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Artemis Mission Delayed; Two Air France Pilots Suspended After Cockpit Altercation; Ukrainian Counteroffensive; Damage Assessment Under Way Over Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 29, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:10]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. It's so great to be back with you. Thanks for joining us.

We are tracking all kinds of developments today.

NASA's Artemis 1 mission to the moon, 50 years in the making, scrubbed just hours before launch. We will tell you where it stands now.

And we have seen all kinds of angry incidents from airline passengers in recent months, right? But now two pilots are suspended after they got into a mid-flight confrontation. I will fill you in.

Plus, as the nation's intelligence chief puts together a damage assessment of the classified documents recovered from former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago property, the Justice Department is sharing new details about what its filter teams have found in the materials.

But let's begin this hour with a major new development in Russia's war on Ukraine. Senior U.S. officials tell CNN that Ukrainian forces are now launching a significant counteroffensive.

Let's go right to CNN's Jim Sciutto. He broke this story.

Jim, what is the latest on this plan from Ukraine? And how do we expect it to play out?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest really is that the much-anticipated counteroffensive that Ukrainian officials had been hinting it for some time, saying they had confidence that they could carry out, it has now begun.

U.S. officials say they began to see the signs of shaping, as you mentioned. Shaping means basically preparing the battlefield for a wider offensive. In this case, it means artillery, rocket airstrikes on things like weapons depots, air defense systems, ammunition dumps, et cetera,to then allow a combination of ground and air forces to move in and attempt at least to regain territory that had been occupied, taken by Russia since the start of this invasion.

After we did our reporting, we spoke -- we heard, in fact, from Ukrainian officials on the ground to say, yes, indeed, the counteroffensive has begun. I had the opportunity this morning as well to speak to the former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who told us the following. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRO POROSHENKO, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: This is the long- awaited counteroffensive operation, which was started today at 7:00 a.m. with shelling and missiles attack.

And this is first time since February 2022 when such a concentrated of Ukrainian troops with Western artillery and with Western HIMARS and Western missiles was collected together for this counterattack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: If it comes to be in true substance in scope here, this would be a major change in this war, six months into the war since the Russian invasion February 24.

To this point, it has largely been a defensive operation by Ukrainian forces, pushing back Russian troops successfully from around the capital, fighting something of a stalemate in the eastern part of the country. Now the aim is ambitious. And that is not just to defend ground, not to lose further ground, but to pick up ground that has already been lost.

And, particularly, it seems to focus in the south around Kherson, Ana, where -- which is crucial to control of Ukraine's southern coast, which, of course, has both military, but also economic importance to Ukraine.

CABRERA: It does seem, Jim, like there's been some moments of taking back territory, sort of start-stop, momentum shifting along the way over the past six months. Hard to believe it's been that long.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CABRERA: But Western officials were anticipating a move like this might happen. Explain the timing. Why now?

SCIUTTO: So it's a combination of things.

One is potentially seasonal. I had been told that really the window here is mid-August to mid-October because then you start to get into cold months, when things like this -- it gets very cold in Ukraine -- become far more difficult.

But, also, the real measure is that Ukrainian forces believe that they have the capability and they have the weapons to do this now, particularly weapons that have been recently supplied in numbers. We have talked a lot about the HIMARS system. This is a highly mobile, accurate -- mobile artillery system that has allowed Ukrainians to hit Russian targets with accuracy and at great distances, those kinds of weapons making a big difference here.

And, also, I'm told that Russian units deployed to the front lines are proving to be, in the view of U.S. assessments, weaker and in fewer number than originally thought, a lot of them deploying to the front lines at as little as half manpower.

So, the Ukrainians see an opportunity here. And we will see if they're able to deliver.

[13:05:00]

CABRERA: And yet spokesman John Kirby from the U.S. side...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CABRERA: ... saying it doesn't appear Russia's backing down or backing out anytime soon.

SCIUTTO: No.

CABRERA: Jim Sciutto, thank you for your reporting.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

CABRERA: Now to the Justice Department's criminal investigation into former President Trump's handling of classified government records.

Sources close to Trump's legal team tell CNN they still want a special master appointed to review the boxes of documents taken from Mar-a- Lago for anything that could be covered by attorney-client privilege, this even after the DOJ revealed just this morning it has already sorted through everything and found a -- quote -- "limited set of materials that potentially could be privileged."

