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Pat Cipollone Set to Testify to January 6 Committee; Highland Park Gunman Admits to Firing on Crowd. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 06, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Victor is off today.

The suspected gunman in the Highland Park mass shooting admitted to opening fire on the Fourth of July parade. That's according to the Lake County state's attorney in the courtroom with the suspect today.

A judge denied bail for the 21-year-old alleged shooter, who has now been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC RINEHART, LAKE COUNTY, ILLINOIS, STATE'S ATTORNEY: Well, his statement was voluntary. He was questioned in the Highland Park Police Department. He was read his Miranda warnings, offered attorneys, et cetera.

He went into details about what he had done. He admitted to what he had done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The prosecutor also says the suspect was considering another mass shooting after fleeing the scene in Highland Park at yet another Fourth of July celebration, this one in Madison, Wisconsin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS COVELLI, LAKE COUNTY, ILLINOIS, SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Investigators did develop some information that it appears when he drove to Madison, he was driving around. However, he did see a celebration that was occurring in Madison. And he seriously contemplated using the firearm he had in his vehicle to commit another shooting in Madison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: CNN's Josh Campbell was at that news conference.

Josh, one of the most maddening things is that, once again, there were all sorts of red flags about this suspect that we're learning about well before Monday's attack, including a threat to kill other people. And yet he was able to buy guns easily. So how did prosecutors explain that?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alisyn.

We have learned an incredible amount of information in the last 24 hours. Police tell us that there were these two prior contacts with law enforcement back in 2019. Now, they say, in April, police went to the suspect's home. A family member said that the suspect had attempted suicide.

Police ultimately determined that this was not a policing issue, but the suspect was under the care of a mental health professional. Later that year, in September, police again called to that house. A family member has said that the suspect talked about wanting to kill all of his relatives.

Now, inside the house, there were a collection of knives, 16 knives, a dagger, a sword. Those were confiscated by police. The local police say that they then notified state police of this incident. They wanted to ensure that the suspect didn't have a permit to get a firearm.

But something happened. Either something went wrong or the system here is not equipped to deal with this kind of scenario, because a few months later, in December, after this police encounter, the suspect applied for a firearms permit. He was under the age of 21. So his father sponsored him and he was able to get that permit and obtain these weapons.

Obviously, a lot of questions there for the father. Why, after the suspect had had these encounters with police where, yes, he was potentially in a dangerous situation talking about harming people, why would the father then sponsor an application to get a firearm?

But we're told that he did get that application approved, he obtained those firearms, including that high-powered semiautomatic-style assault rifle that was allegedly used in this attack.

Now, I talked to -- I asked the state prosecutor just shortly after court adjourned here about that very fact, that, look, this is the same type of weapon system we continue to see time after time in mass shooting after mass shooting across the country. I asked him for his thoughts on this same weapon being used to conduct an attack here in his community.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RINEHART: The state of Illinois and the United States should ban these types of assault weapons. We had this ban from 1994 to 2004 with bipartisan support, bipartisan support.

There was a ban of these types of weapons between 1994 and 2004. Everything shows that these types of horrifying, devastating incidents went down during that time. My position as a public safety professional, as one of the many individuals responsible for the safety of the people in Lake County, we should -- we should have a statewide and national ban on assault weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: So he's obviously angry, this happening in his community, calling for that assault weapon ban.

Whether anything will actually transpire at the legislative level, we will have to wait and see -- Alisyn.

[14:05:03]

CAMEROTA: And so what happened in the courtroom today?

CAMPBELL: Well, this was chilling.

We were getting our first live look at this suspected gunman. I was in court for this initial hearing. He was coming in via Zoom into the courthouse. He's obviously being held in a detention center. But one thing that was just so chilling, Alisyn, is the prosecutors started the laying of the facts by reading the names of the victims, all seven victims who were allegedly killed by this gunman.

And the suspect stood there completely without a motion, unfazed. He looked around a couple of times. But as the prosecutors were laying out this allegation that he killed these seven people, you saw no emotion his face.

Now, we are told, based on what the judge actually determined, that, look, they believe this suspect remains a threat to the community, that there will be this denial of bail. The judge said, no, we're not letting him out. He will remain in bail.

There's another hearing that scheduled for later this month. But one final chilling detail that we learned -- and you and I, Alisyn, obviously cover so many of these mass shootings. It's hard to be surprised sometimes. But we learned this really chilling detail from law enforcement after that court hearing.

They said that, as the suspect was on the run after that July 4 parade attack, he drove up to the Madison area, saw a group of people engaged in a celebration, and contemplated using the remaining 60 rounds that he had in the vehicle to conduct a second attack.

