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Interview with Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto about Finland's NATO Membership; 1995 Arrest Warrant in Emmett Till Case Found in Court Basement; Court Artist Who Drew Justices for 45 Years Retires. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 01, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:31:17]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: This morning WNBA star Brittney Griner is in a Moscow court for her first trial hearing after being accused by Russian authorities of smuggling drugs into the country. Griner has now spent the last 130 days in a Russian jail. Officials there have now extended her detention for six months pending the outcome of this trial. The State Department we should note has said Griner has been, quote, "wrongfully detained."

Last night CNN's Abby Phillip sat down with Griner's wife for an exclusive interview. She said the U.S. government needs to do more to free Griner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHERELLE GRINER, WIFE OF DETAINED WNBA STAR BRITTNEY GRINER: The rhetoric and the actions don't match. You know, when you have a situation where BG can call our government, the embassy 11 times and that phone call don't get answered, you don't have my trust at that point until I see actions that are in BG's best interest. It would have been in her best interest for her phone call to have been answered. It would have been in her best interest for her to be back on U.S. soil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: An American held in Russia. We're going to continue to cover this story, bring you any developments as we learn them.

Well, Ukraine says at least 20 people were killed, including two children after Russian missiles initially designed as anti-ship missiles hit a residential building and recreation centers in the Odessa region of the country. This same type of ammunition, Russian forces used when they hit a mall in Kremenchuk on Monday.

The attacks come just after Ukraine did retake the strategically important Snake Island in the Black Sea. Russia claims it withdrew as a gesture of good will but it followed intense fighting there.

This morning Russian forces also said they have made gains around the embattled city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine saying they took a key oil refinery there. Well, this week, big development at the NATO summit in Madrid. NATO

formalized its invitation to Sweden and Finland to now join the alliance. It's a notable expansion of the defense bloc that directly undercuts Russian President Vladmir Putin's aims as his war in Ukraine grinds on.

I sat down with the Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, in Madrid to discuss that decision and his concerns about a broader war in Europe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Do you believe Turkey, like other NATO members, came around because of the severity of the threat from Russia?

PEKKA HAAVISTO, FINNISH FOREIGN MINISTER: I think that's one thing. And then the second issue of course is the overall very wide support that Sweden and Finland has been getting from other NATO members. We have been meeting a lot of senators from the U.S. We can say that senators really pushing the things. It's one of the bipartisan issues in U.S. and in many countries. The parliaments have started to being already with this issue and I think the pressure was there. And we really appreciate actually what the other countries have been doing for this.

SCIUTTO: Finland has resisted NATO membership for decades. You know, Finlandization, right, it's a verb. To maintain neutrality. What changed for Finland?

HAAVISTO: Well, of course Finnish neutrality, now we're thinking ended when we joined the European Union for the political positions taken by European Union of course. No more neutrality. But for us, the NATO membership, actually the support started from the 24th of February and we saw that the security architect of Europe is broken. This security architecture cannot prevent war in Europe.

We have been always true believers of Helsinki Final Act it always seemed. We had observers in the eastern Ukraine and so forth. And all that was gone in one day.

[13:35:08]

SCIUTTO: Is war in Europe beyond Ukraine a genuine possibility?

HAAVISTO: Well, of course it's a possibility. And that's why it's so important to support Ukraine at the moment because if Ukraine is losing then this spur of interest can spread from Ukraine to other countries, and I think it's very important that we support Ukraine at this moment.

SCIUTTO: Can Ukraine win?

HAAVISTO: Well, with the support of the international community, they can maintain the situation and in that sense they can win this battle. I think they are of course morally on the high ground. They are very united. This has been -- the war has been atrocious of course to (INAUDIBLE), unite the country and opinion in the country. But they need our support.

SCIUTTO: Do you believe the support has been too slow in some respects? I mean, Zelenskyy and others will say they are getting weapons but not enough and not quickly enough.

