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Approx 20 Documents with Classified Markings Found at Biden's Delaware Home, Private Office; Dnipro Missile Strike; Idaho College Murders. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired January 14, 2023 - 17:00   ET

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

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[17:00:18]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

Today we are learning of several additional pages of classified material found at President Biden's Delaware home this week. This is on top of classified material found at a Biden affiliated think tank in Washington. And it's believed approximately 20 documents with classified markings have been found.

Joining me now CNN'S Evan Perez and Elie Honig, former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and CNN senior legal analyst.

Elie, I will talk to you in just a second, but Evan, what is going on with these additional pages that were found. Obviously not the kind of news that they want to hear over at the White House.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It is not the way that the White House would have liked to have disclose all of this. This is the third disclosure we have had this week, Jim. And for the White House, you know, they had told us just about 24 hours ago that they had found one additional document turned over to the Justice Department in a search at a room that was adjacent to the president's garage in his home in Wilmington.

And now they say that in the process of turning over those documents or that one document, they found an additional five records. And so now we have as you mentioned, around 20 records or so, that have classification markings.

And the various classifications -- what we do know is in the first batch, the first ten documents were found at this office at the Penn- Biden Center. There were some documents that were at the level of top secret SCI, which is among the most sensitive documents, the stuff that raises the concern about exposure of sources and methods, which is why the Justice Department and why the FBI is taking this very seriously.

Now we have a special counsel, Bob Hur, who is going to be setting up a team. And one of the first orders of business will be to try to talk to the president's team and try to make sure they could find out whether there are any other documents.

That is one of the concerns that lingers here, is, you know, could there be additional places that haven't been searched? You know, how thorough have these searches been? And could there be additional records that are still missing. I will say real quick that the president's personal attorney is saying to explain why they've had so many shifts in stories. They said that they have attempted to balance the importance of public transparency where appropriate with the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation's integrity.

It should be noted, the Justice Department did not ask them to not say anything. The Justice Department has not coordinated any of their response. This is all of their own doing.

And so, this is partly why you see now they're saying, this is it. We're not going to tell you anything more.

ACOSTA: Interesting.

All right. And Elie, in terms of possible legal liability for President Biden, does this change anything? You know, as Evan was saying a few moments ago, I mean the White House has not definitively said -- the Biden team has not definitively said ok, this is everything. We found everything.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think this does change things for Biden and his team. Generally speaking, more documents means more problems for Joe Biden because the more documents that turn up, the harder it is to write this off as some sort of accident or some sort of unknowing incident.

Look, if there was one document here, you could readily understand how that could be an accident. But now we're talking about 20 documents. That's a lot harder to write off, particularly, I should say, as to the documents found inside Joe Biden's private home.

The office perhaps is a little bit different. That office has not been used in several years. You can maybe understand how there's some documents in a file cabinet. But when you are talking about inside the home, that gets more difficult to explain.

The other factor, and Evan touched on this, Biden's team is developing a credibility crisis. They've now, more than once, made incomplete public statements. And I think that really undermines their credibility.

Prosecutors take note of that. It is a PR problem, but it's potentially a legal problem as well.

ACOSTA: But intent and knowledge is critical in all of this, correct?

HONIG: Intent and knowledge are everything from a legal and prosecutorial point of view. If you're going to going to charge anybody with a crime, whether it is Joe Biden in this scenario or Donald Trump related to Mar-a-Lago, you have to be able to show, a, the person knew about the documents and b, they had some sort of criminal intent to steal the documents, to destroy them, to disseminate them, to sell them.

You have to have those things in order to show a crime no matter what. And it's more important even than the number of documents or the content.

I will give you a quick example. You could have one document. If you can show that the person knowingly took it and intended to do something illegal with it, that's a crime.

On the other hand, you can have 10,000 classified documents, but if you can't show the person knew about them, then you have no charge.

[17:04:55]

ACOSTA: And Evan, in the previous hour I was talking to Andrew McCabe about this and, you know, talking about how, you know, there are folks who are saying the president should just go out and, you know, talk to the cameras, tell everything he knows, come clean, whatever he needs to do.