Obviously, we don't know why he didn't do that. Only the suspect knows, but it just shows you just the depravity here of this individual to not only allegedly engaged in this attack here in Illinois, but then think about conducting another attack. He's obviously in custody now. The police say that there could be additional charges forthcoming in this case as their investigation continues -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK. Josh Campbell, thanks for the reporting.

Let's bring in now former firearms executive Ryan Busse. He's the author of "Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America." We also have Lake County criminal defense attorney Robert Deters. He is well-versed in the process of getting gun licenses in Illinois.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here.

Robert, I want to start with you, because you know about these gun licenses.

If you can be known to police as a clear and present danger, but still buy an AR-15, how does that work? How is that possible?

ROBERT DETERS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, thank you for having me on, Alisyn.

When a person in Illinois applies for a FOID card, as we call them, A Firearms Owner I.D. card., they send in their application. And that process then goes through a 40-step review process with 10 state and national databases that are looked at.

And during that time, the Illinois State Police has evaluators who do it by hand and by computer. So they're looking through the databases automatically and by looking at them themselves. And a clear and present danger report would revoke or deny a person's active application.

But what seems to have occurred here is because at the time that that clear and present danger report was made by Highland Park police, Mr. Crimo did not have an active application. The question becomes, when that clear and present danger report is then transmitted to the State Police, if they confirm that they do not have a FOID card or an active application, what do they do with it?

Do they dispose of it? Do they keep it in a database for future reference? It does not appear clear here that they either kept it or that they even determined that he would have been disqualified from getting a FOID card in the future.

CAMEROTA: I mean, it's just -- it's gobsmacking.

I mean, Ryan, is that a loophole there? It strikes me that if it's up to the parents to have to flag these things, if it's up to the parents to have to alert the State Police that their son is a clear and present danger, it's not going to work, because, as we have seen in this case, the father sponsored his application for a gun license.

RYAN BUSSE, AUTHOR, "GUNFIGHT: MY BATTLE AGAINST THE INDUSTRY THAT RADICALIZED AMERICA": Yes, I think this points out, look, just less than 20 years ago, we had virtually no AR-15s floating around in the general public.

We now have about 400 million guns in our society. As many as 35 or 40 million of them are AR-15s. There are as many as two to four million more being aggressively marketed into the commercial market to people like Mr. Crimo every day -- or every year. Sorry.

And it just brings to light, if we're going to have that sort of societal change, that sort of growth in firearms ownership and focus on firearms, we have to have the same sort of commensurate growth in regulations and funding regulations, making sure they work.

And I think this is a case in point where there are some regulations on the books to slow this down. But they're obviously not properly funded. They're not properly followed. We -- in other words, we haven't kept up with the change in society over the last 20 years, not even close.

[14:10:05]

CAMEROTA: Robert, after the local police got a report that this suspect wanted to kill everybody -- I think I'm quoting it accurately -- they went to his house, and they confiscated 16 knives and a sword and a dagger.

And, as we understand it from the police, his father later told them: Oh, those are mine. I was just keeping them in his bedroom for safekeeping. And the police returned those weapons to him. And then, again, the father sponsored his application to get a gun.

Is there any criminal liability, as you see it, for the father?

DETERS: I cannot actually envision any.

Two significant things occurred in that interaction with the Highland Park police. Mr. Crimo was not arrested nor charged. And as a result of that, an arrest or a charge would have created a hit in a legal law enforcement database that for future reference would have allowed the Illinois State Police to see this.

Because of that, the clear and present danger report alone was the only notification that would ever have gone to law enforcement. And I would also point out, going back to Mr. Crimo's previous suicidal ideation or threat or attempt that he had made, had he been hospitalized, that would also have created a flag for the Illinois State Police that -- when they would have reviewed his FOID application.

So there were two steps here, neither of which created any notifications that the Illinois State Police could look at. So, unfortunately, here, as for Mr. Crimo Sr., his father's liability, I honestly can't think of anything today, three years later, that he would be held responsible for.

The law is just as frustrating to all of us to have to hear about this thing happening, and three years later, is that Mr. Crimo was just not charged with a crime. There was nothing that the government was able to point to when his FOID application came across their desks.

CAMEROTA: In part because his family didn't want to charge him with anything. And his family didn't want him to have to go to the hospital.

And here again, I mean, I think that if it's up to -- if we're relying on parents, we're in trouble, because parents, just by definition, protect their children and say, it's not as bad as you think, when the police get here. Let me play for you, Ryan, what Minority Leader Senator Mitch

McConnell just said at an event in Kentucky about what he blames.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): The core of this problem is not the Second Amendment. The core of this problem is the mentality of the people who commit the crimes.

