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Trump Allies Pursued Voting Machine; Monkeypox to be Considered STD; Video Released of Fatal Shooting. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 16, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:36]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: A new report from "The Washington Post" reveals Trump allied attorneys led, quote, a secretive multi-state effort to access voting equipment after the former president's 2020 election loss. "The Post" obtained emails and other records showing those lawyers directed a team of computer experts to copy sensitive data from election systems in Georgia.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: "The Post" also reports that those Trump allies asked a forensic data firm to access county election systems in three battleground states. A lawyer for plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit over the security of Georgia's voting systems calls the scope of the effort, quote, mind blowing.

"Washington Post" investigative reporter Aaron C. Davis joins us now. One of the journalists who helped break this story.

Aaron, good to have you on here.

There's, of course, an alarming irony here, right, in that after more than a year of arguing, accusing others of somehow attacking or accessing voting data from the Italians to the Venezuelans, here you have evidence that Trump allies were doing this. Can you describe how they did this, and how widely?

AARON C. DAVIS, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, yes, thank you for having me.

Obviously, some shocking things here in these documents.

The biggest new thing that we did learn is, as you said, that entire hard drives of election systems software, and these being election systems used to this day across the state of Georgia and elsewhere, were copied and then shared among a constellation of Trump allies. And we, you know, if you look back at those early days after the election, it seemed so frenetic. It seemed as almost anybody, you know, working or interested in trying to support Trump's ideas were just taking on their own volition to do something. These documents show that, in fact, it was organized, that attorneys -- in one case an outside counsel for the Trump campaign, another case Sidney Powell, were directing these computer forensic experts to go into states. And whenever they had the help of a local election official, to go in there very quickly and copy as much as they possibly could. They did that on a weekend in Michigan. They did that in one day with the blinds closed here in an election's office in south Georgia, and potentially other places we don't know of.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

GOLODRYGA: So, Aaron, how did these outside computer experts even have access to these election machine servers?

DAVIS: Well, in the case of Georgia, which is kind of this new one we focus on a lot in the story, you know, a former elections official had told "The Post." and we previously reported this, that she let in some Trump supporters to try to, you know, prove that, in fact, this election hadn't worked the way it was supposed to. She didn't believe that Biden should have won. And so she allowed in, it turns out, a person who works in the bail bondsman business, and then he, in turn, contacted his sources with the Trump campaign, and the emails show that ultimately elections officials and a county clerk down there were receiving information from this computer forensics firm that was in touch with a former national security official who was on Trump's side, and they all worked together to get this team down there.

On January 7th, in fact, pardon me, it was the day after January 6th, as, you know, as D.C. was just reeling from what had just happened here, there was a team of computer experts driving and flying to Coffee County, Georgia, to obtain elections -- information to continue this idea.

[09:35:06]

SCIUTTO: Do we know, is there any implication or evidence that there were attempts to manipulate that data in any way?

DAVIS: So, that is a big question here going forward. And, you know, you know, while you can understand that back in 2020 there was so little truth to all the things that the conspiracy theories that were being said, I think now we do have to raise the - you know, and open our minds to the question of how vulnerable is this data going forward? Dominion Voting Systems, other outside experts say there are accuracy testings before an election, you know, hand counts afterwards that can - that can, you know, help verify the outcomes. But there is now a question of what can be done with this election software. The entire -- in some cases, the entire hard drive of Dominion Voting Systems, what can be done with that potentially to sabotage future election efforts. And that's something we'll be, of course, looking at.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Right, because since there's no centralized oversight, it does appear to be a state by state basis, which is a bit alarming. On the one hand, that sort of defended our election integrity by saying that this wasn't centralized, but if you're having these experts being able to go into various states and access this data, it is worrisome. What are the legal implications and what are -- how are these states reacting to this?

DAVIS: Well, there's already a criminal investigation in the attorney general -- in Michigan and the attorney general there has sought an independent counsel to see if there was a conspiracy along these lines to obtain voter -- voting election system information from both multiple counties. You almost wonder if there's a parallel process that can now play out in Georgia. In fact, the plaintiffs' attorneys have told us that they will provide this information to the FBI, and to criminal investigators.

