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Three People Killed in Indiana Mall Shooting; Uvalde Shooting Report Stirs Outrage; Jury Selection Begins in Bannon Trial. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired July 18, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:30]

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

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you.

This is a high-stakes week for the January 6 investigation. Right now, a showcase trial for key Trump ally Steve Bannon is happening in the D.C. court. Later this week, the panel holds a prime-time hearing on former President Trump's actions during the insurrection.

CAMEROTA: At this moment, a jury is being selected in Steve Bannon's contempt of Congress trial. Bannon was indicted in November after defying a subpoena from the House Select Committee that's investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Last week, Bannon made a last-minute attempt to delay this trial, suddenly offering to testify publicly before the panel. But the Trump- appointed judge rejected that motion.

CNN's Sara Murray is outside the courthouse.

Sara, what should we expect to hear?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's definitely slow going this morning. So far, before they took a lunch break, they had chosen eight jurors for this pool. They need to get up to 22.

And they're asking people about what their awareness is of Bannon, what their awareness is of the committee hearings. So far, there are a number of people who said they are aware of the hearings, they paid a little bit of attention. That's not necessarily a disqualifier, but it's clear the judge wants to be very careful that he's putting together a jury pool that doesn't already have a preconceived notion about whether Steve Bannon is guilty or innocent in this case.

And, look, there's a lot on the line for Steve Bannon. He's facing two criminal contempt of Congress charges. If he's convicted, he could face anywhere from 30 days to a year behind bars. And that's part of the reason why you saw him move over and over again to try to get his trial delayed or perhaps dismissed. But that is not the case. Things are moving ahead, although, it does

seem like, at this pace, it's possible this jury selection could bleed into tomorrow.

CAMEROTA: Sara, what's happening in Georgia with that investigation?

MURRAY: Sure, this investigation is continuing.

This is into Donald Trump and his allies and whether their efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia were criminal. So what we just learned in a court filing this morning is that the district attorney there, Fani Willis, actually subpoenaed Congressman Jody Hice, wants him to testify before the grand jury.

The goal was to get him before the grand jury this week. He is now filing a motion to try to move that subpoena from state court to federal court. We will see if he moves beyond that to try to quash the subpoena. We have, of course, reached out to his office to see what his plan is there.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sara Murray, thank you very much.

So, this Thursday, the next January 6 Committee hearing will be broadcast in prime time. This one will focus on President Trump's actions or inactions during those 187 minutes while so many police officers were being injured and the violent mob was trying to find Vice President Pence.

Let's bring in CNN's Jessica Schneider.

So, Jessica, what do we know about the plan for this week's hearings?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, this is the eighth hearing, possibly even the final hearing, at least for a while.

And it's promising to give Americans this minute-by-minute summary of what exactly Trump was doing for those 187 minutes between the time when he finished his speech at the Ellipse, which we know from previous testimony prompted people to march to the Capitol and attack, and then the time when he finally released a taped message telling rioters they were very special, but that they should go home.

So the question is, what was he doing all that time? And some committee members, they have already given a glimpse that Trump really did nothing, and especially did nothing to stop the violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): He was doing nothing to actually stop the riot.

We will go through pretty much minute by minute during that time frame, from the time he left the stage at the Ellipse, came back to the White House, and really sat in the White House. REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): The president didn't do very much but gleefully watch television during this time frame. I know I would have been going ballistic to try to save the Capitol. He did quite the opposite.

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS: The president didn't do anything?

KINZINGER: The president didn't do anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: And so the committee is really expecting to tick down minute by minute what Trump exactly was doing.

And we should also be getting a lot more perspective from inside the White House, since, Victor and Alisyn, we will likely hear a lot more from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone's taped deposition. That was done just about a week-and-a-half ago. The committee's already aired about a dozen clips during that last hearing.

But they are promising to release a lot more from that in this coming prime-time hearing on Thursday, plus other details again about those 187 minutes and what Trump was up to -- guys.

