Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Uvalde Report Outlines Multiple Failures By Several Entities; Next January 6 Committee Hearing Airs Thursday In Prime Time; Bannon Shapes MAGA Narrative For Republican Party. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired July 17, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: All right, Camila Bernal, thank you so much.

All right, the next hour of the NEWSROOM starts right now.

[15:00:07]

All right, hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me.

I'm Fredericka Whitfield, and we're following breaking news on a damning new report into the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The report just released by the Texas House Investigative Committee found system failures and egregious poor decision making by multiple entities including law enforcement, the school, and the shooter's family.

The report describes a lackadaisical approach by authorities who responded to the scene. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in May when an 18-year-old gunman broke into the school and opened fire.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz and Rosa Flores joining me now from Uvalde.

Shimon, first you obtained this report. Tell us what you've learned.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so as you said, this lackadaisical response, they talk about in this report, how there was no command, there was no control. There was no leadership essentially, on the scene of the shootings. There was just truly chaos. Every officer sort of doing their own thing.

We're also learning what the Police Chief -- the School Police Chief Pete Arredondo told the Committee. He appeared before the Committee. He explained his thinking, he said, he, at one point didn't believe that there were any kids inside the school because it was Awards Day. What he said was that he looked at an adjacent room, room 110, and when he went in there, there was no one in there and that sort of made him think that perhaps there were no babies, what he says inside the room. And of course, we know, that was not the case.

He also describes how initially, his thinking was that this was an active shooter situation, but then what happens is he starts to believe that the subject, the gunman is barricaded, and that in order to rescue the other kids that are in the other classrooms, they needed to contain the gunman, kind of make sure he doesn't leave that room so that he can get the other kids out of the school.

And of course, the Committee notes that that was a mistake, that thinking was a mistake. They also talk about all the different law enforcement agencies that were on scene and the number of law enforcement officers, some 400 in total, by the end of the incident, specifically 149 Border Patrol agents. That's a large number, of course, 91 State Troopers, these are the officers with the Department of Public Safety, and then the Uvalde Police Department, 25 of them, and then other law enforcement officials, some even coming in on their day off, they were off duty, they heard the call, and they responded.

And then the report talks about the shortcomings, the failures on the part of the school, and some of the way in which they were sort of lackadaisical, for lack of a better word about the security. There were issues with the locks, issues with the doors.

So the report really sharing the blame, putting the blame on a multitude of entities between the law enforcement agencies, the schools. They said there were systemic failures, and poor decision making, certainly by law enforcement.

The other thing that they raised, and I think this is important, because we've heard a lot about this from the community members, it's these police chases that go on in this town because of human traffickers, people smuggling people over the border and then police trying to catch some of them.

What was happening here for quite some time, there were a lot of these cases, and so the school would go into lockdown as a result of that. And so there is some concern that because of that, sort of people inside the school, the employees perhaps may not have taken this seriously, perhaps law enforcement, people in the community didn't take this lockdown seriously. And obviously, that was a big mistake.

And then they also talk about training, the deficiencies in training for the police department and police officers, but ultimately, what this report really highlights is that there was no control, there was no command, there was no incident command. There was nothing to tell officers where to go, what they were dealing with, and how to deal with the situation.

But most importantly, of course, the blame being shared on all these agencies, and ultimately, they should have done a better job.

WHITFIELD: Yes. I mean, it's also alarming even to hear it. We know that you've prefaced it by this has been a fact-finding kind of report, but the notion that people may not have been taking it seriously when even in the surveillance video that we've all been able to watch, you can hear gunfire. You can even see after the crash involving the gunman, the gunfire that took place outside of the school and then ongoing gunfire inside.

[15:05:05]

WHITFIELD: And you can also see -- I guess what you don't see in some of that video is whether there were officers going room to room, whether there was any kind of headcount taking place of the children or the teachers.

So while there is information, it seems that you're gleaning there, there is also still a dearth of information. There's still lots of gaps, are there not at that, and that better explain why there wasn't an urgency among the some 300 law enforcement people who did respond.

