him."

Bravado running hot far, far away from a frontline that is still mostly cold.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Rzeszow, Poland.

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HOLMES: And our thanks to Nick Paton Walsh for that report. And for now, let's throw it back to you, Isa, in London.

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: And Michael, very quickly just before you go, let me ask you this. Because this is something we've been seeing a lot and hearing quite a bit about this idea of a false flag operation by Russia. Explain to our viewers, Michael, what exactly this tactic means. Because it's not new. But the West it seems is very quick to call Russia out now.

HOLMES: Yes, quite right, Isa. It is a tried and tested tactic. It's staging an event to look like the other side is attacking you as a pretexts for escalation, an excuse. And the U.S. and others have accused Russia of planning just that. They've accused them more than once.

Now perhaps the most likely place for such a thing would be in the Donbas region in the east where, of course, Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainians for eight years now. And there are routinely accusations from the separatists of alleged attacks of atrocities. That's happening already. And none of that helped, by the way. By Vladimir Putin the other day claiming a genocide was happening in the Donbas.

And interesting few days ago, Russian lawmakers passed a resolution asking Mr. Putin to declare those areas in eastern Ukraine independent states. Now what would that do? That would allow those quote, unquote independent states to say they're being invaded by Ukraine and call on Russia for help and then you have the potential for the Russians going in. I mean, Pentagon is again raising the specter of such a situation like that.

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Perhaps trying to put Mr. Putin off balance if that is, indeed, his plan. No course, the Russians deny it, but that's all propaganda and false flag situations begin.

SOARES: And the best way to put an end to it is to call it out as soon as possible. Accusations of course that that didn't happen with Crimea. Definitely seeing a very different tactic here. Michael, great to see you. Thanks very much. Of course, we'll have much more on the story ahead on "EARLY START" in about 20 minutes.

An American man detained for the past two years in Russia says he's coughing up blood but hasn't gotten medical care. According to the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Trevor Reed was exposed to another prisoner who had tuberculosis in December. The State Department said Reed was tourist arrested during a drunken fight with police. He was convicted without evidence and should be sent back to the U.S. CNN has reached out to Russian foreign ministry and penitentiary service for comment.

More potential evidence is coming to the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. Visitor logs from the White House that could really reveal who former President Trump saw that day. CNN senior legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid has the details for you.

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PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The House select committee investigating January 6th will soon get a new window into what was happening in the White House that day when the National Archives turns over visitor logs from the Trump era. President Joe Biden refusing a request from former President Trump to keep those logs under wraps. Trump has repeatedly railed against the committee's investigation.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The unselect committee on January 6th, how about that committee?

REID (voice-over): but in a letter to the National Archives, White House Counsel Dana Remus says Biden determined that shielding the visitor logs is not in the best interest of the United States and therefore is not justified as to these records and portions of records.

The Archives provided the documents to the current White House for review in late January. They include visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on January 6th.

Remus notes that the current administration voluntarily discloses such visitor logs on a monthly basis with some exceptions, a practice also followed by the Obama administration. Though both Obama and Biden excluded visitors who were purely personal guests of the first and second families.

Biden has instructed the archives to provide the documents 15 days after it's notification to Trump unless a court intervenes. Trump could still sue, but he lost a similar case at the Supreme Court earlier this year when he tried to use executive privilege to block the committee from accessing more than 750 pages of his White House records.

REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): I would say that the Supreme Court decision is probably the single biggest day of the investigation so far.

REID (voice-over): Now the committee appears poised to receive the logs, which may tell the committee who was visiting the White House during the insurrection, who they were visiting with and the location of the meeting down to the room number.

REID: These visitor logs can be limited. They only record people who don't have a permanent pass to access the White House and if you register to meet with one person and end up meeting with a different official or in a different location. Like let's say, the Oval Office, that might not be reflected in the logs. So, while this will provide some information to the committee, it will not provide a complete picture of who was coming and going from the White House on the day of the insurrection.

Paula Reid, CNN, Washington.

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SOARES: And coming up right here on CNN NEWSROOM, outrage in the community after New Jersey police break up a fight between two teens but only one of them handcuffed.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was the hero in all of this but yet the police treated him like the menace.