Former U.S. attorney Michael Moore is joining us now.

And, Michael, we know, during the search on August 8, agents recovered 27 boxes of material. That's hundreds of documents. Are you surprised they have already reviewed all of it? And does this pace tell you anything about the investigation?

MICHAEL MOORE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, I'm glad to be with you.

The fact that there's been a request for a special master is nothing out of the ordinary. It happens in cases every day. And, frankly, it would probably be malpractice if these lawyers did not ask that there be a review.

I'm not surprised either that the Justice Department, because of their resources, has had the chance to look at the documents. But, again, this is their determination of what might be privileged. And so, as is the case in the adversary system, there will now be -- maybe a different read from the Trump team as to what they think might be privileged. And that's the purpose of the special master.

CABRERA: So, again, the search happened three weeks ago. Trump's team didn't request a special master until just last week. So what now? How could today's news that they have already been through all the documents impact the potential appointment of that special master, which we know is supposed to come -- this ruling on that request is supposed to come Thursday?

MOORE: Well, I'm not commenting on the speed of the Trump team's legal requests. I think they're way behind the eight ball on this thing.

So, I think, really, the judge has sort of indicated that she's inclined to go ahead and appoint a special master. The fact that one side to a lawsuit says, we believe this may be information that might should be protected, that really doesn't alleviate the need for it to look fair and impartial.

So I think, going forward, and I think, this week, you will see the judge say, OK, I will put a special master in place, at least some way to review for privilege, to make sure there's not information there that the department should not.

CABRERA: If that happens, if a judge appoints a special master, how long do you think that process then would take? Could it delay DOJ's sharing of documents with the intel community?

MOORE: I really don't think so.

I think that the fact that there's been some initial review will speed things up. But it could take -- I think 30 days is probably about right. I think the judge would not appoint somebody who couldn't say, I will devote my time and my staff's time to get this information back to the court and to report back to the court as soon as possible, especially given the fact that there's some allegation of a need to do a threat assessment and other types of governmental activity, based upon what they claim to have recovered both the former's president's residence.

CABRERA: Yes. We're going to talk about that threat assessment in just a moment with James Clapper.

But I do want to quickly pivot to the Georgia and the grand jury investigation into Trump's efforts there to overturn the state's election results in that state. A federal judge just today ruled that the state's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, must testify in that investigation. But he can wait until after the November election.

How significant is his testimony, do you think?

MOORE: Well, I mean, it's interesting.

Judge McBurney, the Superior Court judge who has been overseeing this, decided that, in fact, the governor did not have some of the protections he thought he did and he wasn't prohibited from testifying in a criminal case. He will have some information maybe from people around the Trump orbit about calls that were made or threats that may have been made, pressure that may have been put in place.

And I think that's probably what the DA is looking for. What, to me, was probably the most interesting thing is that the judge said, I'm not going to let the DA politicize this. We're so close to an election, a statewide election, in which the governor is a candidate. I'm not going to let them come out and argue, well, he's testified to this or he's doing that under the guise of a subpoena as he enters that.

Again, you can choose which side of the political aisle you want to be on, but the process that we're going through needs to be transparent and it needs to appear nonpartisan.

CABRERA: Yes.

MOORE: And it needs to be that politics are not at play in the criminal inquiry.

CABRERA: Really appreciate your insights and expertise. Michael Moore, thank you for joining us.

MOORE: Great to be with you. Thank you.

CABRERA: So, right now, the intelligence community is conducting a damage assessment of those classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines informed key House and Senate committees of this move. And this includes the documents that Trump's team previously handed over, as well as those recovered by the FBI just earlier this month. All will be surveyed.

And I want to bring in former Director of National Intelligence, CNN national security analyst James Clapper to discuss more of this.

Thank you, Director Clapper, for being here.

[13:10:00]

You previously hold the post. So, walk us through what a damage assessment is exactly. What happens? How long could it take? What types of action would be taken based on what the intel community learns from these documents?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think the way the intelligence community will approach the damage assessment -- and, unfortunately, I have some personal experience with damage assessments -- is to take the perspective of a sophisticated adversary intelligence service who those -- you have to worst-case it.