And I asked Andrew McCabe, you know, that sounds like good political advice. Probably not good legal advice.

He said, no, that is not good legal advice.

PEREZ: It's not good legal advice. It is also not good PR advice at this point because the problem for the president is that he has gone out there a lot. If you remember, after the documents were -- after the FBI did a search of Mar-a-Lago and the president was asked, he went out publicly and described his very, very detailed process for handling classified documents. He went into great detail saying that, you know, he makes sure that he hands documents back to military aides and to make sure that people viewed his handling of classified documents in a completely different manner than Donald Trump's.

And here we are now, and it appears that the president was a bit of a mess himself. And, so, that is both a legal problem and certainly a very big political problem.

ACOSTA: And Elie, I guess the question on a lot of people minds, how long could this special counsel investigation take, which is another way of asking how long of a headache is this going to be for the White House and the president?

HONIG: Yes. So there is no way to put a precise number on this, Jim. Different prosecutors tend to work at different speeds. There are some that push very hard and are sort of frenetic in their pace and there are some who are very deliberate.

But I can tell you a couple things for sure. First of all, cooperation -- full cooperation will help move things along. The less forthcoming a defense team is, the more it is going to drag things out.

The other things Is, DOJ, the prosecutors here, both special counsel relating to Biden and Trump have to be aware of the broader reality that we are rounding the bend here politically, we are coming up on the 2024 election.

Donald Trump's already an announced candidate. Joe Biden could become one soon. And I think you have to be aware that because you want prosecution and politics to mix as little as humanly possible.

So if I'm a prosecutor here, if I'm either of these special counsel, I am putting my foot on the gas to the maximum extent possible because speed is really in the interest of all the parties here.

PEREZ: The blessing for the president, Jim, is that he is not, right now, being investigated for obstruction. That's what Donald Trump's investigation is largely now about is about obstructing.

And that's one reason why that's a much longer, more complicated investigation. Right now, from what we know in the appointed order that the attorney general signed just this last week, we know only that, you know, they're investigating whether there was a mishandling of classified documents. Of course, that could change. But for now, you know, he's in at least a better place.

ACOSTA: Yes. As the facts stand right now, there are still key differences --

PEREZ: Key differences.

ACOSTA: -- between the two cases.

All right. Evan Perez, Elie Honig -- thanks so much.

Joining me now is former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart and CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp.

Joe, I understand you are in Maine right now. And I take it there was a Mega Millions jackpot winner up in Maine. And I'm going to assume you did not win because that is why you are here with us right now.

But putting that to the side for a moment, you worked as a press secretary in the Clinton White House during his affair with Monica Lewinsky and his impeachment. You have experience handling a president during a crisis, what is your assessment of how the Biden White House is handling this?

I suppose the most generous, you know, way of explaining all of this is that, you know, the way these documents have come out have just been very inconvenient for this White House team. But for this to be hanging over them, the potential for more documents to be found, documents being found after the indication was given, ok, I think we have everything, not good.

JOE LOCKHARD, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No. And I think you have political communicator instincts when they see a political fire is to try to put it out, try to minimize the damage that can be done. And cases like that, that's the worst instinct. What you want to do is

work back from what the worst possibility is and not try to predict and minimize and say this is the last one or there will be no more coming.

I think what the White House needs to do and I think you saw this beginning yesterday is to stop talking about the process. The process is being run out of the Department of Justice. They can talk about it. They can not talk about it. But the White House should stop talking about it because, one, they have already developed a credibility problem. And, b, these stories are about process.

When we get to the end of this investigation, they're going to look at what's actually in the documents and what was done with them. And my guess is, while the documents may be sensitive, there will not be evidence that something was done with them trying to sell them or take advantage of that.

[17:09:57]

LOCKHART: What they can do as far as process is draw a contrast. And they don't ever have to mention Donald Trump's name. But they should talk at every chance they can about how they're cooperating and how they are providing what the Department of Justice is asking for in a timely way.

That in and of itself provides the contrast with Donald Trump and the issues of obstruction that Elie was talking about just a moment ago.