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SOARES: Prosecutors presented new evidence on Wednesday in the federal hate crimes trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery, the black man who was chased and murdered while jogging in Georgia. An FBI intelligence analyst testified about racist text messages and social media posts found on the defendant's account as well as cell phones. Listen to how Arbery's mother reacted to the latest evidence.

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WANDER COOPER-JONES, MOTHER OF AHMAUD ARBERY: My thoughts is what I thought all along was true. That Travis killed Ahmaud, not because Ahmaud had committed a crime, it's because Ahmaud was black and because Travis is truly a racist.

Just to know that Ahmaud was killed because he was black, it really saddens my heart. Ahmaud didn't know that he was targeted and he had no clue. This breaks my heart over and over again.

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SOARES: Arbery's father calls the level of hate shown by the three defendants a shame but added he wasn't at all surprised.

The police response to a fight at a New Jersey mall's parking criticism as well as outrage. This after a video showed how officers broke up the altercation between two teenagers, one is black and the other white. CNN's Athena Jones has the story for you.

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ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Accusations of racial bias by police after they broke up a fight between a pair of teenagers, one black, one white at a New Jersey mall. A now-viral video shows the teens having a heated discussion. The white teen even the pointing his finger in the face of the black teen who pushes the white teen's hand away.

The white teen then shoves the black teen, and the two begin to tussle. At one point the white teen tackling the black teen and pinning him to a couch then throwing him to the ground. When police arrive to break up the fight, a female officer pulls the white teen away and pushes him to the couch without handcuffs. While the other officer presses the black teen to the ground and kneels on his back. The female officer also coming over to kneel on the teen's upper back while they place him and only him in handcuffs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no. Holy (BLEEP). JONES (voice-over): Treatment some viewed as unequal, unfair, and racially biased. One bystander exclaiming in surprise as police handcuff the black teen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yow, it's because he's black.

JONES (voice-over): CNN affiliate WCBS spoke with one of the teens involved, 14-year-old Kye, who asked that his last name not be used.

KYE, TEEN INVOLVED IN NEW JERSEY MALL FIGHT: I was like, confused. I go why they saw me as a bad person. Like, me like as aggressive.

JONES (voice-over): The eighth grader telling CNN affiliate WABC the fight began when he scooped up for a friend, a seventh-grader being picked on by the other teen who the station identifies as a high school student. The teen calling the encounter with police scary and frustrating.

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KYE: If they don't know how to treat the situation and deal with the situation equally and fairly, then they shouldn't be able to deal with the situation at all.

JONES (voice-over): New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy saying --

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): I'm deeply disturbed by what appears to be a racially disparate treatment in the video. We underscore with emphasis that we're committed to increasing the trust between law enforcement on the one hand and the communities they serve on the other.

JONES (voice-over): The NAACP New Jersey state conference calling for the officers involved to be removed from the force, pending an investigation. And saying despite years of talk about bias training and accountability, when Bridgewater police found two youths fighting, the immediate reaction was to aggressively throw the black child to the ground. At the same time, the white youth was carefully eased onto a couch and treated like a victim. Kye's Mother Ebone telling WCBS --

EBONE, MOTHER OF TEEN INVOLVED IN NEW JERSEY MALL FIGHT: Maybe they could have broken up the fight and maybe set them aside and called their parents, no cuffs, no aggression, dealt with them like they were teenagers.

JONES (voice-over): Asked what they want to see happen to the officers --

KYE: Definitely be fired.

EBONE: I'm not happy about it and I do want those two cops to become unemployable. That's what I would like.

JONES (voice-over): The Bridgewater Township Police Department saying in a Facebook post: It knows the video of the incident has upset members of the community and is asking county prosecutors to conduct an internal affairs investigation. The Somerset County prosecutor's office internal affairs unit says it is investigating the fight itself and the police response to it.

JONES: The police department says it has received additional videos from members of the community and both the department and the prosecutor's office are asking anyone who has a video of the incident to get in touch with them.

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SOARES: And our thanks to Athena Jones for her reporting. Well, earlier Kye's mother and the family attorney spoke with CNN about how the teen was treated. Have a listen.

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EBONE: I hate to say this, but if it wasn't for race, then what is it? What made them tackle my son, not the other kid. What made them be so aggressive with my son, not the other kid? Why is the other kid sitting down looking at my son be humiliated and put into cuffs? It just doesn't make sense. That makes me angry.