If those documents were exposed to such an intelligence service, what is it they could glean from reading, from examining these documents? So, do they reveal sources and methods or tradecraft? Do they compromise the identity of a human intelligence asset? Those are the kinds of questions and issues that the team that Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence now, will assemble.

And I think, probably, she will put whatever resources are required to get this done quickly. Now, if they learn things or they see that things are revealed to an adversary intelligence service, particularly if it involves, for example, risk to an asset, they will try to do whatever they can to protect that asset, extract them, whatever -- whatever is required. Now, I say all this when we don't know the substantive content of any

of these documents, but that's the approach that will be taken. Heavily influential will be the voice of the originating component of the intelligence community. That is, who is it that composed, wrote, published the particular document in question?

CABRERA: So, play out that worst-case scenario, then, not knowing any specifics of the content. What would the worst-case scenario be in your mind? They find out what?

CLAPPER: Well, the worst-case scenario, or a worst-case scenario -- there could be several.

But one that comes readily to mind, of course, which others have spoken to, is the potential identity of a HUMINT asset that we have recruited in a foreign country, particularly if it's a denied area of the life of Russia, China, someone like that, whose very life could be in jeopardy if his or her identity could be traced via a revelation in one of these documents.

So that is a worst-case scenario that comes readily to mind.

CABRERA: Just to clarify the stakes here, last fall, "The New York Times" reported that every CIA station around the world received a cable about the increasing number of agency informants that had been captured or killed in recent years. So that's the backdrop here.

And now the DOJ says some documents they got from Mar-a-Lago in January contained information about human intelligence, i.e., informants and spies. So, putting two and two together here, I mean, that's obviously incredibly concerning, right? Do you think that it's possible that, given there was public reporting about classified documents prior to this search warrant happening at Mar-a-Lago, there had been reporting that there were classified documents there, do you think that there were attempts by adversaries to try to infiltrate Mar-a-Lago?

CLAPPER: Well, we have -- there have been publicly reported incidents of a Chinese person, Chinese woman trying -- gained access, this recent case of the Ukrainian woman gaining access.

Undoubtedly, Mar-a-Lago has to be a intelligence target for foreign intelligence services, but particularly our adversary, adversaries, China, Russia, et cetera.

Whether that has actually happened or not, whether those documents have been exposed to wrong -- or fallen into wrong hands, we don't know. That's part of the challenge here in the investigation, I would think, is doing a chain of custody from the documents when they were in the White House and how were they protected there to their transport to Mar-a-Lago, where they were stored, and who had access to these documents.

And could they had been exposed? For purposes of the damage assessment, you got to worst-case it and figure and assume they were.

CABRERA: I want to get your reaction to something that was said by one of Trump's most loyal Senate allies just last night. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified -- classified information, after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there literally will be riots in the street.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:15:04]

CABRERA: Riots in the streets, he warns.

We know the DOJ is already inundated with threats because of this Mar- a-Lago search. What do you see as the impact of that kind of rhetoric, especially coming from an elected leader?

CLAPPER: Well, it's -- to me, it's very concerning.

Obviously, Senator Graham's a leading Republican voice. And so I would hope that doesn't necessarily imply a self-fulfilling prophecy, or that statements like that would help incite the very thing that he was outlining, that we could have rioting in the streets.

So it's -- or is that a warning to the attorney general, or all of the above? Again, I don't particularly -- I don't find it helpful. Calls for the rule of law and calls for calm and calls for the respect for our institutions would, in my view, be more helpful?

CABRERA: Is there a way for the Justice Department to be more transparent? Because that's the other thing we keep hearing, especially from allies of Trump or Republicans, is, they need to lay more of their cards on the table, given this was such an unprecedented search.

CLAPPER: Well, I don't know.

I assume that the Department of Justice made a good-faith effort to redact and expose as much of the affidavit as they could, which, in and of itself is unprecedented.

As an intel guy, I would be concerned about the protection of witnesses, the protection of sources, methods, tradecraft, or the protection of future witnesses, or people who are contemplating being a witness, that their identities not be exposed.

So, I would think that the Department of Justice erred on the side of conservatism, and in the interests of protecting the investigation and those are participating in it or who contribute to it.

