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Missing Mom Told Police Husband Threatened To Kill Her In 2014; Santos Said Former Company "100 Percent Legitimate" After Fraud Accusations; "Navalny" Documentary Airs Tomorrow Night At 9:00 PM ET; Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired January 13, 2023 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: We have new details in the disappearance of a missing mother in Massachusetts, Ana Walshe, coming from a police report filed nine years ago.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Ana Walshe was reported missing on January 4th. Her husband has not been charged in her disappearance, but he was arrested for misleading investigators.
CNN national correspondent, Jason Carroll, is in Cohasset, Massachusetts for us.
So, Jason, what do we know about this police report from 2014?
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This new information, as you say coming from that report. It was actually filed in Washington D.C. That's where she was living at the time before she got married.
Apparently, in terms of what is outlined in those -- in this report, she told police that Brian Walshe allegedly, quote, made a statement over the telephone that he was going to kill her and her friend, of course, making that type of threat is a felony, but he was never charged.
And the reason for that is on the report as well guys, it basically says that Walshe was never charged because according to the incident report, quote, the victim refused to cooperate in the prosecution. So certainly this is another disturbing piece to this puzzle.
Meanwhile, we were out here last night in this very same spot where the community got together here in Cohasset. They held a vigil for Ana Walshe. And as you can imagine, so many of the people have basically stopped watching the news. There have been so many horrific details surrounding this case. They've been tuning it out. And what they've been telling us is their focus right now is on the welfare of her three children.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RALPH DUNN, COHASSET RESIDENT: I think we're all clinging to some little bit of hope, but as days go by, it's just -- it's such a sad situation. We're still hoping for the best, but, yes, preparing for the -- for the worst.
DAWN MACK, COHASSET RESIDENT: We have a farmers market every Thursday in the summer. And I remember seeing him down here with his children. And it's -- you know, I feel -- I hope they're at peace. I hope they have somebody helping them get through this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The children
MACK: The children, right. You know, the mother is gone, the father is gone. And, yes, I'm very concerned about them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: Again, Ana Walshe has three children. The youngest is 2, the oldest just 6 years old. They are currently in the custody of the state. And the hope is from those who know the family is that the children can somehow be kept together through all of this and not separated. Victor, Alisyn?
BLACKWELL: Yes, appropriate to think about those kids. Now as their mother is missing and their father is in custody. Jason Carroll in Cohasset. Thank you.
CAMEROTA: We're covering -- uncovering, I should say, even more controversies surrounding GOP Congressman George Santos, one company that he actually did work for accused of running a Ponzi scheme.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:35:29]
BLACKWELL: New questions today surrounding the business practices of embattled Republican congressman, George Santos. The CNN KFILE review of Santos' social media found. The new lawmaker claimed a company he once worked for was 100 percent legitimate after accused -- accusations, rather, of fraud.
Now, one year later, the Securities and Exchange Commission called the same company a classic Ponzi scheme. Santos then claimed he was unaware of any fraud accusations at the firm.
But Santos continues to face growing pressure from within his own party to resign after he led repeatedly -- lied, rather, repeatedly, about his resume and personal life.
Joining us now is one Republican calling for Santos to step down, Congressman Brandon Williams of New York. Congressman, good to have you and this is part of the problem is that it isn't just the resume static that there were lies surrounding. Every day, seemingly, there is something new. You say that he cannot serve. He just cannot serve the people of New York's Third. Why?
REP. BRANDON WILLIAMS (R-NY): Well, Victor, yes, it's exciting, isn't it? It's like a new episode of Tiger King every day and -- but it is -- it really does, I think, violate the trust of the people. If you look at the success of the New York GOP in this last round of elections, you know, we delivered the majority to the House. We're set up for Mike Lawler to serve in Financial Services, Claudia Tenney, Nicole Malliotakis to serve on Ways and Means. Elise Stefanik in leadership. We're really set up to deliver results for the state of New York and the people of New York and this is getting in the way.
[15:40:05]
BLACKWELL: Now, the speaker says that he disagrees with you and the other Republicans from New York delegation there. He says that he's got to go. This is what Speaker McCarthy says on the question of a Santos' resignation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The voters of his district have elected him. He is seated. He is part of the Republican Conference. There are concerns about it, so he will go before ethics. If anything is found to be have wronged, he will be held accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: What do you think about how the Speaker is handling this?