ACOSTA: S.E. I mean, the Biden White House, I mean, they had been on a considerable roll for several weeks and then just sort of stepped on a rake it seems, with this document issue.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

ACOSTA: What is your sense of it in terms of what Joe is saying, the way that they've approached this?

CUPP: I'd fired the comms person or the whole team that's been handling this because as Evan Perez just said, this is all of the president's own doing. This is all of his administration's own doing. And the problem is the drip, drip nature of these revelations and how messy the whole thing has been.

I don't know if they have the luxury of waiting until they knew everything that they had before coming out publicly to talk about it or if they could have maybe mentioned all of this earlier when they first knew about it.

Either way would have been better than this in between drip, drip, we're doing the process but, wait, we found more documents. It is just very -- it's very messy. And no one on that team is doing this administration any favors in the way that they're messaging and delivering this information to the public.

ACOSTA: And Joe, I know you will recall some of the hypocrisy that was going on in Washington during the Clinton impeachment days. And now you have congressional Republicans ready to launch into investigations over this situation with the Biden documents when they were really just sort of excusing the former president for what was going on down at Mar-a-Lago.

What is your sense of how the White House should manage that end of Pennsylvania Avenue?

LOCKHART: Well, I think the one thing that we can predict with confidence is that they will overplay their hand. They do it every time. I lived through this during impeachment with President Clinton. They just can't help themselves.

And just standing back and letting them do that and giving them enough rope to do it I think is a good strategy.

I think the much more interesting question is the media. It's -- I would hope that the media has learned from Hillary's e-mails that going too hard on this without knowing what's in it can be very damaging. Donald Trump in large part was president because of what became inconsequential e-mails that had some classification to it. I hope they learned. I'm not particularly confident.

ACOSTA: Ok. And S.E., you know, for many Republicans the argument seems to be that President Biden is both not mentally fit to hold office. And yet he's supposed to be this -- in the minds of some Republicans, this criminal mastermind who was holding on to these documents for some nefarious reason. Does that make any sense?

CUPP: Well, first I just want to say I don't think it is a great idea to blame the media for any of these problems, whether it was Hillary's or Joe Biden's. We're not responsible for the, you know, the mud that these folks stepped in themselves.

But I -- you know, I will say listen, Republicans are prone to conspiracy theories, whether it's, you know, the kookie like JFK Jr is coming back from the dead to run with Trump or the sort of duplicitous like this administration is coming to take away your gas stoves.

This is not a conspiracy theory. This is real. And Republicans are right to take it seriously. But to Joe's point, I am also sure they will overplay their hand. And it is really hard to do that when you are still defending the last guy and what he's currently under investigation for.

So I mean, listen this is unequivocally a gift for Republicans. You know, we'll see what they -- we'll see what they do with it.

ACOSTA: All right. As Evan Perez was saying thought at the top of this hour, some very key differences in these cases. And we may see that play out --

CUPP: Yes.

ACOSTA: -- as these investigations develop. Joe Lockhart, S.E. Cupp -- great to see both of you. Sorry, Joe, about the Mega Millions up there in Maine but --

LOCKHART: Yes. Next time, Jim.

ACOSTA: Next time. All right. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, a wave of Russian missile strikes have hit multiple cities in Ukraine, including this apartment block in Dnipro. That strike killing at least 12 people, including a 15-year-old girl. Russia's attacks on civilian targets continue. We're going to follow that next.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:14:53]

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ACOSTA: A new wave of Russian missile strikes pounded Ukraine today. One missile struck an apartment complex in Dnipro. At least 12 people were killed, including a 15-year-old girl, more than 60 others were injured and search and rescue operations are still underway.

At least 37 people have been pulled from this wreckage, including 6 children. After the strike -- take a look at this -- this is one of the children who were working to clean up the rubble.

Survived but then helped in the cleanup efforts, her small hands pushing debris into a dust pan. She then calmly dumps that debris into a pile as chaos and destruction surround her.

Just another one of those indelible images from this horrific situation that's been unfolding.

And the Ukrainian Air Force says the Russian missile fired on this apartment complex is the same type of cruise missile that struck a shopping mall in Ukraine last summer. Ukraine says the KH-22 is an older weapon and is less accurate.

