Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Twitter Suspends Accounts Posting Assassination Documents; NASA Satellite to Survey Most of the Water on Earth; Five Louisiana Officers Indicted in Death of Ronald Greene; National Archives Releases More Than 13,000 Documents of JFK Assassination. Aired 10:30- 11a ET

Aired December 16, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:32:09]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: New this hour, Elon Musk is claiming falsely that the several journalists he suspended from Twitter yesterday shared his live location. Musk says it was a violation of Twitter's so-called doxing policy by sharing what he called assassination coordinates. Trouble is, his explanation does not line up with the facts.

CNN senior media correspondent Oliver Darcy joins us now.

Oliver, tell us what the facts are here about what exactly these accounts including our colleague Donie O'Sullivan's account shared.

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, one, Jim, it is exposing Elon Musk's lack of commitment to free speech. I think when Elon Musk came in, he talked about how he wanted to make Twitter a beacon of free speech across the world and now you're seeing that he's banning journalists from news organizations such as CNN, "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post." And the reason he's going this or the reason he says he's doing this is because they were supposedly doxing him.

That's not true. What these journalists were doing was reporting on an account called Elon Jet, which used publicly available account information or flight information to track Elon Musk's jet. This isn't unique to Elon Musk. There are a lot of these bots that track where celebrities like Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian are going. But Elon Musk hated this account. He did not like it. And so he changed the Twitter rules this week to ban that account.

These journalists who he banned later were just covering this as a news story. And he then decided to ban them from Twitter. And I think this is raising a number of issues, Jim. Obviously it highlights how Musk doesn't really have that commitment to free speech that he said he does. But it also raises questions about what the future of the free press looks like on Twitter. Of course, you know, Twitter is a private platform so they can do what they want.

But news organizations, you know, have provided a lot of content to Twitter over the years. News is sort of the life blood of Twitter. And if they decide now that they don't want to be on this platform because he's banning their journalists, I think it raises some questions about the future.

SCIUTTO: Our colleague Pete Muntean has made the point that all planes have tail numbers and you often see similar flight information shared about government jets as they move around the world.

Oliver Darcy, thanks very much.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Five, four, three, two, one. Engine ignition. And liftoff. Liftoff of SWAT, our first global --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Another important launch this morning. NASA beginning a first of its kind mission here. This new satellite is not probing the depths of space. Its mission much closer to home. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography or SWOT mission aims to map all the water on the earth's surface.

Joining me now to explain the significance of the mission, Dr. Cedric David. He's a hydrologist and scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[10:35:03]

Cedric, good to have you on this morning.

DR. CEDRIC DAVID, SCIENTIST, JET PROPULSION LABORATORY: Good morning. Thrilled to be here.

SCIUTTO: So SWOT, S-W-O-T, not S-W-A-T, and you caught your lanyard around your collar there to show you're part of the team. Explain to us why we are turning our eyes back to planet earth and particularly the water on planet earth here.

DAVID: So, you know, I like to think of this mission as going out to space, turning back and taking earth selfies, looking at the earth's water cycle in a way like we've never seen before. So we'll be looking at the elevation of the top of the oceans like we've been doing for the past 30 years but with a much finer pictures that we've ever seen. They're allowing us to better understand ocean circulation.

And that's critical to understanding how the oceans are eating up the heat from the atmosphere but also critical for navigation. So that is the ocean part. But on the land, for the first time ever, we have a mission that is specifically designed to observe the river, lakes and reservoirs, and that's most accessible and most renewable component of the earth's freshwater cycle. So it's critical for humanity.

ACOSTA: Now we've had a lot of satellites looking down on earth for decades now. Is this the first time someone has ever chronicled all of the water systems on the planet?

DAVID: Well, we'll be looking at both sides of the coast. Right. The oceans and we've been doing that for many years. But it's been kind of like wrapping a fine line around the planet and this time we're wrapping a ribbon around the planet. So we'll see almost 90 percent of earth's surface waters with that.

So for the ocean, it's a revolution because we'll be seeing the ocean so much better than ever before. But for the lens, where the rivers and lakes and reservoirs are but we haven't really seen how they breath, how they expand and retract with the seasons and understanding the pulses of the earth's arteries is absolutely critical to understand water supply.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's interesting. As we were showing an image there it almost did look like the circulatory system of a human body. You know, like earth's circulatory system here. You mentioned heat and the oceans. Of course that factors into calculations about the effect of climate change. Is that a major part of this mission as well?

DAVID: It is a major part of this mission. I'll focus my answer on the continental water cycle because that's my expertise. And the way I see it, you know, it's a billion of us on this planet now. And the water that is in the rivers, lakes and reservoirs are continent is our checking account for freshwater. This is the stuff that comes back. OK.

And ground water is perhaps the savings or the retirement account and we've been using ground water for many decades now. It's about time that we start focusing on the most renewable component of the earth, freshwater cycle, to sustain humanity, the $8 billion of us in a changing interchanging planet.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's remarkable to see the systems unfurl there, too. It looks a pretty complicated satellite from the ones we've looked at before. Is it a technological challenge?

DAVID: It is a robotic revolution. It is a technological advancement. I mean, it's a first time ever. It is -- we've never done a mission like we're doing here and just making sure that we origami the satellite into the spacecraft and ship it, which we did this morning. But then the next stage is going to be unfolding it in space and making sure that everything checks out and that is going to take a few weeks before we get the first light and the first data sets and that is when the SWOT revolution will really start.

SCIUTTO: Like origami. Dr. Cedric David, thanks so much for joining us.