PROKUPECZ: Sure. No, you're absolutely right, there is, you know. No, you're absolutely right. There are some gaps, specifically, you know, some of the -- there has been a lot of local leaders here, the mayor and other officials here who feel that they've been sort of having to take most of the blame, because the State officials have been blaming the local police department, the school police department for what happened here.

And they feel like there were so many different law enforcement agencies here, specifically, the Department of Public Safety. These are the State Troopers -- the Texas State Troopers. And, you know, while they're leading this investigation, they're not sort of looking at themselves and what they could have done better.

Though the State Troopers, who are experienced, well-trained, probably better trained than the local police officers here have more experience and sort of why aren't they looking at themselves and for what they could have done better? Why are they only looking at what the local law enforcement could have done better? So that's one of the things that local leaders here are raising.

The other thing that is interesting in this report, they sort of say -- it sort of says like there were two different situations going on here, right? You have one side of the school, you have a set of officers. Then you have another set of officers on the west side and it is sort of chaos. One is doing one thing, the other side is doing another thing.

But then also, there is a whole other situation going on outside the school, and really, the lack of communication, the lack of control of the scene, the command, the protocols that weren't followed, all of that highlighted in this report.

And it's significant, of course, to highlight all of these failures, most of them, of course, we have known about, but what's different about this report, from what we've been hearing by the State investigators who have been running this whole investigation, who have been providing a lot of the information, a lot of it inaccurate information, we sort of never heard them spread the blame.

But this report, what it is doing is spreading the blame, and really, local officials here are willing to accept that. They know they could have done better they know that changes need to be made, and I think we're going to start hearing about that later today or in the days to come about some of the changes that the local police department and local officials feel they need to undertake to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again.

WHITFIELD: All right, Shimon. Thank you. Rosa, well Shimon says a lot of the officials are, you know, willing

to, you know, accept that -- sharing the blame. What are family members saying about this report? The findings? The information?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, the families are meeting with the Committee right now. It is two o'clock here locally, that's when they were expecting to meet with them. We have reason to believe that that meeting could have started already.

So this is their first opportunity, really, Fred for these families to ask questions and to get direct answers from officials. Now granted, these are members of this Texas House Investigative Committee. There are three members to this Committee, and they started investigating a few weeks ago.

They've interviewed about 40 people and they've gone through more than a thousand pages. They've looked at video. They've reviewed evidence. They interviewed people both here in Uvalde and in Austin.

They also visited the scene, and so they gathered all this information and produced this fact-finding report that has a lot of information that we hadn't heard before. A lot of the information that we had heard before was really coming from Texas DPS, the elite law enforcement force here in the State of Texas.

So this is a different approach from the Texas House. Now, what the Texas House is going to do now with this report, the Texas House Investigative Committee is they're going to hand it over to two other Committees within the Texas House that will then look through it, figure out if there are recommendations to be made to school districts across the State of Texas, and also perhaps, draft legislation.

Now the building that you see behind me is a Civic Center here in Uvalde and we are expecting a press conference to happen at four o'clock local here where the press will also be able to answer questions -- Fred.

[15:10:00]

WHITFIELD: Wow. Okay. Well, I imagine their questions, you know will be very pointed, and a lot of them are still incredibly frustrated that there aren't more answers. Have people been sharing with you some of the questions that they still have?

FLORES: You know, some of the family members that I've talked to really have lost hope to finding the truth. A lot of them are very frustrated, because as you know, the narrative here has changed multiple times. There has been a lot of finger pointing between local officials and State officials, and the people caught in the middle are the families with their hearts broken, with their lives shattered, with their loved ones no longer here.

And so for them, this is yet another version of reality about what happened to their loved ones on that ill-fated day. In essence, the record of the last moments of their loved ones. And as they go through this report, it's excruciating to read some of

the failures, Fred, at every level. And so I can only imagine what these families are going through, reading through this report, and then finding the words to even ask questions, because I can only imagine the pain that they're feeling as they're trying to seek answers.

But one thing is very clear from all of these families, is they are demanding accountability, Fred, and that's their point. They want this information to be released. They want the video out so that the badges are out, so that the faces of these officers are out, so that those individuals who decided to wait in that hallway and not go in and try to save those children can be held to account -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you so much, Rosa Flores and Shimon Prokupecz, of course, we'll check back with you as you continue to learn more information.