In fact, they haven't even opened up some of it, as we understand, treating it almost as if it's stolen information. And so what happens now criminally in Georgia is a question. Obviously, the civil case is raising these questions of, what should Georgia be doing heading into November and beyond to insure that its election systems are safe.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Aaron C. Davis, thank you so much. Very important reporting here. We'll continue to follow this story. We appreciate your time.

DAVIS: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: And more news now. In fact, this just in to CNN. First Lady Jill Biden has now tested positive for Covid. We will have a live update right after a quick break.

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[09:42:09]

SCIUTTO: This news just in to CNN, First Lady Jill Biden has now tested positive for Covid.

CNN'S Arlette Saenz joins me now from the White House.

Arlette, tell us what we know.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19, according to her communications director Elizabeth Alexander. She started experience some cold-like symptoms last evening and initially tested negative on a rapid antigen test, but a PCR test did come back positive for the first lady.

Now, Alexander also wrote in a statement, quote, the first lady is double vaccinated, twice boosted and only experiencing mild symptoms. She has been prescribed a course of Paxlovid, which is something that her husband, President Joe Biden, took when he had Covid-19.

Now, the couple has been spending the past week really here, close to where we are, in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, on vacation. The president is scheduled to travel back to the White House today. Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, tweeted a short while ago that the president tested negative on an antigen test earlier today.

Now, the first lady had been planning on traveling later this week to Florida, but her office says that she will remain in isolation at least for five days. She is staying at a private residence here in South Carolina. We have seen the couple on very few occasions while they have been vacationing here, on Sunday, the first lady went out for a bike ride with her husband, the president. She was also spotted shopping in one of the nearby towns as well. But for the time being, First Lady Jill Biden has tested positive for Covid-19, and will remain in isolation here in South Carolina.

GOLODRYGA: Experiencing mild symptoms. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Arlette Saenz, in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, traveling with the Bidens. Thank you very much.

Well, also this morning, as the number of monkeypox cases in the U.S. nears 12,000, the CDC says it's focusing vaccination efforts on the community currently most affected by the outbreak. The Biden administration's deputy monkeypox coordinator spoke to CNN earlier.

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DR. DEMETRE DASKALAKIS, DEPUTY COORDINATOR, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL MONKEYPOX RESPONSE TEAM: We're at this point right now where the epidemiology is telling us the population that is being affected, so gay, bisexual, other men who have sex with men, it's telling us that we need to use vaccine in a way that really addresses not only contacts, but in a more broad way.

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SCIUTTO: There is, though, a growing debate about whether monkeypox should be described as a sexually transmitted disease, as most cases have been linked to some sort of sexual activity.

CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard joins us now with more on this.

I mean, key point here is most, not all. And I suppose the question is, is it the sex or the physical activity, right, because there are other ways to transmit this than sex, if I have it right.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Exactly. That's exactly right, Jim. There are ways to transmit this that are not sexual.

So, I did reach out to the CDC on this. And the CDC told me that right now they're describing monkeypox as sexually transmissible, but they do acknowledge that there are non-sexual ways that the virus can spread.

[09:45:10]

I also spoke with the National Coalition of STD Directors, they're calling the disease sexually associated right now. And, again, that's because that even though right now we are seeing some cases associated with sexual activity, we also know that the virus can spread by simple skin to skin contact with the lesions on the skin that the virus causes during an infection. It can also spread through saliva or respiratory secretions. And also, while this is rare, there is potential for it to spread through contaminated objects, like bed sheets or towels or sharing of utensils. So, those are some examples.

But with that being said, Jim and Bianna, we also know that the STD clinics here in the U.S. are bearing the brunt of this outbreak. So, you see some numbers here. The National Coalition of STD Directors did a survey of more than 80 clinics and 22 percent said that they have had to reduce screening for other STIs to prioritize treating monkeypox patients and testing. Forty percent said that they've incurred unexpected expenses due to the response to this outbreak, and 65 percent said they had to modify work flows to manage monkeypox.

