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NYPD Says, Frank James Now Suspect in Brooklyn Subway Shooting; Giuliani Unlocks Phones Seized in Ukraine-Related Lobbying Case; Kremlin Critic Detained After Speaking Out Against Ukraine War. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired April 13, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

JANNO LIEBER, CHAIR AND CEO, METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY: They had tracked the vehicle to south Brooklyn. We were able to identify it with this video where he got on, pictures of him all over the Internet, his social media. The NYPD has made it clear, they know who the guy is and now they're on his tail, and we're very hopeful that they're going to identify him soon.

The bigger picture, though, we need the safety of our subway system back. The subway system is the lifeblood of New York. And we really need the mayor and the governor to be able to make good on the commitment they've made to subway safety. I know they're passionate about it. We are depending on that to happen.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: What do you need then for that to happen? Do you need cops at every station? Do you need to start checking people for weapons when they get on the train?

LIEBER: Well, listen, the systems are in place. There are a couple thousand cops who are assigned to the transit system in New York, which, as you know, Jim, it's the way people get around in New York. It's what makes New York possible.

So, I was asking for a long time during the de Blasio era, let's get the cops on the platforms and on the trains, like the old days, when you and I were growing up in New York, Jim. That is what riders want, it's where they feel vulnerable, it's where bad stuff happens generally.

So, the mayor has said to his police department that he wants cops on trains, like he used to do when he was a transit cop. He wants cops on platforms. That's what we need. We also want to see an upsurge in enforcement of our rules of conduct. Because if you enforce fair evasion at the fair gate, people don't try to jump the turnstile, if you make sure that people aren't using drugs or smoking and doing the other things that are creating a disorderly environment in the system, you catch a lot of criminals and you deter criminals from coming into the system. That's what we're looking for.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It's almost a broken window strategy for policing.

We did have the New York mayor on CNN this morning, and he referenced technology that could help. I want to play his comments and get your reaction to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NEW YORK CITY, NY): It's not as simple as a metal detector. It's more complicated and it's more modern than that. These devices, you do not even know they're there, and there are ways where you don't have to stop your flow. It's not like what you see at an airport where a person has to stop and empty their pockets. No. There are new technologies out there and I'm going to examine all of them to keep New York safe and particularly underground in our subway system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Can you talk about the technology he's talking about there? Short of metal detectors at every station, you can only imagine the disruption that would cause. Is there something that exists that we, watching right now, don't know about?

LIEBER: Clearly we're not going to have an airport-type metal detector type system given the fact that we have 3 to 5 million people on the subway every day. But I really welcome the mayor's commitment to technology. We have -- historically we want investment in modern resources in the system. We're doing that in so many ways, the signaling system, more trains, faster, safer closer together, but we also need the investment in security technology.

The fact that we have 10,000 cameras in the system in every station gives us an opportunity, in addition to what the mayor is thinking about, to start to look at patterns and pre-identify situations that might cause -- justify police intervention.

I'd like to see more use of the incredible camera system that we have installed in the system, together with the P.D. Lower Manhattan is monitored from an undisclosed location very, very thoroughly. There is no reason that we can't start to look at some of those ideas for more of the subway system.

SCIUTTO: Yes, a lot of that legacy of 9/11. Janno Lieber, thanks so much. We wish you good luck in all the work you've got to do.

LIEBER: You bet. Thanks, Jim.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN NEWSROOM: Well, joining us now for more on this is New York City Assembly Member Marcela Mitaynes. Her district includes Brooklyn Sunset Park where the shooting happened. Thank you so much for joining us.

Can you give me a sense of what your constituents are going through, who you've spoken with and what their biggest concerns are right now?

MARCELA MITAYNES, NEW YORK CITY ASSEMBLY: Yes. We've started reaching out -- thank you for having us here. We started reaching out to the families impacted. I'm happy to say that they're slowly being from the hospital. Everyone is just on edge. We're traumatized. We're coming out of a pandemic and trying to get back to life, get back to everyday activities, and it's just difficult. And so what happened yesterday is very alarming and very scary to a lot of people.

SCIUTTO: Marcela, you heard the MTA CEO there talking about the possibility of more cameras, better cameras like you have in Lower Manhattan to kind of keep a track at this, but also policing other behaviors on the subway below violent crime to help prevent broader crime or crime like we saw yesterday.