[17:19:57]

ACOSTA: And joining me now to talk about this is retired commander of the USS Cole, Kirk Lippold. And Kirk, using an imprecise weapon cannot be helpful to Russia either. But I suppose there is the obvious question is that they just don't care.

KIRK LIPPOLD, RETIRED COMMANDER, USS COLE : At this point they really don't, Jim. When you look at what they're using -- the weapons they're using, they have shown no regard whatsoever for either international law or human rights.

And so consequently what normal nations would do when they go and engage in conflict, they obey what's called the law of armed conflict. And clearly Russia does not care. They will not follow it. And they have shown a willingness, if not an outright, forthright ability to target civilians that are unauthorized to come to the Geneva Convention or anything else. ACOSTA: And I just want to go to this video, if we can show one more

time, of this child using a dust pan and picking up the debris that is there on the ground. We're pulling it up here in just a few seconds. There is the child.

And I mean, it just underlines what the people of Ukraine are going through.

LIPPOLD: Not just the horrors of this war, but in many cases how resilient they are. It is absolutely amazing. I mean I think that as everyone expected, they weren't sure what Ukraine was going to do. And obviously President Zelenskyy stiffened up and he has rallied a nation to follow him forward as a phenomenal leader through this.

The resiliency and the ability to just stick with it, that just lean forward into it, to not give up, to not give in, to not let the terror that Russia is unleashing on their country affect how they're going to do it.

And that young person cleaning up today, that's an example set by the adults in that country who are also saying we are not going to give in. We are not going to live under the yolk of tyranny ever again and we will do whatever it takes.

When you begin to cut that down into youth, it's going to make a difference not only now but in the future when Ukraine finally does get Russia out of their country, hopefully including Crimea and they begin to rebuild, they are going to be one of the west's greatest allies.

ACOSTA: Yes. When the children are stiffening their spines, I mean that's just truly inspiring. And the founder of (INAUDIBLE) this private military contractor for Russia is claiming that their forces have captured the town of Soledar. The Ukrainian military is saying that fierce battles are still happening. Talk about Wagner (ph) and this role that they're playing in this war.

LIPPOLD: Well, Wagner is one of these very grave roots. Technically they're illegal under Russian law. They are clearly who is running it as well as the Wagner group. They are getting a lot of people through Russia, mostly convicts these days.

And if you talk to the Ukrainians in that area, while they may have achieved a tactical victory in taking Soledar, they did it at a cost of what is estimated right now at 2,000 to 3,000 lives. Mostly convicts that they have brought up, tagged and put forward into the battle to be used up.

Ukrainians are expending a tremendous amount of artillery and that's probably the one thing they need is more ammunition right now for their artillery pieces. But when you look at it Bakhmut has not fallen. It is still out there. It is a critical hub for transportation. You have railroads. You have highways. You have roads going through it, which is why it is so important.

Soledar is not that significant strategically. Tactically it may serve to help forces. But in reality the cost that the Russians are paying to do that is so high that they may culminate or literally not be able to generate the combat force to take Bakhmut which will mean that the Ukrainians cannot only hold it but counter offensive and push them back.

ACOSTA: All right. They are holding -- I mean, against all odds in so many different cases across Ukraine. Commander Kirk Lippold, Thanks very much for those insights. We appreciate it.

LIPPOD: Thank you Jim.

Coming up, new disturbing details now giving a glimpse into the mind of a man accused of killing four college students in Idaho. Those disturbing details next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:24:12]

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ACOSTA: We're getting disturbing new insights into the mind of Bryan Kohberger, the 28-year-old accused of murdering four University of Idaho students. The "New York Times" has been uncovering online posts from his past that paint a deeply disturbing picture of an isolated and depressed teenager.

In one post Kohberger writes, "I can say and do whatever I want with little remorse."

And in another quote, "As I hug my family, I look into their faces, I see nothing. It is like I am looking at a video game." Very disturbing stuff.

Kohberger is currently being held on four counts of first degree murder. His attorney says he believes he's going to be exonerated.

