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Retreat of Russian Forces Reveals Atrocities in Kyiv Region; Senate Judiciary Hearing on Ketanji Brown Jackson Nomination; Russia Revises War Strategy to Focus on Eastern Ukraine. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 04, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Today, a critical vote on Capitol Hill. Right now, the Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting to consider advancing the Supreme Court nomination of Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. We're going to listen in live as those statements from the senators, we see them gathering there, get underway.

A very good Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

We do want to begin with our top story this morning and that is new eyewitness evidence of Russian soldiers slaughtering civilians on the streets of a town just outside the capital, Kyiv, in Ukraine. This morning, we saw Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in that town, Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, the most horrifying scenes of this. Zelenskyy is now accusing Russia of carrying out a genocide in his country. He said it will be, quote, very difficult for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia in the wake of these brutal attacks.

A warning, the images we are about to show are graphic, but we feel it's important to show the evidence here. This is what remained in Bucha after the Ukrainian forces regained control of the region and Russian forces withdrew. Bodies in the streets laying, left in the streets, as you see them there, dozens buried in a mass grave that our own team witnessed with its eyes and its cameras. Russian officials claim this is all staged.

We're learning the European Union is establishing a joint investigation now with Ukraine to look into evidence of possible war crimes. And the U.S. has plans to help the Ukrainian military in its fight against the ongoing Russian invasion to get Russian-made tanks, like the one seen here, that's a T-72 tank, standard Russian battle tank. That transfer is expected to come from NATO allies to Ukraine, not weeks but in days, I'm told.

CNN Anchor Brianna Keilar joins us now live from Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Brianna, we've used this word at times, Russia terrorizing the civilian population of Ukraine. We've seen it with aerial attacks certainly. Now, we're seeing evidence of face-to-face attacks on the ground in Bucha, just horrifying, horrifying eyewitness accounts.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and apparently indiscriminate. What we hear from officials there is it didn't matter if it was an elderly person or if it's a woman with a child or if it was a teenager. And you heard from President Zelenskyy visiting Bucha, and there's a reason he visited this site, because it is particularly horrific, talking about, it may be difficult to negotiate after this. Clearly possible that this, what we're seeing, these horrific images, are just going to harden the resolve of Ukrainians even more.

We've seen images of bodies on the streets in Bucha almost sprinkled about on one of the main thoroughfares there, some of them with their hands tied behind their back, killed, execution-style. They're wearing civilian clothes. And then there's a mass grave that was dug by a church. Our Fred Pleitgen has been there. He has seen it and talked to us about what officials there are saying.

The estimates of how many bodies are in this mass grave that was used by people there in Bucha during the Russian invasion, they vary. I heard from the mayor earlier who said there was up to 290 bodies that were inside of this mass grave. Here's what he told me.

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MAYOR ANATOLY FEDORUK, BUCHA, UKRAINE: There are different kinds of people, many children, many teenagers, these were children. They pose no threat to the Russian troops, Russia as a whole.

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They did pose absolutely no danger. And it was impossible not see that they were children, not see that a mother is carrying a child. And this cynical atrocities is what the Russian troops are all about. That's what Russia is all about. And we shall never forgive them. They will never be forgiven on this earth or in heaven.

KEILAR: Mayor, how worried are you that Bucha is just the beginning, that we're going to be seeing this in other towns and cities?

FEDORUK: So, based on what we have seen, what the occupiers, what the Russian occupiers have done here, I think we can expect to see the same picture on the entire territory from Kyiv to Mariupol and Kherson. This will happen everywhere where the Russian occupier has stepped in.

And they cannot make progress militarily. The Ukrainian Armed Forces stopped them. So, they are torturing civilians. And this is how they are performing. This is the so-called de-Nazification that the Russian president, Putin, mentioned, but it's actually dehumanization.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: So, this morning, Jim, Bucha seems unique. It stands out for these horrific images that were seen. But the concern of officials is that actually it is not. Keep in mind, what we're seeing today did not happen today. It has happened here over the last weeks. It is only just being revealed. We heard from Petro Poroshenko, the former president, who said, do not be mistaken, Bucha is not alone. He, in particular, is calling for an international mission to come and photograph and document these atrocities, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And it's a military playbook that Russia has followed before, not just in Ukraine, but in Syria, Chechnya, going back more than 20 years. Brianna Keilar, thanks so much.

We do want to go to Capitol Hill where hearings are underway for the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. This is Dick Durbin. He's the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat from Illinois. Let's listen in.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): -- former federal prosecutors, Republican- appointed judges and even more have vouched for her intellect, her intelligence, her ability to build consensus and her even handedness.