DAVID: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: Well, a solemn story that we're covering this morning, Five Louisiana officers have been charged by a grand jury over the death of Ronald Greene pictured there. Video shows the officers kicking, punching, using a taser on Green before he then died in custody. How the family is now reacting to those indictments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:44:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five officers have been charged.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: That the family of Ronald Greene reacting to the news at that moment that five officers indicted in connection with the death of their son in police custody in 2019. Police initially said Greene died in a car crash but video just released last year showed officers kicking, punching, using a taser on the 49-year-old before he died. His family calls the indictments a small victory despite the loss of his son.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONA HARDIN, RONALD GREENE'S MOTHER: They need to be held accountable because if not, you're condoning the killing of Ronald Greene. You're OK with my son being murdered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: That's Ronald Green's mother there. Greene's family is calling for the officers to be fired and arrested immediately.

CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson joins me now to discuss.

[10:45:03]

I mean, this is an interesting case on a lot of levels because the initial police story was a lie. Right? I mean, they said he died in a car crash and was only later that video came out showing the actual circumstances of his death. Are you surprising to see these indictments?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Jim. Good morning to you. I don't think I'm surprised at all because certainly there needs to be a measure of justice and accountability. And when you have video which depicts essentially gives a different story and a version from what the police narrative was, I think you certainly have to credit ultimately the process for looking at this more closely, the family for its activism and others for saying, look, we have to do something about this in the event that the police reports were amiss, in the event that the police told tales that were not consistent with reality.

And so I think this is the first step in the process. I remind you, Jim, that a grand jury indictment simply is an indication that there is reasonable cause to believe that a crime was commit and that those police committed it. But it is essential and I think now we go forward and see what happens at trial.

SCIUTTO: So this case initially took place in 2019, this altercation. It got little attention until an Associated Press investigation exposed a cover-up, got a hold of this video which only came out last year and then led to this investigation here. You have the act itself, right, which these indictments target here. But do you have broader potential criminal exposure here for the police not telling the truth it seems early on?

JACKSON: Yes, I think you do. And so what happens is that an investigation takes place. Certainly you look at what the police said that given their indications in their police paperwork as to what happened. And then you conduct a broader investigation as it relates to a videotape surfacing that tells a different story. You then present that case to a grand jury, a majority of which need to vote out an indictment and then it unravels, right?

And so ultimately I think what happens and how the case moves forward and even charges we know can always be is amended, consistent with the evidence, I think the police have a lot of -- really a lot of explaining to do with respect to how he died and how they could be inconsistent, what they revealed, what they failed to reveal, and I think ultimately when it goes to before a trial jury, that's when you have a unanimous jury of 12 making a determination, I think then we'll see with all the testimony that comes out, all of the investigation that comes out, exactly what happened, and whether or not the police officers are responsible after having their day in court, will then have to answer for their potential or alleged crimes as against Mr. Greene.

SCIUTTO: There has been some talk that juries are more likely to indict and perhaps convict police officers today than they were a number of years ago. Particularly in the wake of George Floyd. Now it's only been a few years and some of this is anecdotal, but I wonder, have you seen evidence of that?

JACKSON: I think so. I think that we are in a day and age of accountability, I think we're in a day and age where police certainly while we respect what they do and the fact that they lay their lives on the line. When they step off the line, they should, like everyone else be held to account. And we certainly saw that as it related to George Floyd which was a very important step in really engaging in the blue wall of silence and really getting behind that.

And so I think that we are in a day and age where people are examining the evidence, examining the issues and they're not fearful that is, the jurors, to come back with a guilty verdict if that's what the evidence shows.

SCIUTTO: Video man, the importance of video in so many of these cases.

Joey Jackson, thanks so much.

Well, more than 13,000 documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy released. What those previously classified documents may reveal. That is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:53:48]

SCIUTTO: All these years, decades later, we could soon learn even more details about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This after the National Archives released more than 13,000 documents that had previously been classified. This includes almost all remaining information that the CIA has directly related to JFK murder.

CNN's Tom Foreman joins me now and has been looking through all this. There's a lot to sift through, 13,000. I don't imagine you've read every document but I mean, is there something new in here?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there is something new in here because this is -- remember, this is the equivalent of releasing a dozen copies of war and peace. That's how much of the latest --

SCIUTTO: Fast reader, come on, Tom Foreman.

FOREMAN: It has the latest release here. It's a huge amount of information but it's also a huge amount of minutia. If you read through this, you find all sorts of little interesting details. For example, there was one part where they have a psychologist looking at Oswald's motivation. And what the psychologist had to say was Oswald's motivation is largely explained in terms of his neurotic background, his failure to achieve status and his very deep resentment of all authority.

Oswald saw a movie on TV about an attempted presidential assassination with a rifle shortly before his deed which could have sparked him into action.

[10:55:06]

These papers are absolutely filled with this kind of stuff, Jim. Of course, they're also filled with handwritten notes of meetings and rudimentary computer logs of all sorts of information they had collected over time. So is there something in there? Yes. But if you listen to CIA experts, they say and Kennedy assassination experts, they say no. There is not something that you're going to find.

For me the big payout here. By the way, this is out of roughly 5 million records that they have in the federal government?

FOREMAN: Those are those five million record with one every minute you'll be reading for nine years to get through the records that have been released.

SCIUTTO: All right. So we'll bring you back to the year 2031.

Tom Foreman, thanks so much.

FOREMAN: You're welcome/ ;

SCIUTTO: And thanks so much for all of you for joining us today this Friday. We hope you have a great weekend. Holiday is coming soon. I'm Jim Sciutto. "AT THIS HOUR" with Kate Bolduan starts right after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)