So, while, again, the conclusion seems to be that right now we're not calling this an STD, STD clinics do seem to be bearing the brunt of this. And they also told me that they really want to focus on reducing stigma. Anyone can get this infection if you come in contact with someone who's infected and if the virus is transmissible. So, let's not stigmatize the disease, let's not stigmatize those who are ill, let's focus on the response.

Jim and Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, that's sort of the lessons from the dark days of stigmatizing in the early days of AIDS and HIV.

HOWARD: Exactly.

GOLODRYGA: Obviously, the focus here is on the spread among humans, but there are now reports of a dog who has tested positive for monkeypox. What more do we know about this?

HOWARD: There have been reports of that. And I also want to make clear before this outbreak, we saw the virus typically spread from animals to humans. So, this is what's called zoonotic, where we do see some animal to human or human to animal transmissions. And that's because if you do come in contact again with the lesions on the skin, it's easy for the virus to spread that way. So that's why it's not surprising to hear of some reports of animal to human or human to animal transmission.

And one reason why this current outbreak has really gotten our attention is because we really haven't seen human to human spread on this current level in the scientific literature before. So that's really one aspect of this current outbreak that seems to be unique when you look at the literature is seeing this level of human to human spread because before the current outbreak, most of the spread that we saw was typically an animal to human transmission that led to the virus being introduced into humans and our social network, and then we saw some limited spread. So that's why this particular case, Bianna, is interesting.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: No question. So glad to have you following it and clear things up.

Jacqueline Howard, thanks so much.

HOWARD: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, still ahead, an argument at a youth football game turns deadly. The suspect accused of shooting and killing a coach has now turned himself in. What we're learning about him, up next.

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[09:52:52]

GOLODRYGA: A man accused of shooting and killing a coach during a youth football game near Dallas has turned himself in. Police a 43- year-old Michael Hickmon was killed Saturday while coaching his son's team.

SCIUTTO: Police say it all started with a fight between coaches and the officiating crew. CNN has obtained video of the moments leading up to the shooting. Got to warn you, it's disturbing.

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SCIUTTO: Lord help us. That was a kids' sports game.

CNN's senior national correspondent Ed Lavandera is live this morning in Dallas. He's been covering this.

I mean, what do we know about how this happened?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was, obviously, some sort of altercation between the coaches of this opposing team. It was supposed to be a preseason game, getting ready for the upcoming football season.

This all happened in a city of Lancaster, which is a suburb just south of Dallas. Police there say that it was an altercation that started with -- over some sort of officiating issue at one point toward the end of the game. But as you heard there, the coaches involved in a severe altercation. And you heard five shots fired there.

Police say - and the sister of the victim, 43-year-old Michael Hickmon, tells us he - that he passed away at the hospital. And his son, who was playing in the game, witnessed it all on the football field. Police say that the suspect they have in custody is Yaqub Talib. He is the brother of Aqib Talib, who played 12 years in the NFL. He was also at the scene there. But we should point out that authorities are not saying that he was involved in any way at this point.

But Yaqub Talib turned himself in yesterday afternoon, almost two days after this incident happened. Lancaster police say he fled the scene, left with the firearm.

We spoke with an attorney representing Yaqub Talib and he said that he is saddened by the tragic loss of life, and that he turned himself in so he could tell his side of the story.

[09:55:01] We asked the attorney exactly what his side of the story might be, and, Jim and Bianna, he says that self-defense could very well be an issue in this case.

SCIUTTO: So sad to see this take place in front of all those children.

Ed Lavandera, thank you for covering.

Still ahead, coming up, new details in the FBI search of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. The DOJ says the affidavit for that search warrant contains highly classified information and that releasing the contents could hurt the investigation going forward. We're going to have more coming up.

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SCIUTTO: A real good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

GOLODRYGA: And I'm Bianna Golodryga.

Right now senators on both sides of the aisle are demanding to see the evidence that led to the search of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.