[14:05:00]

BLACKWELL: Also, the committee is expecting to get Secret Service texts from January 5 and 6 pretty soon.

Initially, the report was that they have been deleted. What can you tell us about this?

SCHNEIDER: So, the question is, do these texts still exist? Can they be recovered?

So members of the committee, they're saying, really, they will know more about this tomorrow. And that's when the Secret Service is set to at least respond to their subpoena. It's been unfolding really day by day here. The I.G. met with committee members on Friday, essentially complaining here that the Secret Service erased messages, text messages, from January 5 and 6, crucial dates.

The Secret Service, though, said that the data was lost during a routine phone replacement, there was nothing malicious. But committee members were sort of raising eyebrows, because the Secret Service has also said that none of those missing texts were relevant to the I.G.s investigation. That's something the I.G. seems to dispute here.

So we will see tomorrow if those texts are eventually produced to the committee, or what information the Secret Service might respond to based on this subpoena. So there's a lot of questions here as to what can even be recoverable, if anything, and what the committee will get, likely tomorrow -- guys.

BLACKWELL: All right, Jessica Schneider, thank you very much. Norm Eisen is a CNN legal analyst. He was also a special counsel for

the House Judiciary Committee during Trump's first impeachment trial. And Michael Bender is a political correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal" and author of "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost."

Norm, Michael, welcome to let me start with you.

Norm, let me start with you the Bannon trial. Is this a tough case to prove?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Victor, Alisyn, thanks for having me back.

It's not a tough case to prove. Steve Bannon got a subpoena. When you get a subpoena, you have to show up and answer questions. If you feel you have privileges, you can assert them. He didn't show up. So he has a very narrow defense that the court will allow him to make, that he didn't really understand, he thought he had more time. But that's not true. So he also didn't produce documents.

It's an easy government case. And that's why the government is saying they're just going to put in two, three witnesses and probably dispose of their case in a day.

CAMEROTA: Michael, let's talk about what we think Steve Bannon will do in the courtroom. We know he's very brave on his own podcast, which is the safest space in the United States, your own podcast studio, where you can say whatever you want unchecked.

Do we think, knowing his style for grandstanding that he will take the stand, and he will try to hog up whatever airtime there is?

MICHAEL BENDER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, it's a good -- very, very good question. I mean, that's part of Steve Bannon's M.O. politically and commercially from his from his podcast is to sort of create a circus-like atmosphere, and keep people's eyeballs and keep people's attention.

I mean, we have seen some of this already in what he has tried to do leading up to this moment. He's tried to claim executive privilege. The judge said that didn't exist, since Steve Bannon was not an executive employee at the time. Steve Bannon has tried to call Nancy Pelosi as one of his witnesses. The judge said that was not going to fly.

We're seeing a little bit of that today. One after the other of his defense attempts is shut down by this judge, prompting Bannon's attorney at one point to say, what's the point of a trial here if we have no defense? And the judge, a Trump appointee, shot back that he agreed that that was a very good question.

BLACKWELL: Michael, let me correct -- you're now at "The New York Times." Want to make sure I get that right. I see it behind you there.

Norm, to you on right before the start of the trial, Bannon said, OK, I will talk to the committee. Obviously, this does not stop the Justice Department moving forward with its case. But do you think that precludes him from speaking with this committee now that the trial has begun?

EISEN: I don't think it precludes it, Victor, but I think that what Bannon was doing here, with Trump's collusion, because there was a Trump letter supposedly waiving executive privilege, except we found out from another one of Trump's lawyers that Bannon had never been told he had executive privilege in the first place.

This is a game to muddy up the waters in the trial. The judge has taken a very dubious look at it. He probably won't be able to -- Bannon probably won't be able to use it. And the committee has said they would like to talk to him, but we will see if he really means it. I think it's game playing.

CAMEROTA: Michael, I do want to ask you about some "New York Times" reporting.

And that is we now know where President Trump got the idea to replace his attorney general with a toady and possibly call martial law and try to seize voting machines.