And we have got this troubling example of these young men. And we tried in this legislation to target additional resources at mental health and crisis intervention to try to prevent some of these things from happening, because the only way you prevent it is to identify them in the past, before the event occurs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Ryan, what's your response to that?

BUSSE: Well, I think Minority Leader McConnell doing his best to deflect there, but, of course, we have problems with people. That's the whole issue. We live in a society full of people.

And if you have very, very troubled people, I don't think providing them, especially young, troubled men, and sometimes teenagers, with very easy access to the same guns that we have designed to be the ultimate offensive arm in war, a killing tool, that -- just a reasonable, complex democracy cannot exist that way.

And so for Leader McConnell to say those sorts of things and deflect away from the fact that those -- that there are troubled people, of course, but that we're providing them very easy access now to millions of guns, and then incendiary marketing from the firearms industry to encourage them to do this, I mean, I would say it's laughable, except it's obviously not a laughing matter.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it's tragic.

Brian, I -- I only have -- I mean, sorry. Robert, I only have a few seconds left. What's the answer? I mean, you deal with this every day. What's the solution?

DETERS: The difficulty here is that the people who were the closest to him that could have provided him to help missed it, and they didn't do so.

We can't easily always look backwards and say that there's a good answer here. Highland Park police couldn't charge him if the family wasn't willing. The family couldn't force him if he was an adult to be involuntarily hospitalized unless there were extenuating circumstances.

This is the difficulty of these laws. They work when people work with them. And we need to encourage people to take those steps to move forward and engage with the law, inform them of the law, and give them the courage to use them. [14:15:08]

CAMEROTA: Ryan Busse, Robert Deters, thank you very much for your expertise.

Well, authorities have identified six of the seven victims killed in the mass shooting, including a couple whose 2-year-old son survived and is now an orphan.

Plus, former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone has agreed to testify in front of the January 6 Committee. What does this mean for Donald Trump? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: The January 6 Committee struck a deal with former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone. So, this Friday, he will testify before the panel in a videotaped interview behind closed doors.

[14:20:02]

The committee also announced the next hearing, its seventh, will be on Tuesday, July 12. And the focus will be on the connections between the Trump White House and the extremist groups that attacked the Capitol.

CNN's Ryan Nobles is on Capitol Hill.

So, Ryan, just remind us why Pat Cipollone's testimony is so crucial to the whole investigation.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, this is someone that was at the center of everything that was happening at the White House after the election in 2020, right up until January 6.

And from what we have already heard from other witnesses, he was someone that was working very hard to prevent the former President Donald Trump and his top aides from making mistakes that could be potentially dangerous and even illegal.

For instance, he can talk about what was happening in the Oval Office on January 6. He could also talk about his efforts to push back on Donald Trump installing a puppet attorney general that would look into these thin claims of voter fraud.

He also can talk about Jeffrey Clark's meeting with the White House on Georgia. That was during that period of time where the former president was trying to convince the Georgia secretary of state to intervene in the election results. And he also warned about the language that was going to be used in the former president's speech on January 6.

Cipollone's name came up over and over again during Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony. So there's no doubt that what he has to say is going to be an important part of this investigation. There is a concern, Alisyn, about privilege issues, both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege. The committee has said that they will work around that. But there is

the real possibility that they could ask him some questions that he just won't answer. Now, Cipollone's deposition is scheduled to take place on Friday. That's before the next hearing on Tuesday, which you already mentioned will be about the domestic extremist groups and their ties to the White House.

Perhaps Cipollone's testimony works into that as the committee hopes to ask him a lot of questions about what he knows was happening in the White House in that period between the election and up to January 6 -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Also, Ryan, Trump's former deputy press secretary has agreed to testify at an upcoming hearing.

So what information does the committee think she has?

NOBLES: Well, Sarah Matthews is another one of these individuals that was in the White House on January 6 and has a very distinct understanding about what was going on.

Matthews, of course, is someone that was pretty loyal to Donald Trump for a very long time.She worked under Kayleigh McEnany, who was the press secretary at that time. But unlike McEnany and others, she quit the White House shortly after January 6, and expressed her disgust with what happened there.

She also rushed to the defense of Cassidy Hutchinson shortly after her testimony, saying that what she had to say was true and also pushing back on claims that Tony Ornato, the former deputy chief of staff who through -- through intermediaries refuted part of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony.

So she is another one who is at the center of all of this and could speak to exactly what was happening in the White House on January 6, something that we know, Alisyn, is of great interest to the committee.

CAMEROTA: OK, Ryan Nobles. Thank you very much for all of that reporting.

Let's bring in Harry Litman. He's a former U.S. attorney and a legal columnist for "The L.A. Times."

OK, so let's start with Pat Cipollone.

Great to have you here, by the way.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: He's obviously a key witness.