All right, let me bring in a panel of experts now to discuss these developments that we know thus far. Loni Coombs is a CNN legal analyst, Ed Davis is a former Boston Police Commissioner, and Charles Ramsey is a former Philadelphia Police Commissioner and former Police Chief of Washington, DC.

Good to see all of you.

So chief Ramsey, you know, you said last hour that there were a calamity of errors, especially in the area of coordination, lack thereof, of multiple agencies explained further on that.

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, there was no unified command established, apparently, and it is not just who's in charge, it is who is in charge of what? And that's what's really important.

I mean, you know you did have ranking officers that were at the scene, the Chief at the School Police, the Acting Chief of Uvalde, for an example. But no one took command, no one took control of the situation at all.

The reports saying 300 or 400 police officers were at the scene, that's way too many. Nobody took control over that situation on the outside of the school. But it still gets at the heart of it, and that is those first responders getting there and the training that is given now in light after Columbine -- post Columbine, you don't wait. You go in and you neutralize the gunman. Period.

Now the first couple of officers did go down the hall. They received gunfire. They retreated. But instead of like, you know, going back, if not them, certainly, there were about six in the hallway. Nothing happened from that point on, and they just stood around.

And so that is something that you know, despite all the other stuff that was going on, that is absolutely inexplicable, and should not have happened. And you've got -- you can tell from the video within a relatively short period of time, you had sufficient personnel. You had equipment, you had long guns. They got ballistic shields at about the 19-minute mark.

They had everything they needed, and yet 77 minutes elapsed before action was taken and that is totally inexcusable.

So there are multiple failure at multiple levels and multiple people that are responsible for those failures. There is no question about it.

WHITFIELD: Loni, when you hear about all these failures spelled out in that manner, and even in the report, and it does, in your view, this rise to negligence or any criminality?

LONI COOMBS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, Fredricka, this is such an interesting question, because we've had so many of these mass school shootings, sadly. We are seeing now lawsuits being brought in these cases to try and hold more people accountable than just the shooter, because we're seeing that it takes a lot of people to try and stop these things.

And so to try and stem future ones, they're holding other people accountable. So we see in the Ethan Crumbley case out of Michigan, there the prosecutors have actually filed criminal charges against the parents of the shooter, something that has never been done. We don't know what will happen in that case. There has also been civil lawsuits brought against the school in that case.

[15:15:04]

COOMBS: And then in the Parkland, Florida shooting, we saw the prosecutor do something very interesting here and they criminally charged the school resource officer.

Now, rarely, if ever have police officers been charged criminally in cases like this, because there is actually no duty for the police to protect you from violence, which is interesting, but that's the way the Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court.

However, they decided in that case, that the school resource officer should be held to a higher standard, that he actually had a duty, kind of like a caretaker to these children so that he could be found criminally negligent, and also, they've charged him with child neglect.

In this case, Fredricka, I think that well, the School District Police here, and Chief Arredondo, they've all been saying, look, it is not just their fault, and I understand that there are a lot of agencies there. However, that school police department had a specific focus, a specific duty. It is their job to protect the children in the schools of Uvalde. That is their specific job.

And in fact, after the 2018 shooting in Santa Fe, in Texas, they put in all of these new security measures, and they included doubling the security budget for the Uvalde School District, giving them the specific police force, who were trained. They have had two active shooter training days in the last two years. One of them was two months before the shooting. And in their training, they were specifically told that they are

supposed to go after the shooters. That is the first thing to do: Go after the attackers.

Now, I understand that there was a lot going on, and it was very chaotic, and who was in charge and who was supposed to take command. But if their training is specifically to go after the attackers; number one, nothing else. That should have been done and they should never have gotten to the point, "Well, who was in charge? Was this the tactics that should be followed here?"

So I think that there's an argument that there is possible criminal liability in this case. But even if there isn't criminal liability, we're talking about administrative liability, and I think every law enforcement agency that was there on the scene needs to go through their protocol, and to look at the actions of every one of their officers that was there and see if they violated the protocol. And if they did, they need to be held accountable administratively.