WILLIAMS: Well, that's a -- you know, look at George's race, New York Third, he won by eight points. It's a very competitive seat. He won by eight points that clearly his message resonated. But now the package around that message is falling apart. And these are new revelations every day.
I think, Victor, if you look at us that are in New York, particularly those downstate, we're in the same media market, really, as NY3, particularly everybody out in Long Island, and it's saturating the market. We want to talk about our wins. We want to talk about the strength of the New York GOP and we're ending up talking about George Santos. So that's what we're facing.
Speaker McCarthy's thinking about it from the big picture, quite honestly. He's got a lot of things on his plate. I doubt he's spending a lot of time thinking about this.
BLACKWELL: Well, he's getting a lot of questions about it. So I'm sure he's thinking about it, as he's engaging with the reporters there.
WILLIAMS: Yes, he's ready to move on. Whatever direction that goes, he's ready to move on with, you know, our commitment to America. So I understand that.
BLACKWELL: And, you know what, the bandwidth is really an important thing. I worked in local news for many years before I came to CNN. And when you do the crime stories of the day, you got sports and weather. There's a finite space to talk about what your congressman is doing for the folks back at home.
So when you look at a media market across that part of New York, the other Republican Congressmen are not getting the attention, because they keep talking about George Santos. How much does that play into what we're seeing?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that's a big part of it. In fact, Victor, I'm glad you brought it up. Let's talk about the weather if you want to.
BLACKWELL: No, no, this is what we're focused on. But it's the attention that he's soaking up. It's the attention that he's soaking up and taking from the other members of Congress.
WILLIAMS: There are so many great things with a New York delegation. I'm new to politics. So when we're all together, the dynamics of the Upstate, Long -- you know, Downstate, the Long Island. You know, Malliotakis, the lone representative from -- you know, from the city. It really is exciting and fun. And you should come out to dinner with us because it's like the family thanksgiving what you fear with all New Yorkers.
BLACKWELL: Well, I appreciate that. Let me ask you about some legislation focused on Santos. New York Democrat Congressman Richard Torres, he and Dan Goldman, another Democrat, they're going to introduce the Stop Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker. If the acronym didn't jump out to you, that's SANTOS Act.
WILLIAMS: It does. No, I got it.
BLACKWELL: Information about a candidate's education, background, military service, and employment history, they have to submit that under oath. There would be punishments for inaccurate information. Do you support that making that the law? Could you back something like that?
WILLIAMS: Yes. To answer your question directly, number one, my hat's off to the staffer that came up with that name for that bill. That's really impressive, particularly in that short timeline.
But number two, I wouldn't support that. I come out of the nuclear Navy. I'm the first nuclear submarine veteran to serve in Congress in 50 years. By the way, there were 400 shipmates in the course of my service that will testify to that.
But -- so I have a very high standard for truthfulness, that's just the way it works on submarines. And so, obviously, I'm very disappointed by this.
But legislation, you know, we got to do our due diligence. George Santos, in many ways, is holding up a mirror on our political system. And in some ways, the media coverage -- and it's -- we don't like what we see because, frankly, this should have been found out a long time ago.
BLACKWELL: Yes. All right. Congressman Brandon Williams, I appreciate the invitation to dinner. Thank you very much.
CAMEROTA: Let's both go. That sounds good.
WILLIAMS: It'll be fun, I promise.
BLACKWELL: You weren't invited, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: I noticed. I noticed. I was hoping that it would extend to me and I would rather go.
BLACKWELL: You can come along. You can come along.
CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, the Presley family is sharing where Lisa Marie will be buried after dying suddenly yesterday. We have all the details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:45:09]
CAMEROTA: It's been two years since Russian opposition leader and fierce Putin critic, Alexei Navalny, was arrested in Moscow. Since then, he's been held in Russian prisons under deteriorating conditions.
BLACKWELL: Now, the story of how he ended up there, after surviving an alleged murder attempt and tracking down his own would-be assassins, is told with the urgency and drama of a spy thriller in the CNN film Navalny, airing on CNN on Saturday. Here's a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you come to a room of a comatose patient, you're starting -- you're just telling him some news. Telling him his story. Alexei, don't worry, you were poisoned. There was a murder attempt. Putin try to kill you with his Novichok.
And he opened his like blue eyes wide and looked at me and said very clear (foreign language).
[15:50:04]
ALEXEI NAVALNY, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER: Come on. Poisoned? I don't believe it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like he is back, this is Alexei.