[10:35:12]

What do you believe is necessary to prevent something like this from happening again?

MITAYNES: We need to ensure that we're tackling the issue and the problem, and the problem is gun violence. This is something that is a national problem that's starting to trickle down into our communities.

It's clear we need a multi-facetted, effective, evidence-based public safety strategy. We can't return to the strategies in the past. They just have not been working. So, we need to include investments in violence prevention and interruption programs. There needs to be an abundance of mental health resources. We need full employment and guaranteed housing before New Yorkers lose their lives.

GOLODRYGA: Well, listen, you represent some of New York's best, hard workers that continue to go on that subway system throughout the pandemic. And as you noted today, with help from officials here, more funding, addressing some of your needs, they will be going back to work in the days and weeks ahead using that subway system again.

Marcela Mitaynes, New York State Assembly Member, thank you.

MITAYNES: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, federal investigators are getting some from Rudy Giuliani as they work to figure out if he violated foreign lobbying laws. What he did to move the investigation along, up next.

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[10:40:00]

SCIUTTO: CNN has learned that federal prosecutors may soon decide whether they will charge Rudy Giuliani for his foreign lobbying efforts involving Ukraine. They're investigating whether Giuliani broke the law when he tried to oust the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and urged -- you'll remember -- an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. This is also around the time the Trump administration delayed crucial military aid to Ukraine.

GOLODRYGA: And it ended up leading to an impeachment.

CNN's Kara Scannell joins us now.

So, Kara, I understand that Giuliani also agreed to help unlock some of his electronic devices seized by the FBI. Tell us more. KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so that's right. So, sources tell us that Giuliani met with prosecutors in recent weeks and helped them unlock three electronic devices of his and provided possible passwords for two others.

Now, these were part of the 18 devices that the FBI seized from Giuliani's home and office in that very public raid last April. Over the past year, prosecutors have been able to get in to a lot of these devices but there were some that they couldn't, and that's where Giuliani assisted.

Now, a special master that was appointed by the court, because Giuliani is an attorney, is filtering through all this material to separate anything that could have been attorney/client privilege. That process has been going on, and she has worked her way through this. But why this matters is that with Giuliani unlocking these additional devices, that could speed up this review process.

And so sources tell me that once this review process is complete federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan are expected to make a pretty quick decision about whether they're going to bring charges against Giuliani for these foreign lobbying efforts or if they close the investigation without charges.

Now, Giuliani's attorney, Robert Costello, tells us that if you're innocent, you don't have anything to hide and you don't want allegations of a criminal investigation hanging over your head, you do things, like giving passwords to electronic devices that we had no obligation to. He added, if we thought there was anything bad on those devices, we wouldn't do it. His actions speak louder than words.

Now, Costello also said that Giuliani has also offered to sit with prosecutors and have an interview with them, but there is no word yet about whether that will actually happen.

GOLODRYGA: I know you'll continue to follow the story for us. Kara Scannell, thank you.

Well, speaking out against Vladimir Putin in Russia can be dangerous. Doing so just landed opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza in jail. Up next, we'll talk to his wife about her husband's fight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:00]

GOLODRYGA: Russian Opposition Politician Vladimir Kara-Murza is in a Russian jail after speaking out against Putin in the war in Ukraine. Kara-Murza was arrested Monday outside of his home in Moscow. During an interview on CNN Plus, Kara-Murza denounced Putin's aggression.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION POLITICIAN: Well, I'll have to say one of the most frustrating and, frankly, enraging feelings that I and many other colleagues in the Russian opposition have been experiencing these last month and a half now since Putin has been waging his war of aggression in Ukraine is the fact that this was both predictable and preventable. Because for years and years and years, people like Boris Nemtsov, people like Alexei Navalny, people who are the leading members of the democratic opposition in Russia were warning the world, were warning the west about where this would lead because Vladimir Putin made no secret of his intentions from the very beginning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: This morning, the foreign Russian foreign minister said that it's Vladimir Kara-Murza's detention, not even the capture of a Putin ally in Ukraine, that he cared most about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREI KOZYREV, FORMER RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I don't care actually much about this guy. What I care about, Brianna, if you allow, is the arrest of Vladimir Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza is a real Russian hero. He speaks truth on every radio, every T.V. show he was on in Russia despite the danger, and he's now under arrest, and that should be the focus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Joining me now is Vladimir's wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza. She is also project manager for the Free Russia Organization. Evgenia, it's good to see you. I wish it was under better circumstances.