On the fourth day of hearing, the American Bar Association came before us. They went through a laborious search of her record. I want to commend the law schools, including the University of Illinois, that pored through every written word that the judge has issued in her time on the bench.

I also want to commend Judge Anne Williams, the former northern district court judge in the state of Illinois and then a seventh circuit judge as well who headed up the ABA committee. I asked her and those who were with her from the American Bar Association a basic question. Who did you talk to? And they said they reached out to over 250 individuals, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, co-counsels and adversarial situations, and asked them all to tell off-the-record confidentially what they thought of this judge.

I asked about the allegation that's been made repeatedly by a few in this committee that she's soft on crime. They said there was no evidence, none, when they spoke to the group of 250 individuals. The net result of it, the American Bar Association rated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson unanimously well qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.

We've seen the evidence of her even handedness ourselves. In her time on the bench, she has ruled for and against law enforcement, for and against immigration enforcement, for Republican administrations and also for Democratic administrations, for and against labor groups. At her hearing, she detailed the methodology she applies to ensure that she comes to each case with an independent mind.

Frankly, I found her explanation far more insightful than if she had invoked contemporary labels to describe her judicial philosophy. Her methodology is one that promotes fairness, independence and judicial restraint. It's reflected in her decision-making. In short, Judge Jackson showed us she's committed to equal justice under the law and ensuring the Constitution works for all Americans, not just the wealthy and powerful.

I was also impressed with her judicial temperament. On the whole, my Republican colleagues, starting with my ranking member, Senator Grassley, treated the nominee with dignity and respect. They promised not to turn this confirmation process into a, quote, circus and most kept that process. Some, however, did not. Instead, they repeatedly interrupt and badgered Judge Jackson and accused her of vile things in front of her parents, her husband and her children.

There was table pounding, some literal, from a few of my colleagues. They repeated discredited claims about Judge Jackson's record.

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They impugned motives and questioned her candor, one all but called her a liar. They even suggested Judge Jackson, a mother to two wonderful daughters, quote, endangers children. Judge Jackson is a better person than me. She stayed calm and collected. She showed dignity, grace and poise. It is unfortunate that some moments in our hearing came to that.

But if there's one positive to take away from these attacks on her, it is that the nation saw the temperament of a good, strong person ready to serve on the highest court in the land. President Biden assured the American public he would select a nominee who is, quote, worthy of Justice Breyer's legacy of excellence and decency, someone extremely well qualified with a brilliant legal mind, with the utmost character and integrity.

Judge Jackson herself characterized Justice Breyer's legacy as one of, quote, the highest level, and that's what we saw in this room last week. Rather than simply another Justice Breyer, she will be the one and only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. And Justice Jackson will bring to the Supreme Court the highest level of skill, integrity, civility and grace.

Throughout its history, this Senate Judiciary Committee has been the venue for some of our nation's most significant issues, debates and nominees. I've often thought that if you had to choose one place to stand and witness the march of America, the noble and ignoble struggles of our democracy, I would seek out a chair in this room.

Today's vote is such a moment. This committee's action today is nothing less --

SCIUTTO: Been listening to Senator Dick Durbin there. He is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee there, commenting as that committee prepares to advance the nomination of Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the full Senate and then on to the Supreme Court. It does appear they have the votes there. Dick Durbin calling this the march of America, a sign of it.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN Legal Analyst Joan Biskupic, Gloria Browne-Marshall, a civil rights attorney and constitutional law professor, also the author of She Took Justice, The Black Woman Law in Power.

If I could begin with you, Gloria, on that point, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the first African-American woman to advance to the highest court in the land. What does that mean for you? What does that mean for the country?

GLORIA BROWNE-MARSHALL, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: I think it means, for me, that we have someone on the court who can bring to that high office the experiences of a black woman. We experience all of the ups and downs of life, but in addition, we have these obstacles that we overcome regarding gender bias and racial bias. We also in the history in this country in which we have been able to achieve, despite, in spite of all that we have to face, and I think that's important.

When she's looking at these cases, involving litigants who are looking to the court to determine their future, I think she's going to take into account not just those individuals but how it is to fight against the wind and still want this country to see the case for what it is before the court and not be prejudiced. And someone who has faced prejudice, it means taking that away, that they're going to see clearly what the law has to bear on their cases and not through some rose-colored glasses.