HAAVISTO: Maybe in the beginning there was this hesitation but if we send weapons, what will happen with those weapons? Ukraine will lose in week or weeks and so forth. And I think it was a surprise how strongly Ukrainians supported their sovereignty and independence and so forth. And then the countries like European countries started to move with the military support including Finland. We have prepared now our seventh package of military equipment to Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: It strikes me that Europe today is, the clock has been turned back 30 years. Right, you know, before the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, you know, you have a new -- you have a border again between Russia and Europe, and the border is longer now with Finland joining NATO. Is that -- how does that change? Is this a new reality, right, for Europe?

HAAVISTO: I think it's a new reality. I really think that the European security architects have been broken. We are in a new situation. It's a new kind of iron wall between Russia and the other countries. And of course it's based on the Russia's aggression against its neighbor Ukraine.

Nobody actually believed, even in Europe a couple of days before the Russian attack, everybody said this is crazy. This cannot happen. And it happened. And I think this has changed the security atmosphere. And of course the second issue is the loose talk about nuclear weapons, about chemical weapons. You know, back to the Cuban crisis, you know, of '60s on this nuclear talk. And this is one of the concerns of the Finns as well that yes, we have a strong traditional military. We have our F-35s coming and so forth. But what if we are threatened by unconventional weapons? This is a known as talk (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Finland foreign minister there speaking about his country's concerns about a broader war in Europe.

Coming up next, CNN speaks to the family of Emmett Till after a decade's old arrest warrant in his case was just discovered.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:43:00]

SCIUTTO: The family of Emmett Till is calling for justice and action nearly 70 years after the 14-year-old's murder. Till's brutal death helped spur the Civil Rights movement here in America. He was killed after a white woman accused the black teen of making advances toward her. His family recently discovered an unserved arrest warrant from 1955 for his accuser who is still alive today. They hope this will now lead to her arrest. CNN's Ryan Young joins me now. Ryan, what more can you tell us about

this warrant 67 years old? What happens next? Could an arrest be made now?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, that is the big question here. Can you only imagine the pain this family must be going through? They've been searching for justice for more than 60 years. And when you think about this, it was the Emmett Till Family Foundation that was in the basement of a courthouse that was searching for documents and then they found what they considered a dusty, dank box.

They opened it up and they found this warrant in the inside. It had three names on it. They want to see the woman who has her name still on this arrested because obviously years later, they have never gotten the justice they wanted to get. In fact, two of the family members talked to our Sara Sidner just yesterday but as you can imagine, not only has this been painful but there was a little bit of joy in finding this warrant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH WATTS, EMMETT TILL'S COUSIN: We think this is evidence, this is new evidence that no one had ever searched for and we were able to find it. It was unbelievable. It was overwhelming. We all cried. We were also in a state of shock. Speechless in some instances. We just want justice served. Justice has been denied for 67 years. And it needs to be served.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Jim, when you think about that, the Justice Department has both -- two times gone into this and searched for records and tried to see if they could open a case here. And if you think about Emmett Till and just the fact that how powerful it was for this country. Those images that were posted in "Jet" magazine back in the day of his face after he was beaten and murdered and thrown in a river, you can understand why this family is still fighting, still looking for justice.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

[10:45:07]

YOUNG: The big question of course whether or not that woman who is in her 80s will ever be arrested. That's a question that legal scholars have been going back and forth. Maybe a judge will bring it into court, but right now no answers for that just yet -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Justice delayed. Delayed decades. Ryan Young, thanks so much.

Coming up next, he has gotten a rare view of history. For nearly half a century, the man behind many of the Supreme Court's most famous sketches shares the changes he's witnessed on the bench and his perspective on the legacy of the court moving forward.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:50:21]

SCIUTTO: A historic moment for the Supreme Court. It now officially has its first black woman justice. Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn in yesterday saying in a statement she was, quote, "truly grateful to be part of the promise of our nation." She is replacing Justice Stephen Breyer. He retired yesterday after nearly 30 years on the bench. But the man who drew these sketches of him, court artist Art Lien is also retiring now that this term is over. And he has Justice Breyer beat. He's been working at the court for 45 years.