And joining us now to talk about this is former senior FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole. She's also a former FBI special agent. Great to see you again, Mary, as always.

One of the questions that I have is because we have talked to you so many times about this case before the arrest was made, do any of these postings surprise you? and do they kind -- does it kind of make this case make sense to you after all of the questions and conversations that we had about this case before Kohberger was arrested?

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER SENIOR FBI PROFILER: Yes. Actually it is a great question. And some of the postings do surprise me. And I'll tell you why. There is an incongruity between what is posted there.

So for example, the writings say, "I'm feeling depressed. I'm feeling anxious. I have thoughts of suicide." Then on the other hand, the postings say, "I can say and do whatever I want, but I feel no regret." And regret requires feelings.

So in other words, on one hand he talks about the feelings. And then on the other hand remarks about he has none.

[17:30:00]

Then talks about something called "vision snow," which is, for those people that have it, it is very rare. It could be debilitating. And that, along with suicidal ideation.

It can be very problematic for a young person and impact the quality of their life, which means that their ability to perform up to the maximum would have been impaired.

However, we still have someone that got a college degree, got a masters degree and then went on to get a PHD.

And those debilitating psychological issues would likely have come to the attention of family members, of loved ones, of school counselors.

So if those, in fact, were genuine, they would have been addressed, I would think, at some point in his life.

But they do conflict with, once I have feeling but now I don't. That's not how our emotional psychological development continues as we get older and older.

ACOSTA: And that leads me to the question of whether or not warning signs were missed. What do you think?

O'TOOLE: I think probably warning signs were missed. We see that in all types of violent crime.

I always say this because I think it is important. Violence begins in the brain. What do I mean by that? You don't wake up one morning and decide you are going to go into somebody's home and kill four people inside the home.

You start thinking about violent behavior. You start to read about it. You start testing other people, what do they think about it? And now, you have social media, you can post on social media.

But the ideation about acting out violently, especially if it's a non- impulsive, and particularly if it is not an act of violence that is reactive -- in other words, if I punch you in the nose, you punch me back.

The violence that we saw in Idaho was called "instrumental violence." It's a very specific type of violence. So there would have been planning ahead of time. And all of that could have been missed if people don't know what to look for.

But if somebody doesn't want you to see it, it's going to be hard to decipher.

ACOSTA: And let me ask you this because some people might have problems with having empathy for others and that sort of thing. As sad as that is, it's a very sad thing to think about.

But it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to go out there and commit crimes later on in life.

Where does this line get drawn where the behavior becomes so disturbing, there's such a lack of empathy that you could cross into this kind of territory?

O'TOOLE: Well, it's a blending of a couple of things. And, so, the personality of a person is really critical.

And we know that our personalities aren't hardwired until we are like in our mid-20s, same with our brains. But a pattern of behavior will become manifested as we get older.

So people that see us and know us will see we're very empathic or not so much. Or people that see us and know us will say, you can really relate to other people or you just simply can't seem to relate to other people.

So the patterns will continue as we become 10, 11, 12, 15 years of age. So that development is known to others around us.

But then the ideation about killing other people, for whatever reasons, whether they're sexual or emotional, that kind of ideation also begins to develop, we think, at a very early age.

When you have a culmination of the two, very violent ideation in the body of someone who has very little remorse or guilt for what they do or regard for others, then that's a deadly combination.

It is not a simple evolution, but it is an evolution with visible signs along the way if people know what to look for.

ACOSTA: And Kohberger has maintained his innocence through his attorneys. But it does appear, at this point, what do you think, that investigators have a significant amount of evidence to work on now?

O'TOOLE: Well, they do have a significant amount of evidence. But they need more.

And they will have to go back and look at his background to see what other kinds of incidents, crimes, was he involved with, what were they like. If they were crimes he was involved in, in an earlier age, what do they consist of?

So there's a lot of background information that they have to acquire.

But also, keep in mind that there was an awful lot of physical evidence that was removed from that crime scene that is probably still being tested.

That means we could develop more DNA that comes forward. That's going to be critical. They do need more forensic evidence so they could present that in court.