Let's talk about Vladimir. He is now in prison detention for 48 hours charged with disobeying police orders.

[10:50:00]

I know you spoke with him this morning. How is he doing?

EVGENIA KARA-MURZA, WIFE OF DETAINED RUSSIAN OPPOSITION POLITICIAN: Well, good morning, Bianna, and thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak out on behalf of my husband, who has been speaking out fiercely on behalf of so many oppressed Russians over the years.

I did speak to him this morning, and he sounded optimistic, as he usually does. And he said not to lose faith. He told me that we would prevail even if our path to freedom is much more dangerous, much harder, and, oh, my God, so much bloodier than we could ever have imagined.

In fact, as Vladimir said himself, Mr. Putin did not become a dictator overnight. We knew for years who Mr. Putin truly is. My husband has been in opposition to Vladimir Putin's regime since he came to power, and he has been fiercely advocating for targeted sanctions against murderers and thieves in Putin's regime since 2010.

His close colleague and friend, Boris Nemtsov, paid the ultimate price for this advocacy, because he was killed, shot dead on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in 2015. My husband was poisoned twice for this advocacy, and had to learn to walk and hold a spoon twice. Well, three times in his life, once when he was a baby.

And so we have known how Mr. Putin is for years, and we have been trying and trying to tell the world about it. And it's really tragic that it took over two decades and a bloody war that this murderer, this madman launched against our closest neighbors for the rest of the world to realize the true nature of Mr. Putin.

GOLODRYGA: Evgenia, you talk about you, your family, other opposition leaders dead or in prison, Boris Nemstov and Alexei Navalny now, speaking out against Vladimir Putin and knowing his true behavior. I'm just curious. Given that Russians themselves, Russian voters, for these past 22 years, got a sense of who their leader was too, and only recently were they disconnected from any objective media, any opinionated media and independent media.

I'm curious, are you concerned at all that perhaps your voices are the outliers and that the majority of Russians, many Russians, too many Russians do support Vladimir Putin support this war?

KARA-MURZA: Bianna, I would not trust state opinion polls conducted in a totalitarian state that Mr. Putin's Russia has become in less than a month. People deprived of free independent information, people oppressed by the regime are sometimes afraid to speak out, and sometimes they do speak out and get arrested and beaten up and thrown in prison and humiliated and tortured there.

Over 15,000 people have been arrested since the beginning of the war for speaking out against Putin's aggression in Ukraine. They come out in the streets despite the ever-increasing oppressive measures and repressive laws that were adopted daily, on a daily basis.

Under one such laws, you can get a 50-year prison sentence for calling this war a war and for actually -- for disseminating, as the Russian government calls it, fake news, but actually true information about Putin's army's atrocities in Ukraine.

So, I would not trust those opinion polls and I would trust those people who, despite all the fears, despite all the risks to their health and their lives, come out in the streets to protest. That's who I would trust. And I want to put my hopes in these people and in people like my husband and Alexei Navalny.

And, oh, my God, there are 442 prisoners in Russia nowadays, according to Russia's Memorial of Human Rights Center. That was shut down on the government's orders in late December of last year. 442 people are currently serving sentences in Russian prisons for their political views, for their political views and religious opinions. That's the number of political prisoners that we already have, and this number is growing because new criminal cases have been initiated every day.

GOLODRYGA: No doubt, every single one of those people you just referenced are extremely brave for speaking out in ways that no one can comprehend living in the western world just how much danger they're in by acknowledging what's reality. Evgenia Kara-Murza, I know it's very important to you that you speak out on behalf of your husband and you believe that's the key to his safety and his freedom.

[10:55:03]

Thank you so much for joining us, Evgenia. I do hope that he is free and back home with you and your family very soon.

KARA-MURZA: Thank you, Bianna. He will be free and he will be home and he will continue his fight.

GOLODRYGA: Thank you, Evgenia.

KARA-MURZA: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, thank you so much for joining us at home today. I am Bianna Golodryga.

SCIUTTO: Yes, so many stories like that one, people paying for their opposition with their freedom. I'm Jim Sciutto.

At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts right after a short break.

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