[14:10:05]

And so, basically, "The New York Times" is reporting on this memo from a little known conservative attorney named William Olson, who wrote on December 28, after a Christmas Day phone call with President Trump, wrote this memo: "Our little band of lawyers is working on a memorandum that explains exactly what you can do. The media will call this martial law. But that is fake news, a concept with which you are very well familiar."

So what more do we know about what this attorney was trying to do?

BENDER: Yes, well, this attorney, by the looks of this memo, was trying to give Trump reasons, rationale to keep pushing to undermine or over -- really overturn the results from the November election.

This memo came about a week-and-a-half after that wild meeting in the Oval Office that the congressional committee zeroed in on last week featuring several characters who were not White House employees, who were not actually advisers.

And Pat Cipollone's testimony in that meeting -- about that meeting was that he walked into the Oval Office stunned that these folks were even in the White House, let alone the Oval Office, telling the committee that, to this day, he's not sure how they got in.

And what this memo adds to this is a couple things, I think, is, it shows Trump's interest, even after that meeting where his own attorneys in the White House were telling him that there was no proof of any fraud, that there was no grounds for him to overturn this election. He was still searching for rationale and folks to tell him that this was a worthwhile pursuit. And to what Cipollone was saying in that meeting, it wasn't just in

the meeting. It was in the meeting in the White House, on the telephone, Trump looking for any way he could, anyone to tell him what he wanted to hear, which was that he belonged in the White House even after the American people voted him out.

CAMEROTA: Norm Eisen, Michael Bender, thank you both very much.

EISEN: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: Systemic failures and poor decision-making. The fallout continues from that damning report on the Uvalde school shooting. And newly released video shows confusion over who was in charge and shocking moments of inaction by law enforcement.

CAMEROTA: Plus, the surge of gun violence has impacted a city near Indianapolis. Police give an update about a shooting at a mall that left three people dead. The gunman was stopped by an armed bystander.

We have all the latest details for you ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:17:14]

CAMEROTA: More anger and heartbreak in Uvalde, Texas, after the release of the first comprehensive state review into the Robb Elementary School massacre that killed 19 fourth graders and two teachers.

This report found -- quote -- "systemic failures and egregious poor decision-making by law enforcement"; 376 police officers went to that scene, but no one took charge. The school's then-police chief, Pete Arredondo, who was designated to command the situation, failed to do so.

The report also calls out the multiple officers who failed to step up.

BLACKWELL: It flags school failures as well, including finding the door to one of the classrooms was probably never locked to stop the gunman.

CNN was the first to obtain bodycam video from officers inside the school. It shows the moments they learned children were in the classroom with the shooter. But it still took nearly 40 minutes for officers to go into that room to shoot and kill the gunman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

911 OPERATOR: We do have a child on the line.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, what was that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Child called 911.

(CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The room is full of victims.

UNIDENTIFIED The room is full of victims, child 911.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's victims in the room with him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Child on the phone, multiple victims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A child just called that they have victims in there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Ed Lavandera joins us live from Uvalde. Texas.

What's been the response where you are to this report?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, we just spoke with one gentleman who was inside that meeting where state officials released the report to family members yesterday afternoon here in Uvalde, described the feeling inside that room as very tense, as the -- quote -- "lackadaisical" response by law enforcement officers to the school shooting at Robb Elementary was outlined in great detail.

And this report focused on a number of things. But we will start off by talking about the issues with the law enforcement response. They talked about how various agencies were to blame for a -- quote -- "systemic failure," that there was a lack of effective incident command, essentially no one really taking charge of the scene there to implement the end of the shooting there inside the school, also that officers failed to follow the basic tenets of an active shooter plan, as well as a communication breakdown.

At one point, the report lays out that Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief, as he approached the scene, he had multiple police radios dropped as he was fumbling and gathering his things to enter the school.

There was also school issues that this report laid out which were rather extensive, which this reports has also hampered the response, including bad one Wi-Fi inside the school, which did not obviously help the communication situation, that there was no use of the school intercom to alert the entire school building of the active shooter situation going on.