CABRERA: James Clapper, as always, I appreciate you, former director of national intelligence. Thank you so much.

CLAPPER: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: Soon, it will take astronauts back to the moon, but, today, it's not going anywhere.

These are live pictures there at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And the launch was scrubbed. What NASA is saying about why test launch of the Artemis mission happened.

Plus, it's massive, it's melting, and the impact will be catastrophic. Why scientists are now warning of inevitable disaster as a giant ice shelf gets warmer.

And for the first time ever, more Americans are smoking weed than tobacco. Harry Enten joins us to break down the record high poll results on pot.

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CABRERA: It's been 50 years. Now it'll be a few more days.

Right now, NASA is trying to figure out when it can reschedule the historic Artemis 1 launch. Now, today's test flight was scrubbed just hours ago due to an engine issue.

CNN space and defense correspondent Kristin Fisher is live at Kennedy Space Center for us.

Kristin, the next window could launch on Friday, right? So how likely is it that the issue will be resolved by then?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, NASA is holding its first-post scrub press conference right now.

And a reporter just asked the NASA leadership that very question. And the answer they gave is just classic NASA. They say -- and I quote -- "There is a non-zero chance that we will have a launch on Friday."

So what they mean by that is that, Friday, the second launch attempt is still in play. So is potentially that third launch attempt on Monday. But there's also still a chance that they could have to scrub this whole launch attempt entirely and roll this back to the VAB.

The bottom line is, they just don't know yet. And one of the things that the top NASA officials are saying right now is that -- quote -- "Our launch team was really pushed today." This was a really trying day for the entire launch team. They got in at about 10:00 last night. It's now 1:00 in the afternoon. And they have been working very long hours in these very high-stress conditions.

And so they want to give them some time to rest and regroup before they figure out their next steps. But they're going to keep the rocket on the launchpad. They're certainly going to try for Friday, but they just don't know yet.

And the big problem, Ana, was that they just failed to get one of those engines, RS-25 engine, to the proper temperature before liftoff. So it's not necessarily an engine problem. It's more a problem with the bleed system, is what they call it, the system that cools down that engine to the right temperature before liftoff.

But if you're hoping for a next launch date, I don't think we're going to get it from NASA today, Ana.

CABRERA: Safety first. Got to make sure everything is ready to go.

Thank you so much, Kristin Fisher. We know you will keep us posted.

FISHER: Yes.

CABRERA: We turn now to a midair fight that wasn't in coach, but in the cockpit.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean joins us.

Pete, we're talking about an Air France flight, two pilots now suspended. What more can you share?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, two sides of this really wild story here, Ana, what Air France is now acknowledging and the details from the French language outlet that initially broke this story.

I just want you to hear from Air France on its acknowledgment of this issue back in June, but it says it's now under investigation, on this flight between Geneva and Paris on board an Airbus A-320.

Air France says its pilots exchanged inappropriate gestures on board this flight. But what is so interesting is that the French-language "Geneva Tribune" says these pilots actually grabbed one another by the collars and began exchanging blows. This is the statement from Air France, in which it says: "The incident was quickly resolved without affecting the conduct or safety of the flight, which continued normally."

[13:25:28]

Either way, it is another piece of bad press for Air France, when it's under a lot of pressure from French aviation regulators. A report just came out last Wednesday in which the Bureau of Aviation in France said there may be a cultural problem among the pilots at Air France not following safety procedures when they should be.

Specifically, it referred to a flight back in December of 2020, when pilots discovered a fuel leak, but did not do the proper procedures. Either way, air rage has been an incident here in the U.S. We know about 1,800 incidents year to date here in 2022.

Although those involve incidents passenger to passenger, very rarely ever pilot to pilot. A pretty crazy story, Ana.

CABRERA: Yes, coming to blows, I mean, that really paints a picture.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

CABRERA: Yikes. MUNTEAN: Yes.

CABRERA: Pete Muntean, thank you for that reporting.

OK, now to some developments in Pakistan, deadly monster monsoon floods there. Tens of millions of people are now homeless, and emergency workers are struggling to evacuate thousands who are stranded.

And this doesn't help. A new study shows, even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases right now, the melting Greenland ice sheet will still send sea levels rising by nearly a foot.

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