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BEN CRUMP, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING FAMILY: Why was the black kid put in handcuffs, falsely detained and taken to the security facility while the white kid is allowed to leave scot-free when we know now that he's the initial instigator? It really troubles us and we have to take this to society. Because if we let this be swept under the rug it leads to what happened to Ahmaud Arbery. It leads to what happened to Trevon Martin. Where our kids are being profiled based on the color of their skin in the worst type of way.

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SOARES: Well, of course we will continue to follow this story and bring you any developments.

The cross examination got tense on Wednesday in the trial of three former police officers involved in George Floyd's death. One of them snapped at the prosecutor when she asked him why he did not intervene as Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd's neck. He said while using the knee to restrain suspects is taught at the police academy and he assumed other officers were taking care of Floyd while he was helping control the crowd. The three former officers are being tried on federal civil rights charges. They have pleaded not guilty.

And still to come right here on the show, with a number of violent airline passengers increasing in the U.S., some say they need to be grounded permanently. The fight over who should fly and who should not when we return.

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SOARES: A group of Republican Senators is pushing back at a suggestion to create a federal no fly list for unruly airline passengers. But more than 6,000 incidents involving violent and disruptive passengers have been reported in the U.S. since last year and flight crews say something has to change. CNN's Pete Muntean reports.

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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION AND TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Faced with a man trying to open the door of an American Airlines flight, court documents say the flight crew turned to a coffee pot to subdue him. Police have now charged 50-year-old Juan Remberto Rivas with interfering with a flight attendant. This, as even more unruly airline passengers are facing federal punishment.

The FAA is now handing 43 cases to the Department of Justice so it can bring charges against those accused of assaulting fellow passengers and flight crews, both physically and, in some cases, sexually. If found guilty, they could face jail time.

SARA NELSON, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS: The flight attendants who are working these flights have been punched, kicked, spit on, disrespected, and constantly under assault.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Sara Nelson, of the Association of Flight Attendants, says the numbers are off the charts. The now 80 total cases referred to the Justice Department make up only one percent of the 6,480 incidents reported by flight crews since the start of last year.

NELSON: Until we have people actually landing in jail and understanding that there's real consequences for acting out on a flight, we're not going to see these incidents go down.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Airlines have asked the Justice Department to keep unruly passengers from boarding flights in the first place, a move eight Republican senators say should be up to Congress to decide. In a new letter, they insist most unruly passenger incidents are related to the federal transportation mask mandate.

They say: Creating a federal no-fly list for unruly passengers who are skeptical of this mandate would seemingly equate them to terrorists.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says a no-fly list should be considered and more passengers should be put behind bars to keep numbers down.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: There is no acceptable level of unruly behavior on aircraft, especially when it is not only disrespectful but dangerous toward flight crews and other passengers.

MUNTEAN: There has not been much movement on an unruly passenger no- fly list from the Justice Department.

[04:55:00]

It says it is still consulting with relevant agencies, which leaves airlines to ban unruly passengers on their own. And the fear is that one airline could ban an unruly passenger who could still fly on a different airline completely unnoticed.

By the way, while there's this push to ratchet up punishment on those who step out of line onboard flights, there is also an effort to relax the restrictions. The Texas attorney general is now suing the Biden administration to end the transportation mask mandate set to expire on March 18th.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Reagan National Airport.

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SOARES: And I want to bring you this just in to CNN. Really our top story. The tensions between Russia and Ukraine and Russian troops amassing on the Ukraine's border. We've heard from the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who says that he will send his response U.S. on security guarantees today for this Thursday. That follows a meeting that Lavrov has had with his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio in Moscow.

Now what Lavrov has said is that we are finalizing our work on the American letter and we hope to send this letter back to the United States today.

He goes on to say -- and I'm quoting Lavrov here.

We shall publicize and make this letter public because we believe that the representative of civil society of our countries should understand the proposals of our country. If our colleagues in Washington and Brussels will not represent our point of view, then there will be lies and deception regarding the situation on the Ukrainian and Russian border.

Those words from Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, saying that Moscow will send its response to the U.S. on security guarantees today.

That does it for us on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Isa Soares in London. Our coverage of our top story, the Russian/Ukraine tensions continues on "EARLY START" with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.

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