WHITFIELD: Wow. All right, I hear you. You say -- you know, you were saying the starting point is with that Uvalde Police right there at the school.

So Commissioner Davis, I mean, what we hear in this report now spell out there were some 376 law enforcement responders from 20 different agencies. How do you assess the failures?

I mean, clearly multiple failures. Everyone is in agreement with that. But how do you assess how everyone got it wrong among the 376 responders of all of these agencies, in terms of not being more aggressive, not being more urgent?

ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: All right, Fredricka, you're absolutely right. Everybody did get it wrong in this particular case. And as Chuck said, having 370-odd officers at the scene is a management problem in and of itself.

There was one shooter, a small tactical team put together quickly is exactly what the protocols call for. But the very first part of the protocol is establishing who is in charge, and NIMS and the Integrated Command System clearly says that it is the responsibility of the local Police Chief, and in this particular case, it would have been the School Police Chief.

Now if the City Police Chief had stepped in, that would have been totally acceptable. But those were the first two people that needed to have a conversation at that place to determine who was going to take over and then keep the interior of the school as sparsely populated with police as possible.

Once those ballistic shields were on scene, there was no excuse not to move forward quickly. So this was an abject failure, and I applaud the Texas legislature for we're moving quickly with this report. But there are a lot of technical things that aren't being answered in this report, right?

WHITFIELD: Like what?

DAVIS: A SWAT team -- well, a SWAT team, for instance, will have technical officers. When the Chief of the Uvalde School Police said that he thought certain things were happening inside the classroom, that's antithetical to what we do. We need eyes on the suspect. We need to have someone explaining to us exactly what the environment is inside that classroom, so we know how to make good decisions and SWAT teams will have technical officers available to them.

People that can drill through the wall, put cameras in the wall, slide cameras into the window, smash a window and try to determine exactly what you've got going on in there.

So even the answers in some of the questions that's going on here are emblematic of a complete lack of experience in handling these situations, and also in the responsibility that is vested in that officer who was in charge there.

This was just a mess from the get go, and strong leadership and tragically, we just didn't see it there.

[15:20:26]

WHITFIELD: Wow. This makes it that even more devastating, doesn't it?

Loni Coombs, Ed Davis, and Charles Ramsay stay with us, we've got more to talk about.

And also, we're going to be discussing what's inside this preliminary report to a fuller extent on this Uvalde shooting. Our breaking news coverage continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, we're back now with our breaking news on the new Texas House report on Uvalde Elementary School shooting. It has found multiple failures including an overall lackadaisical approach by authorities on the scene.

Back with us now, Loni Coombs, Ed Davis and Chief Charles Ramsey.

[15:25:10]

WHITFIELD: Loni, back to you. You know, the report says there is no villain except the shooter. But how do you see this report perhaps helping on building any legal cases against any authority? Whether it be from the city level or perhaps law enforcement agencies?

COOMBS: Yes. Well, you know, I don't think we have to call people villains, but I have to say, you know, we need to make sure that people are held accountable. Right?

And I think this report is just the beginning. I don't think it goes into enough detail. I'm skimming it quickly. I haven't read it all in its completion, but I think that it's just starting the review of all the different people here involved -- the school, what they did or didn't do; the parents of the shooter, what they did, or they didn't do; each police officer and the agencies, what they did or didn't do -- all of this is going to have to be done in much more detail, to dig deeper, to know exactly what the evidence is.

For example, when the school was sued in the other case, in the Michigan case, they had evidence not only that there might have been some protocol failures as far as the security there in the school, but they also had information about the threat that this potential shooter might have been. We don't know if that was at the case here in the Uvalde shooting.

So we need a lot more detail, a lot more information before these cases possibly can be brought or be broached. But this is a beginning.

But I think that for the families, they need a lot more information, and they need information that they can trust, because they have been told so many different things that were not the full picture, not the complete picture, or not the accurate picture and that in itself is a real betrayal to the families.

WHITFIELD: Yes, and Chief Ramsey, in this report, it underscores there was no apparent leader on the scene, even though there were 20 different law enforcement agencies that responded, the response was not unified among the more than 350 law enforcement representatives there.