Is there anything, legally speaking, that he would be prohibited from sharing?

LITMAN: Well, he's going to try to -- and they have already negotiated this -- to steer around down-the-middle attorney-client stuff, but that's OK.

He is a greatest hits package of crazy statements by Donald Trump. He's the one who says to Mark Meadows, if you do this, you will have blood on your effing hands. He's the one who says to Mark Meadows about Pence, you have got to stop it. And Meadows says, you have heard him. He thinks the rioters are right.

He's the one who has to go to Cassidy Hutchinson, a 25-year-old, and plead with her because Meadows won't speak to him: Please try to keep him from going to the Capitol. He's the one who says, if I go to the Capitol, it will be every effing crime imaginable.

Now, they have negotiated it out. And probably what he wants is to be able to say he's not piercing the attorney-client privilege. But all these statements that I just said to you, Trump's nowhere around. So, attorney-client has to be with the client and for the purpose of getting legal advice.

So he's got tons to say without that. And he figures -- as Ryan was saying, he's in the middle of everything.

CAMEROTA: Also, it's interesting this will not be public. It's behind closed doors, but it will be transcribed.

Do you think that that's freeing in some ways? I mean, do you think they -- would you expect them to get more out of him because of that or less?

LITMAN: The same.

My sense is, he was very conscious of the dignity of the office of the presidency. So they cut a deal where he doesn't want to be part of a sort of circus atmosphere, but it's going to be videotaped. It's going to be no holds barred. And he knows that. It's just a way of trying to protect against future inroads, supposedly, on the White House counsel.

[14:25:01]

CAMEROTA: This other witness that we're now hearing about, Sarah Matthews, she resigned after January 6 because she was so disturbed by what she saw on that day.

Is there anything that you think we should look for in her testimony?

LITMAN: Well, she's -- I mean, she's like Cassidy Hutchinson, right? There are a handful of people, solid Trump servants, who nevertheless are like, what is going on here? This is supposed to be America.

Now, it was pretty RYE:, everything that we were hearing about what was going on with the potential riot. We know that started on the 3rd.

Oh, one quick other thing about Cipollone, he's right in the middle of the White House meeting. He calls the Jeffrey Clark letter the suicide pact, murder and suicide pact. Anyway, so back to her.

Yes, she is one of several. But I don't think it was a big secret what was going on in the White House during those days and where Trump was.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's shift now to the Fulton County, Georgia, investigation into President Trump...

LITMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... trying to sway the outcome there.

So here are the people who have been subpoenaed. And we know we recognize these faces, including Rudy Giuliani and including Senator Lindsey Graham, which is interesting, I mean, a sitting U.S. senator.

So his attorney has just put out a statement basically saying this: "Fulton County is engaged in a fishing expedition and working in concert with the January 6 Committee in Washington. Any information from an interview or deposition with Senator Graham would immediately be shared with the January 6 Committee. Senator Graham plans to go to court, challenge the subpoena and expects to prevail."

Now, we -- I don't think we have any evidence that Fani Willis is sharing information. I know she's spoken to the January 6 Committee. I don't know that she's sharing her criminal investigation with them.

But in any event, what do you think of that?

LITMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Will he prevail, as they say?

LITMAN: So, nothing -- nothing would be wrong -- and, yes, that's what you do when you investigate. You actually cast a wide net.

And she's casting a very wide one. You might have thought she'd have zeroed in on the January 2 conversation between Trump and Raffensperger. No, she's starting all the way back November 13, when Graham is pushing on Raffensperger, who, by the way, has already testified here.

So it's a sort of he said/he said situation. I think all of these people are going to challenge the warrant, but I don't think they will win. Then they're going to have to show up. And now -- and then we will hear about -- and it could be a while until it happens -- Fifth Amendment.

He might claim, but it wouldn't fly, legislative privilege and the like. But she's casting a wide net.

CAMEROTA: Does this one have more implications for Donald Trump?

LITMAN: Well, I think it's rarely clear he's the unspoken guy. If these warrants were an indictment -- and they're not -- the sort of, in prosecutor-speak, individual number one would be Trump. He is the center, the unspoken partner in each and every one of these things.

She is -- clearly has him in her crosshairs. Now, let me just say, if and when she brings charges, we're going to have again all kinds of legal issues. It could take years. But I think -- and I have thought this for months -- she's the one who is -- most seriously has him in her sights to charge.

CAMEROTA: Harry Litman, we're going to need you on retainer, so stick around.

(LAUGHTER)

LITMAN: All right.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for being here.

LITMAN: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: OK, a father died shielding his toddler from gunfire, and a mother died fleeing with her 22-year-old daughter.

We're going to go back to Highland Park to hear from the families who've lost loved ones.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:30:00]