[14:20:10]

And there are questions about doors. Obviously, the door that the gunman entered the school was not locked. That seems to have been a recurring issue, and that -- most striking of all, that room 111, one of the rooms the gunman entered, was probably not locked.

And then you have seen in this video that we have obtained there's shots of law enforcement officers outside that room fumbling with the keys, thinking they needed the keys to get inside the room, but this report saying that perhaps all along they could have simply just opened the door.

This is all incredibly devastating for all of these families here in Uvalde to hear from. And many of them are -- a few of them are beginning to speak out about what it was like to hear these details in that meeting yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESUS RIZO, FRIEND OF SHOOTING VICTIM: They could have rushed in. Maybe not all of them were going to make it, but at least in their final moments to hold their hand to comfort them, to let them know that they're with them.

But they did the total opposite of that. They stood there as people bled out. They stood there as they took their final breath.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: You know, and many families here also watching all these different law enforcement agencies, in their words, essentially point the finger at one another about how things went wrong in that school.

But the police chief, Pete Arredondo, told the state committee that he was treating that situation when he first walked into the school as a gunman barricaded. They felt that they had him cornered. But it was clear as you listen that there was 911 calls that were coming from that room.

And that is why there has been such a great deal of criticism leveled at the officers who responded to the scene there -- Victor and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Understandably. I mean, the more we learn, just the more heartbreaking and frustrating it gets.

Ed Lavandera, thank you very much.

Let's bring in now Pete Licata. He's a former FBI supervisory special agent and CNN law enforcement analyst, and Tom Verni, a former New York police detective and current law enforcement consultant.

Gentlemen, so glad that you could be here with us.

Pete, I want to start with you, because you served as a team leader of the FBI bomb squad for years. And one of the catastrophic mistakes that we have learned here is there was no team leader. When you look at this video that CNN has obtained, what should have happened as this was unfolding? Who should have been the team leader here?

PETE LICATA, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good afternoon.

It should have been the chief, right? So, you can never delegate responsibility in a situation like this. If you go through the video, you see the chief actually on the phone with his weapon drawn inside of one of the corridors.

There's one point he's actually trying to use the keys that were mentioned previously to try to get in the classroom. That's not his job. His job is to direct the flow of traffic in and out of that building and give orders and commands based on the information that is being provided to him.

He was not doing any of that. So he is the main failure right there. But it comes down to training, his preparation, and with response to crisis management, and how well was he trained on crisis management in order to deal with these situations?

BLACKWELL: So, Pete, you say it should have been the chief.

Tom, let me bring it to you. What does that establishment of who's in command look like? Because we know now that the acting chief of the Uvalde City Police Department is on administrative leave as they try to determine whether he took any efforts to take command, and if that was even feasible.

When you come onto the scene, how does -- when you have so many agencies, how do you establish who that person is? Is it articulated to the old team?

(CROSSTALK)

LICATA: It's articulated by jurisdictional guidance.

So, for example, it's his jurisdiction. He can't delegate that to anyone else. The only person that could possibly come in is a federal agency, but they're never going to usurp his jurisdiction. It's always the local commander that's in charge, whether it's the New York City Police Department. The FBI never came in and said, we're in charge.

It doesn't matter in Uvalde, didn't matter in Parkland. And it didn't matter and it doesn't matter in Highland Park. The local municipality is always in charge. And that police commissioner, that chief, that lieutenant is the person in charge until relieved by somebody of higher rank within their own department. That's incident command 101.

CAMEROTA: Tom, let me ask you this as your role as a former detective.

I'm sure that Victor and I together have covered two dozen school shootings, tragically, and one thing that we never talk about enough, I feel, is the responsibility of the gun store owner. And in this case, there -- in this new report, it turns out that the owner of the gun store does have some information.