[17:35:04]

ACOSTA: All right. Mary Ellen O'Toole, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it, as always.

O'TOOLE: Thank you.

ACOSTA: Thank you.

Now to shocking video of a road collapsing out in California. Look at this. This is in Pescadero, California.

The California fire officials there captured this image of a road sliding down a hill. Large chunks of asphalt shifting until half the road fell away there. Just incredible to see this.

The Pescadero area has seen heavy rain and flooding over the past few days and could still see even more rain throughout this evening.

We'd love to see those folks out there catch a break. Just remarkable footage there showing what they're up against.

Coming up, new video of the last days of Lisa Marie Presley as we remember the life and legacy of Elvis Presley's only child. That's next.

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[17:40:04]

ACOSTA: We now know where the daughter of rock 'n' roll legend, Elvis Presley, will be laid to rest. Singer Lisa Marie Presley will be buried at Graceland, the iconic mansion she inherited from her father.

The 54-year-old died yesterday of an apparent cardiac arrest.

CNN's Kyung Lah has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DISPATCHER: Engine 125, Squad 68, full arrest.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Paramedics responded to an emergency call for help. Hours later, Priscilla

Presley, mother of Lisa Marie Presley, said her daughter was rushed to the hospital. And then shared with fans that the daughter of Elvis had died at age 54.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just -- I got chills because notice how her father passed.

LAH: The child of the king of rock and roll lost her father when she was nine, had apparently succumbed to cardiac arrest.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: There are about 350,000 cardiac arrests every year in the United States. That is about one almost every minute in this country.

So it is a very common occurrence. And there are a lot of things that could cause a cardiac arrest. LAH: Without an autopsy, says cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, it is

impossible to know why a 54-year-old woman would suddenly suffer from cardiac arrest.

Just two days before, mother and daughter had attended the Golden Globes, where a biopic on Elvis was honored.

LISA MARIE PRESLEY, SINGER & DAUGHTER OF ELVIS PRESLEY: (INAUDIBLE)

LAH: Presley leaned on a friend during this interview.

And just days before the award show, she spoke at Graceland of withdrawing from public view at a celebration of what would have been her famous father's 88th birthday.

PRESLEY: They keep saying you are the only people who could bring me out of my house --

LAH: Presley had previously lived a very public life, marrying the king of pop before she would embark on a singing career of her own.

(SINGING)

LAH: While she left the limelight in recent years, she shared her personal struggles.

Presley wrote about her addiction to opioids, saying in the forward of this book: "You may read this and wonder, how after losing people close to me, I also felt prey to opioids."

After losing one of her four children to suicide over two years ago, she wrote, "You do not get over it, you do not move on, period."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Joining me now, CNN entertainment reporter, Chloe Melas.

Chloe, what a heartbreaking week, what happened with Lisa Marie Presley. We just saw her at the Golden Globes right before this happened.

Tell us about that and the plans now to remember her.

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Jim, I was at the Golden Globes. I saw Lisa Marie Presley. Like many reporters there, we thought to ourselves that she didn't seem like herself.

We know that funeral details are still forthcoming, but she will be laid to rest at Graceland where she was just earlier this week giving a speech, like Kyung said in her piece, to remember her father, what would have been his 88th birthday.

And fans were even a little taken aback by her demeanor and how she seemed.

Here's a little bit more of that speech a few days ago that Lisa Marie gave.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESLEY: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FAN: Love you!

PRESLEY: It's been a while.

CROWD: Yes, it has.

PRESLEY: I missed you.

(CHEERING)

(SHOUTING)

PRESLEY: And I love you.

I keep saying you are the only people that can bring me out of my house. I'm not kidding. And I love you back and that's why I'm here.

(SHOUTING)

PRESLEY: So today, he would have been 88 years old. Hard to believe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELAS: Jim, she's spoken about the grief that she suffered after her son's suicide in 2020. She wrote about it in an essay over the summer. And she said, "My soul went with you," and that she never fully recovered.

It is only fitting she will be laid to rest next to her father and her son, Benjamin, at Graceland.