The report also placed blame on the school, some blame on the school for a lack of a lockdown. So much was learned in 1999, from Columbine, and you underscored that point earlier of just you don't wait, you go in. What do you suppose will be learned from this debacle that every school every jurisdiction is likely to adopt or would need to adopt?

RAMSEY: Well, again, you know, I think the lessons have to go beyond just Uvalde. Obviously, everyone needs to look at their protocols, look at their training and make sure that, you know, not only is the training taking place, but its officers understand it and can follow the training and they have the right equipment, they understand what it is they're expected to do.

And that's not just the officers, that's leadership, those are supervisors, you know, not everyone can make decisions under pressure. That's just a fact. And so whoever you have that's going to be your incident commander needs to be someone who can make critical decisions under pressure.

You know, and so it -- there is a lot that I think we can get from this, I really do. We're not going to be able to, you know, change what actually happened, but I think we can learn from it.

And I think, it's also important that, you know, there's another issue here, because at the local level, which is where accountability for the most part is going to be held, I don't know if this is going to rise to a criminal level or not. I'm not a lawyer, but you know, you've got a mayor in the Uvalde, in particular and other jurisdictions now. How do you regain the trust of the people in that city for their

police department? They call 9-1-1. You know, what kind of -- I mean, this goes beyond just what happened that day. There is a confidence issue here that is going to have to be addressed at the local level, and all these different jurisdictions that responded, in my opinion, because, you know, they failed miserably in this whole thing. And so, they are going to be feeling the fallout from this for a long time to come.

WHITFIELD: Commissioner Davis, you know, based on the surveillance video that we've all looked at now, initially, it appeared right that the police response was going according to plan, guns drawn. They seem to rush in, but then at the sound of gunfire, based on that tape, they retreated.

You talk about before the break the technical things that should customarily be happening, whether it be involvement of SWAT, looking into nearby rooms, using the kind of equipment to be able to penetrate the walls, the windows, to see indeed, where is the threat?

Can you elaborate further on some of the other things that should have been taking place that it now appears were not happening here in Uvalde?

[15:30:10]

DAVIS: Certainly, I mean we've all been involved in situations, not as tragic as this, but similar to this, where there are people with firearms shooting at the police and you have to respond to it. You establish a perimeter. As I said, before you try to get eyes on the suspect, you try to get as much information as you can, so the decisions that you're making are valid, because different people see things differently and witnesses will tell you different things, a fog of war starts to occur.

You need to have a reliable source giving you reliable information. That's when you start to pull together your teams. And you need to have the equipment. So you need to have long guns, you need to have ballistic shields, you need to have a medical team that's standing by in case anybody is injured, there is a great likelihood that someone is going to be injured in a situation like this.

And then the technical components of it. I know all of this, because I did some of this work. You have the ability to get eyes on the person. There is special equipment that people have. They have listening devices that can be thrown in there. There's even contacting the person on a cell phone and trying to engage them in conversation, hostage negotiators.

There's a whole series of specialties beyond breachers and snipers. There are a group of experts in these tactically trained divisions that we have in policing, or even just an ex-military guy, somebody who has been under fire before, you call them up and it could be the lowest level guy in the place and you say, "What would you do?" That's the kind of leadership that was needed here. And sorely, it was sorely lacking and I think that first of all, not

only the concern for the officers' safety trumped everything else in this, but the other thing is -- and Loni, you know, lists a whole series of things in what I would call the changing landscape of engagement in these situations, the legal landscape is changing with every case.

I'm sure that at some point in time the uncertainty here among the larger picture is going to play a role in all this.

WHITFIELD: Commissioner Ed Davis, Chief Charles Ramsey, Loni Coombs, thanks to all of you, appreciate it.

Today's preliminary report follows weeks and weeks of families demanding answers and transparency about what exactly happened to their loved ones.

More on that straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back.

You're looking at pictures right now of family members of the Uvalde victims picking up copies now of the report on the school massacre, a report being made available by the Texas House who has investigated and tried to collect the facts of what happened two months ago.

And this report shows systemic failures and a lackadaisical approach by officers on the scene.

Joining me right now is CNN chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter.