So here's what it says in the report. The owner of the gun store described the attacker as an average customer with no red flags or suspicious conditions, just that he was always alone and quiet. Patrons of the store who saw him told a different story in FBI interviews, saying after the tragedy that the attacker was very nervous looking, and that he appeared odd and looked like one of those school shooters.

[14:25:18] Another describes his all-black clothing as simply giving off bad vibes. Is there any way to get gun sellers, gun shop owners to ask more questions? I know they're not legally bound to, but to just have what was visible to the naked eye to these other customers that something was off with this kid?

What should -- what, as a detective, would you like to see gun sellers do?

TOM VERNI, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Good afternoon.

Well, this goes back to what sort of gun reform laws do we want to put in place that would potentially prevent an atrocity such as this? And you meet the resistance of many who don't want questions to be asked.

Yes, but then I want those same people to be talking to the families of 19 dead children and two dead teachers. It's just ridiculous that we don't have enough things in place to prevent someone from obtaining a weapon who clearly should not have a weapon in their hands, and then walking into a school -- a school or a church or a mall or a grocery store.

I mean, we're living in an age where we know that people are obtaining weapons, troubled people. And then they're going out committing these heinous acts of murder. So, we have to attempt to try to do as much as we can to thwart that effort of that person being able to get their hands on weapons, aside from the fact that we now know that some of this fault lies within the school and stuff.

They didn't take a lot -- the end result falls with the police that responded and their response, which is a whole other issue as well, as we have been talking about. But, first and foremost, let's remember, the blame, the main blame here is the person that entered this school and slaughtered all of these young kids and never should have been able to do that.

BLACKWELL: Tom, we now know from Chief Arredondo himself, in his own words, his rationale to determine this was a barricade situation and not an active shooter. I'm just going to read this line.

He says: "To me, once he's in a room, you know, to me, he's barricaded in a room. Our thought was, if he comes out, you eliminate the threat, correct? And just the thought of other children being in another classroom, my thought was, we can't let him come back out. He comes back out, we take him out or eliminate the threat. Let's get these children out."

In hindsight, that was a deadly decision. We all know that now. In the moment, what's your reaction to the rationale he was using?

VERNI: Yes, and, look, I will be the first one -- and, as you know, Victor, we have been doing this for a number of years now. I will be the first one to back the police if they have done things legally, lawfully, and by procedural guidelines.

Now, but I'm also -- I will be the first one to question and have a problem with when things are not done according to what the industry standard is. Now, if you're dealing with a barricaded person, yes, then you would do that. You would isolate, contain. You would wait for backup to arrive, a SWAT team, a hostage negotiator, whatever it may be.

But when you have an active shooter situation, especially since going back 27 years since Columbine, this has evolved to a state where standard operating procedure amongst just about every police department that I know of across the United States is that you go in and you disable and disarm the threat immediately.

Quite frankly, if it was you, me, and Alisyn, Victor, if we were the cops responding there, just the three of us, we should have the autonomy to be able to go in and make every effort to disarm or disable that threat and to prevent further death and injuries from occurring.

I shouldn't need to have to wait for a supervisor's approval to go in and take this guy out. It's just crazy.

BLACKWELL: Tom Verni, Pete Licata, thank you so much for your perspective and insight.

All right, getting this into CNN. Police just provided new details about a mass shooting at a shopping mall south of Indianapolis last night.

CAMEROTA: Three people were killed, among them, a husband and wife having dinner. Two others were injured, one of them a 12-year-old girl.

Police say a 22-year-old good samaritan who was lawfully carrying a firearm shot and killed the gunman.

CNN national correspondent Athena Jones has been following this press conference for us.

So, now what are police saying?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're now learning the name of that good samaritan, that 22-year-old who we -- up until now we only knew he was from a neighboring county.

His name is Elisjsha Dicken. And the police chief there in Greenwood says that he was there with his girlfriend last night at the mall just shopping. He was armed with a pistol. He believes it was a Glock of -- perhaps a Glock.

And he's going through a lot, the police officer -- the police chief said. He has allowed his name to be released. But this is someone who went to.