SCIUTTO: Joan Biskupic, you covered the court for a number of years. This has not change the liberal-conservative balance in the court given that she's replacing Breyer, so it remains 6-3. So, how does this court, given all that it has before it in the coming months, key decisions on abortion rights, on perhaps gun control legislation measures, voting rights, you name it, how does this affect the balance of that court, if at all, going forward, those cases?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Jim, you're exactly right, that just in a superficial way, she's adding a liberal for a liberal, but don't discount her distinct background and her youth. Gloria nicely laid out obviously her historic nature as the first black woman added to this court, but she has distinctive experience as a trial judge matched only by Justice Sotomayor, who's currently sitting there. She has the unique experience as a federal public defender and then there's someone who's going to come on this court at only age 51. She's replacing someone who's 83. So, you're looking at a woman who's joining this court and will have likely a three-decade legacy for the American people and for American law.

And you mentioned voting rights and you mentioned abortion rights. Those cases will be resolved, some of them, by the end of this session with Justice Breyer but there's a big to be continued part of them.

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And we have racial affirmative action and higher education that new Justice Jackson will sit on.

And, you know, Chief Justice John Robert once said that, you know, a new justice can make you think differently about cases, can challenge some of your assumptions, and I think we might see that with Judge Jackson.

Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, just referred in his opening remarks, Jim, as you heard, to how the temperament was really tested during those hearings and how the public has responded to her. There's a huge favorable rating for this nominee that is standing in contrast to where Republicans are ready to oppose her, but I think that she can have an effect even though as you rightly say, Jim, just at the outset, she's not going to be able to do more than just replace another liberal on this court, but she could somehow enhance that wing with her distinct approach.

SCIUTTO: Manu Raju, the committee stage of this likely will be an 11- 11 tie, no Republicans supporting the advancement of a nomination. But given Democratic majorities in the Senate, it will continue onward and she'll get the votes if she has at least one Republican with Susan Collins right now. But it has taken on what we've seen with so many Supreme Court nominees these days. They used to get large majorities, the Senate giving the president leeway to make these appointments. We don't see that anymore. Are there other Republican votes in play though?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The only really two Republicans who could potentially vote yes on Judge Jackson are Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, this after Susan Collins, the main Republican, announced last week that she would support this nomination.

Murkowski voted for Jackson last year when she was nominated for the D.C. Circuit. She has not said how she would come down now. Murkowski is up for reelection in the fall potentially. That could have an influence on how she thinks about things. She says it does not but we'll ultimately see. She said as of late last week, she was still reviewing the nomination.

Romney voted against Jackson but he has kept open the option of supporting her. And so we'll have to look and to see. Tonight could be one key clue of that. After this deadlock tonight in the 11-11 vote in this committee, then it goes to the floor where there will be so- called discharge petition to actually move the nomination to the Senate floor. That's a procedural vote.

But Romney and Murkowski, how they would vote there will be a big clue about how they ultimately will vote on the final confirmation. So, the question ultimately here is, Jim, does she get confirmed with the 51- 49 vote, which would be tied to the closest margin ever in history for a Supreme Court nominee, that was Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, what was it, 52-48 or 53-47 by the end of the week. There's no question about this though, she's going to have the vote and she will ultimately be confirmed.

SCIUTTO: Well, Mitt Romney twice bucked his party, right, in the impeachment trials, voting to convict Trump not once but twice, the one Republican senator to do that there. But this is, of course, a different process as well.

We were watching Chuck Grassley there. He is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Manu Raju, Joan Biskupic, Gloria Browne-Marshall, thanks so much to all of you. We will continue to follow these hearings and the progress of the vote all week.

Still ahead this hour, CNN's Christiane Amanpour shows us what the scene is like in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city in the northeast of the country, very close to the Russian border. It's now a virtual ghost town as Russia refocuses on the east and the south. Plus, Ukrainian refugees appearing at the southern border of the U.S., details on what's holding up their entry there.

And later, Vladimir Putin congratulates Hungary's prime minister for winning a fourth term. Is Putin hoping for deeper ties, perhaps some support in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine? We'll watch.

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SCIUTTO: Repelled around the area around the capital, Kyiv, as Russia turns its attention away from there to eastern Ukraine to south, there is an intense fear setting for residents of Kharkiv, that is the country's second largest city in the northeast of the country. The city close to the Russian border, as we mentioned, has seen intense fighting, intense bombardment since the invasion began. Just look at the pictures there.

CNN's Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour shows that in recent days, artillery fire has now become a constant.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: It's literally almost like a ghost town. Now, this is the second biggest city. We're just panning the camera around to show you, these are the main roads in the center of the city and everything that we can see is boarded up. You might be able to hear a little in the distance. We've been hearing crump, crump of incoming and some outgoing artillery literally ever since we've been here.