It's a good start. Art Lien, it's good to have you on this morning.

ART LIEN, SUPREME COURT SKETCH ARTIST: Thank you. Good to be here.

SCIUTTO: You've been there for decades. Right? You've had a front row seat to one of the most consequential bodies in this land during consequential times. And I wonder as you retire after 45 years, what do you leave with? What's your sense of the court you're leaving with?

LIEN: Well, I'd have to say I'm kind of sad. You know, the court today is surrounded by a high fence. It's closed to the public and it's just, you know, it's sad to see the state things are in today.

SCIUTTO: Yes. We have a number of your drawings which we've been showing as you've been speaking there. I believe one of them is the first one you did back in 1977 when John Paul Stevens was actually a junior justice. Is the court -- I mean, you're aware of the protest outside, and you're aware of the divisions within. From your seat, do you find the court less collegial I suppose if that's the word today than it was when you started?

LIEN: I wouldn't say that. You know, I don't really know behind the scenes. Certainly when they're on the bench they make -- maybe they're making an effort or maybe it's genuine. But, you know, I do see Kagan and Kavanaugh or, you know, exchanging pleasantries and seem to be enjoying each other's company. And certainly Thomas is known to be very friendly to everybody in the court and knows the names of every employee.

So there is a sense of, you know, collegian? Whatever.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I hear you.

LIEN: You know.

SCIUTTO: I hear you.

LIEN: A friendly atmosphere.

SCIUTTO: Well, I know you've -- I understand have experienced that, too, that it's been mentioned that Neil Gorsuch I believe is the only justice who invited you into his chambers.

LIEN: Yes, after 45 years, I finally got invited. And I spent about an hour with him. The funny thing was when I -- the first thing he said when I came in, he said to me, I envy you which had me a little confused. And I don't know exactly what he meant by that except that he said it was because I was retiring. And here's a justice who's just come on the bench and just appointed for life. So I don't know if that's an indication that maybe it's not the greatest job. I don't know.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Interesting. Interesting. If that's confessional, perhaps.

LIEN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: You in your seat, right, you have a remarkable role, right, because the court considers some of the most crucial questions of our time. Serious issues, serious conversations. You're a court artist and you sometimes give serious images of those and sometimes give images with a little bit of a sense of humor here. I wonder, for folks watching, what don't they know about the court and how it's operated that you've learned through all the years you spent there?

LIEN: Oh, wow. What don't they know? That's a hard question for me to answer. I guess just because I'm so used to being there. I guess what they don't know is the changes. When I first came to the court in '77, in those early years, I'd go do the cafeteria in the morning and Justice Blackman would be sitting there with his clerks in the public dining room. Here is the author of Roe v. Wade. Can you imagine that happening today?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

LIEN: So there've been a lot of changes in the court. I don't have a lot of contact with the justices. I made -- we sketch artists are relegated to an alcove behind two rows of reporters and rows and rows of members of the bar.

[10:55:12]

So we're kind of off to the -- you know, to the side.

SCIUTTO: You've said -- before you go, you said that the work of sketch room artist is a dying art. Why do you believe that?

LIEN: Well, it's not used nearly as much as it used to be. You know, there used to be, I don't know, usually six artists. Today, I think, in D.C. it's basically one artist Bill Hennessy. Now, I'm retiring. So there just isn't that much use. Of course graphics have improved.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, and with more cameras in the courtroom, right. That's not our only visual. They're not yet the Supreme Court.

Art Lien, what a fantastic 45 years you served there. Thank you for your service. And we appreciate you joining us this morning.

LIEN: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Thanks so much to all of you for joining us this Friday. I'm Jim Sciutto reporting today from London. "AT THIS HOUR" with Kate Bolduan will start right after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)