Brian, good to see you. I mean, it has been two agonizing months since that mass shooting, and this has been a long time to wait for so many family members and the public to try to get some answers. And even with this 77-page report, there are still gaping holes. What's at the core of this information flow mess?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Right. That's right. This has been an information vacuum for the better part of two months.

And whenever there's an information vacuum, distrust and disdain and disregard starts to fill that space, it starts to fill that void and that is why we've seen some of the family say they are so profoundly distrustful even today, unclear on what they feel they can believe as a result of all of this.

I remember very clearly, very vividly that night when Anderson Cooper spoke with one of the fathers, one of the family members who said, talking about their 10-year-old girl having a cell phone, trying to call for help, trying to call to reach the authorities. And in that moment, we all wonder, why did she need to wait so long? And ever since we've not received full answers. That is why media outlets, news organizations have had to sue over the file, freedom information requests lawsuits in order to get some of this material. And it's important to say today, Fred, as we get this report, as we

read through all the pages, there is still more that needs to be released, including the bodycam video, and the 9-1-1 calls and the radio transmissions not unnecessarily because people need to hear or see all that themselves, some of it obviously too gruesome to bear. But it's important to have those records released so that members of the public can if they choose, see and hear it for themselves.

Today is a big step in that direction, but only one step -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And now earlier in the last week, we just came out with surveillance footage of the shooting that was leaked and published with that edits by the Austin Texas "American-Statesman" newspaper, what do we know about how they came to the decision of publicizing this surveillance video? And you know, clearly a lot of family members were very upset about it, but what was the decision making process?

STELTER: Right. There was awareness that Sunday today, there would be some sharing of information, sharing of some videotape. So why did these outlets go ahead and publish several days ahead of time?

Well, I've spoken with several journalists at the Statesman and KVUE, they say they felt there was an urgent need to share this information with the public because of the government stonewalling, because of the authorities, having misled the public and having stonewalled. The scent of a cover up, the smell of a cover up has been overwhelming for the better part of two months.

And so these news outlets felt they were in working in the public interest by sharing this tape. And of course, you look at the tape, you even see the gunman. They made a choice to show the gunman because they wanted to try to tamp down on conspiracy theories. That's another part of the problem here, Fred, when there is an information vacuum, conspiracy theories fill the void. Hopefully, today, this information can help to tamp down on that as well.

[15:40:20]

WHITFIELD: All right, Brian Stelter, thanks so much.

STELTER: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: All right, when we come right back, a House Select Committee member says they expect to get US Secret Service text messages by Tuesday ahead of next week's big hearing.

And as Steve Bannon's criminal trial for contempt of Congress begins tomorrow, we'll look at how the man despite never being elected into office has a tight grip on the Republican Party.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, CNN is learning today that the US Secret Service text messages from before and during the Capitol siege on January 6 should be turned over to the House Committee investigating the insurrection in just a matter of days. [15:45:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): If you have them, we need them and we expect to get them by this Tuesday. So, we'll see.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And just all the text messages.

LOFGREN: We need all the texts from the 5th and the 6th of January.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The Homeland Security Inspector General accused the US Secret Service of erasing those texts after his office requested them. The Secret Service denies deleting texts maliciously. It says some phone data was lost during a planned system migration, but insists none of the texts the Inspector General was seeking had been lost.

Joining us right now, CNN legal analyst and former House Judiciary Special Counsel in Trump's first impeachment trial, Norm Eisen; and CNN law enforcement analyst and former Secret Service agent, Jonathan Wackrow.

Good to see both of you.

All right, so Jonathan, you first. You know, the Secret Service takes very seriously its record keeping, right? But you know, we hear about this data migration. There may have been material loss, but now we're hearing some assurances from the House January 6 Committee that indeed, they will be retrieving or getting a text material.

How does this sit with you? Do you believe that indeed, those texts were never lost? Or they are indeed being retrieved? I mean, where are you on this back and forth?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, yes, and that's exactly what it is. It's a back and forth. And it's really odd that two entities within the Department of Homeland Security are having such a public argument. And quite frankly, the optics on both sides is just -- it's embarrassing for the department as a whole.