We're not exactly sure what the destination is. We saw a little bit of evidence this morning in a residential neighborhood of a mortar shell that hit last night. And according to the authorities here, just in that neighborhood, there was something like 34 casualties and seven deaths. That's just in one Sunday afternoon in one residential neighborhood.

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SCIUTTO: So many windows into the suffering of the civilian population of Ukraine.

Joining us now to discuss, Steve Hall, CNN National Security Analyst, he's a former CIA chief of Russia Operations based in Moscow. Steve, good to have you on this morning.

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STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So, we hear outrageously Russian officials today claiming that all this we've seen from Bucha, not just the videos, the pictures but our own teams there, eyewitness accounts, people who live there, that they were all somehow faked by Ukrainians, which then requires you to imagine that all of Russia's attacks on civilian targets, including in a place like Kharkiv were fake. Is that for an international audience or domestic audience, primarily, those claims?

HALL: I think it's probably a little bit of both, Jim. Certainly, the domestic audience, and if you've been on Twitter recently and you can see some of the interviews that individuals are taken just individually in the street with Russians that are walking, they have bought hook line and sinker into this narrative that this is de- Nazification, that there's no innocents being killed, that this is all necessary and quite successful, because they are the ones who are the primary consumers of Putin's propaganda.

But it does have an impact in the west as well because Putin and the Kremlin, of course, have learned for -- have known for years now after they've learned it, that in the west, we are typically a more fair- minded legalistic society, and so we'll say things like, well, I don't know, maybe there's another side of this story, maybe we should take a look. Now, a lot of that is belied by not only correspondents on the ground but also just individuals with telephones mapping and photographing what's really happening. So, I think it's a little bit of both, Jim.

SCIUTTO: We are seeing now movements of Russian forces away from Kyiv. That's why Ukrainians were able to move in, for instance, to that suburb Bucha, as we reported last week, part of a tactical shift by Russia to focus its military operations for now in the east and the south, perhaps leading up to having something to claim as a victory by May 9th, which is Victory Day in Russia.

What would Putin claim as a victory? What could he claim as a victory? And would the Russian public accept it?

HALL: Yes. I think that there's really not a whole lot that Putin couldn't claim that the Russian public either wouldn't accept or in some cases pretend to accept, because there's a lot of Russians that understand having lived in Russia far long time that there really is another side to the story but they're smart enough to keep their mouths shut about it because speaking out will usually only get them in trouble.

But, yes, the focus on the east and the south, I think, may serve two purposes for Putin. As important historical celebrations happen in the coming weeks, it will be a good time for him to hold up the, quote/unquote, successes of this war, but it also might help him later on down the road if there's a negotiation that involves some sort of partition of Ukraine, where they take the eastern and southern parts in addition to what they've already taken in Crimea in exchange for perhaps not destroying the rest of the country or keeping the world going for ten more years.

So, it will be interesting to see which of those cards he plays. It might be both.

SCIUTTO: You spend many years in Russia. You have read the intel reports on Russia for many years. There is thinking from the west that this weakens Putin, the economic cost that its population is bearing, the cost of himself, to major Russian companies, the embarrassment, really, of the Russian military in Ukraine. Do you agree this has weakened his hold on power there or is it your view that his hold on power is still strong, he pulls all the strings?

HALL: You know, it's -- I don't think it's not necessarily a mutually exclusive question. I think he is weaker. Certainly, a lot of supporters in the west or a lot of sort of on the fencers in the west who would say, well, we have to take into account Putin's concerns, so forth and so on, a lot of that has been belied by all the lying and all the vicious attacks that we're seeing in Ukraine.

In terms of the Russian people, he always has the capability and knowledge and understanding as to how to best repress them. But that said, Russia is in considerably worse of a situation than it has been in many years. And I think that's going to catch the attention not only of the man on the street but more importantly those closer to the levels of power, like the (INAUDIBLE), these military security elites, and also, to a certain extent, the oligarchs.

SCIUTTO: Bigger picture than from the perspective of folks watching right now at home. Is this, in your view, as many are observing now, bigger than Ukraine, that there's no turning back, in effect, that the relationship between Russia and the world has been fundamentally changed here, that attempts to bring Russia into international organization, some sort of working relationship, diplomatically, economically, et cetera, is over, and that we are, in effect, building back up the Berlin wall, 1989, building back up, if not the Soviet Union, a country, a leader that behaves in those terms again?

HALL: Yes, we could probably chat about that for a good 45 minutes. All of that I think is true. It's really interesting that prior to this war, there was sort of -- again, sort of an understanding in the west that, okay, Putin is going to misbehave.

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He's like the bad next door neighbor that you have to complain about every once in a while. But this has changed everything.