NAVALNY: Putin supposed to be not so stupid to use this Novichok.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His word and his explanations, his intonation.
NAVALNY: If you want to kill someone, just shoot him. Jesus Christ.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like real Alexei.
NAVALNY: Impossible to believe it. It's kind of stupid. The whole idea of poisoning with a chemical weapon would -- this is why -- this is so smart. Because even reasonable people they refuse to believe like, what? Come on, poisoned? Seriously?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Wow. So the Kremlin and Russia security services, of course, they deny that they played any role in Navalny's poisoning.
Joining us now -- joining us now is Maria Pevchikh. She is the Head of investigations at Navalny's anti-corruption Foundation, and she's also an executive producer of the Navalny film. Thank you for being with us.
So Alexei has been in prison now for two years. He tweeted earlier this week that he spent New Year's in solitary confinement for washing his face at the wrong time. What can you tell us about his condition and how he's doing right now?
MARIA PEVCHIKH, RUSSIAN INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: That's correct. Well, this is one of the very -- this is just the last violation that he performed. He's meant to wash his face at 6:00 a.m. and he did it in 5:30. Before that, he got the similar sentence in a solitary confinement and the punishment itself, for not having his shirt buttoned up. The last button was undone. And you can clearly say that these trumped up charges, they said just -- this is just ridiculous. You don't get sent to 14-day long isolation for breaking prison schedule by 30 minutes.
On top of that, they have started to come up with even more sickening ways of torturing Navalny in prison. He's currently unwell. Navalny has developed some sort of illness, some sort of fever, potentially a cough, and some of the symptoms. He's not being treated. He is not being allowed any medication at all. His lawyers tried to pass on some very simple things like paracetamol and things like that to him. That's a clear unknown for him.
And also, additionally, they have recently introduced a new thing they -- he now has a cell meet with actually a person living in the cell opposite from him, who is mentally unstable, and that person for every day, and during the night for hours and hours, he's growling, and howling and barking and shouting at himself and having a conversation. So Navalny is currently sick and sleep deprived because his sleep is being disturbed by a very ill person next to him.
CAMEROTA: Maria, what an awful picture you paint. And he's -- despite all that, he's undeterred. He continues to speak out against Vladimir Putin. He continues to speak out against Putin's war in Ukraine. And so given all of that, the way -- the nightmare scenario that you've just laid out, has his detention been worth it? Is it making an impact in Russia?
PEVCHIKH: It is. Navalny is an example of strength and bravery for many Russians. He is a symbol of and -- the fact that you can stand by your beliefs, no matter what, and you can sacrifice so many things that you could have had, just in order to be faithful to your beliefs.
Navalny remains being the most outspoken anti-war voice in Russia. Every time that he gets a second of access to his lawyers, when he gets a chance to write a letter to handwrite a letter, he will use that to send a very clear anti-war message, saying that it's called for Putin's war against Ukraine that is happening right now has to be stopped. And we have to be loud and outspoken about it.
BLACKWELL: Well, make sure to tune in to hear the unbelievable true story of the man who took on Putin and live to expose the truth. The Sundance award winning CNN film "Navalny airs tomorrow night at 9:00 on CNN.
CAMEROTA: The cousin of a co-founder of Black Lives Matter organization is dead, after being repeatedly tased by Los Angeles police during a traffic stop. What the body cam of that encounter shows, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:55:24]
BLACKWELL: A new report says the U.S. government has received more than 350 new reports of the so-called UFO since March of 2021.
CAMEROTA: Why do you say so-called? More than 170 of them are unexplained. Some of these UFOs had unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities. That's what's so important here, Victor, which is some of these things, as we know, the pilots who have seen them, describe them as doing aerial feats that we don't have the technology for. They do aeronautical things that we have no idea how they pull off. So what's that? Who's doing those things?
BLACKWELL: Here's what I don't understand. If more than -- 170 of them are unexplained, their explanations for the rest of them, what are they count?
CAMEROTA: Yes. Well, yes. They felt that -- well, because they were balloons, they were drones, they were weather balloons, so they figured out what they were.
BLACKWELL: We should only be focused on the --
CAMEROTA: But 170, they can't --
BLACKWELL: Yes. I know.
CAMEROTA: Figure out.
BLACKWELL: That seems like there should be some sound effects for the segment.
CAMEROTA: There we go.
BLACKWELL: "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.