And there are a lot of questions both for the Secret Service and for the Inspector General. And first, I'll start with the Inspector General. He has made mentioned in a letter to House and Senate Oversight Committees that text messages were erased as part of this technology upgrade that we've been reported. But this is a fact that wasn't uncovered by his investigation. This was a fact that was first raised by the Secret Service itself, in a self-disclosure about the data loss.

But there is also information that I want to know from the Inspector General that, you know, is there anything that indicates that this lost data has a material impact to his investigation? Are there facts that he feels that are contained within these lost text messages that relate to the activities of January 5th and 6th, in Washington, DC. Remember, the Secret Service didn't put parameters on where that data

was lost. It could have been an agent in Toledo, Ohio, on that day that had no impact on the operations of that day. So there is a lot of questions for the Inspector General and the Secret Service has to answer, if they did erase anything after the Inspector General did make a request to them. They have to really be held accountable and explain why that happened.

And more importantly, what steps are being taken today to recover that loss data.

WHITFIELD: Norm, how do you see it?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Fred, thanks for having me back. Nice to be on with you and Jonathan. I think that the questions have a larger significance than just whether data was lost or not. I'm very concerned that after Cassidy Hutchinson testified that devastating blockbuster testimony about Donald Trump's anger that he couldn't go to the Capitol, that some in the Secret Service seem to be part of an anonymous whisper campaign, Mr. Ornato, Mr. Engel disagreeing with her story.

And then you find out then there have been other witnesses who have come forward and pushed back on that, including a member of the MPD. And now we find out that documents may be missing for that critical day of the 5th and the 6th.

So I think it needs to be looked at as possible legal issues, including was there any intentional effort to obstruct justice here as part of Donald Trump's Secret Service agents being too close to Donald Trump? We don't know the answer. But that needs to get a hard look from the Service, from Congress, and from the Department of Justice.

WHITFIELD: So Norm, there has been a subpoena of the US Secret Service, do you believe there will be concrete answers, real clarity, real transparency, or are you concerned about what will be delivered?

EISEN: The Committee has been so good, Fred, in pursuing its subpoena. Of course, when they focus on something, they intended to get it. When they are defied, you end up like Steve Bannon who is going on trial this week for defying one of their subpoenas for criminal contempt.

So I think the Committee will get to the bottom of it and I think DOJ is going to take a hard look at this whole pattern, including these Secret Service agents who may have been a little too close to Mr. Trump. Were they part of an effort to intimidate Cassidy Hutchison? We need answers on the lost documents and on the behavior of these individuals.

[15:50:28]

WHITFIELD: So Jonathan, I've got to ask you, you know, your input on, you know, whether what Norm is saying is viable? Would there be kind of a whisper campaign? Does that ever happen? If it didn't -- you know, has it happened before? Is it your experience that there would be a whisper campaign, some agents who would become so close, perhaps to a sitting President, former President, that they might prevent information? You know, they may not want to reveal everything?

WACKROW: Well, listen, you know, first of all, you know, testimony by Secret Service agents about their protectees is very uncomfortable. I do not believe that anybody who has sworn an oath, as a Secret Service agent would actually engage in, you know, formalized witness tampering.

I would just hope that the agency and the agents are beyond that. But I want to take I want to make one quick point here. These agents that we are discussing, Ornato and Bobby Engel, they were probably two of the most -- closest to the President of any agent. Bobby Engel said no to the President. That's what sparked all of this.

Bobby Engel did the right thing in the right moment to say that we cannot take the sitting president in the United States to the US Capitol, because there was a destabilized threaten environment. That is what sparked the President's anger.

Now, what's in dispute right now isn't that the President was angry on that day, it is the level to which he acted. Did he lunge for the wheel? Did he lunge for Bobby Engel?

WHITFIELD: Allegedly assaulted.

WACKROW: That will come out in sworn testimony, but right now, that's what we're focused on. I just do not believe that Bobby Engel would engage in any type of you know, whisper campaign or witness tampering.

WHITFIELD: All right, we're going to leave it there for now. Jonathan Wackrow and Norm Eisen, good to see both of you. I know we will talk about it again, especially after we hear any potential testimony on that.

Thanks so much, gentlemen.

All right, the trial for former Trump adviser, Steve Bannon is set to begin this week in Washington. Bannon has been charged with contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the January 6 Committee. Bannon's efforts to delay the trial were rejected last week by a Federal Judge who says it will go ahead as planned.

Bannon says the January 6 Committee hearings and a new CNN Special Report will prejudice the jury pool against him. This new Special Report, "Steve Bannon: Divided we Fall" by CNN's Drew Griffin provides insight into the key role Bannon played leading up to January 6.

CNN's Drew Griffin joining me right now. So tell us more about what's to be expected. Does he have good reason to be very nervous about it potentially interfering with his upcoming trial?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: I would think he is a little bit nervous tonight. His trial is going to go tomorrow. He tried to file a motion over the weekend to stop it. It doesn't seem to be working.

But what you're going to see tonight is how Steve Bannon is even more powerful now, years after he left the White House after he was fired than he has ever been and he is inspiring countless ultra MAGA believers to follow his lead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN (voice over): Steve Bannon has never been elected to any office, never confirmed by Congress for any position, but potentially has more influence on the political direction of the nation today than almost anyone besides Donald Trump.

STEVE BANNON, HOST, "WAR ROOM": We believe in the ballot box. We believe in fair and free and transparent elections and we're winning everywhere. We're going to win 80 to 100 seat pickup in the House of Representatives. We're going to win the Senate. We're going to win the governorships and we're going to win the State Legislatures.

This is going to be a massive bloc. You're witnessing right now a political realignment, and we will govern for a hundred years after he win a hundred seats.

JOSHUA GREEN, AUTHOR, "DEVIL'S BARGAIN": Bannon sees himself as the narrator in a great grand conspiracy of his own devising.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Steve Bannon is the intellectual and cultural navigator for the modern day Trump-era Republican Party setting the agenda even more than Donald Trump.

BANNON: This is illegitimate.

GRIFFIN (voice over): Bannon sets that agenda through his daily show "War Room." It's on TV, radio, the internet. And the podcast version is often among the top three political podcasts on Apple.

BANNON: The whole reason we started the six o'clock show, "Battleground" was to focus particularly the primary and then the run up to this November where we're going to have destruction of the Democratic Party.

GRIFFIN (voice over): His pathway to destroying the Democratic Party, control who runs the elections by putting the ultra MAGA in charge.

[15:55:05]

BANNON: It is about who counts the votes and guess what? We're going to count them because we've got the election officials that are showing up.

GREEN: One thing that stopped the overthrow of the 2020 election was that Republican precinct workers said no, they said, we are not going to overturn what was a valid election. I think Bannon saw that and said, if Donald Trump runs in 2024, and the same thing happens, I want to make sure that we have people in those positions that will overturn the election for Trump, even if he loses it.

GRIFFIN (voice over): Bannon insists he wants every vote to be counted legally, but his entire movement is based on the lie that Donald Trump, not Joe Biden actually won the 2020 election.

BANNON: We will never concede. We will never say this election was not stolen.

STACY ALTIERY, DEKALB COUNTY GOP PRECINCT CHAIR: I was never inspired to be involved in politics until this last election.

GRIFFIN (on camera): And what about that election inspired you?

ALTIERY: To see all the anomalies during the elections, to see there is no way that Biden could have ever won an election. He didn't campaign. The most unpopular person.

If you believe that that was a safe and fair election, then, I mean, I just can't help you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN (on camera): Of course, it was a safe and fair and legitimate election. But the problem is so many Republicans believe it wasn't. And Steve Bannon has a plan to take those election deniers and make sure they're in charge of the election process from local precinct officers all the way to Secretaries of State and Governor.

Of course, he says he just wants to make sure every vote is counted, but Fred, he is putting in positions or is trying to election deniers that believe in his lie and these people today we're talking about two years after the fair election was held, still believe it.

WHITFIELD: And thus far, does it appear as though he has been successful.

GRIFFIN: He has had success in the primaries. He has had legitimate success in the primaries, particularly in swing states, which is unnerving to regular Republicans who really fear there is a takeover of the party.

WHITFIELD: All right, Drew Griffin, thank you so much. Can't wait to see your special this evening. Drew's special investigation "Divided we Fall" airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:00:00]