We're all waiting for a potential autopsy report, but we might not get that. We might not ever get the details as to what exactly happened -- Jim?

ACOSTA: That's hard to hear. And it's just difficult to reflect on how much pain this family has gone through over the decades.

Chloe, you covered so many entertainment headlines for us. I want to shift to something else.

I do want to ask you about how authorities are expected to announce, by the end of the month, whether any charges will be filed in the fatal shooting on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie, "Rust."

What are we looking for there? Is it possible this case might finally get wrapped up?

MELAS: Or go to trial, right?

ACOSTA: Yes. MELAS: I mean, this is one that's a big entertainment story. It should be on everyone's radar. It is one of the ones that we can actually plan for, right?

[17:45:58]

So sometime between now and the end of the month, the district attorney in New Mexico will reveal whether or not they will be pressing charges on anyone because of that fatal shooting on the set of "Rust" more than a year ago.

Where Alec Baldwin was holding what he thought was a prop gun. He said he had no idea there was a live bullet in that gun. He says he did not pull the trigger.

He sat down with me in an interview a couple of months ago, at the end of the summer, and he is adamant that he didn't pull the trigger and that he doesn't know how a live round got on the set.

There's an armorer. There are others that could potentially face charges. But we don't know if anyone will face charges.

We do know that, just a few months ago, the family of Halyna Hutchins had a settlement with "Rust" productions and Alec Baldwin.

In that settlement, Jim, they agreed they will go back, finish the movie, finish filming "Rust" and that proceeds from the film would go to Halyna Hutchins widower and her son.

But if charges are pressed and people potentially go to jail or this goes to trial, I don't see how that movie could get made.

But again, that is looming, and we should have answers hopefully some time in the next couple of weeks.

ACOSTA: And, Chloe, finally, rapper and criminal justice reformer advocate, Meek Mill, just received a pardon from the governor of Pennsylvania.

You spoke to Meek Mill recently. What can you tell us?

MELAS: Look, Meek Mill has been an advocate for probation and parole reform across the country with the Reform Alliance with CEO Robert Rooks, who I just spoke to a few months ago before this segment. And they are celebrating.

Meek Mill has spent the majority of his life in and out of prison, on probation. That's why he started the Reform Alliance. He rose to fame with the Free Meek Mill movement.

We spoke about those efforts and what he's trying to do to change the face of probation and parole in this country just a few weeks ago.

Here is a little bit of my interview with Meek Mill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MEEK MILL, RAPPER, CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORMER & ADVOCATE, THE REFORM ALLIANCE: Well, we are working on probation and parole because I was affected by it.

And I'm from a community where I see mothers and fathers leave their kids all the time in the house because they may have smoked marijuana or went to cross the Philadelphia/New Jersey state line to take their children to football practice.

So I would say probation and parole, taking a look at that is a real thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELAS: So, Jim, Meek is one of 369 Pennsylvanians pardoned by the governor this week, bringing the governor's total to over 2,500. Most ever granted by a Pennsylvanian governor.

But I will say that, just to put this into perspective, we talked about this before, Jim, what Meek is talking about in that interview.

Is that some people on parole in this country, on probation, they could get thrown back into prison for something as simple as crossing a state line from New York to New Jersey, Georgia to Alabama to go and take their kid to soccer practice, right?

And maybe, you know, their crime has nothing to do with crossing state lines or anything like that.

So they want to make these laws, especially in the state of Pennsylvania, which Robert Rooks just told me, the CEO of Reform Alliance, that Pennsylvania has some of the strictest probation and parole laws. That's what they're trying to reform.

And Meek Mills obviously so happy he's been pardoned. But like they say, there's still a lot of work left to be done.

ACOSTA: All right. Chloe Melas, thank you very much.

And as we go to break, a quick programming note for you. Witness the rise and fall of a polarizing political figure. The CNN original series, "GIULIANI, WHAT HAPPENED TO AMERICA'S MAYOR?" airs tomorrow at 9:00 p.m.

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ACOSTA: There are new questions about what precisely is going on up in the sky. A Pentagon office this week revealed more than 350 reported of unidentified aerial phenomenon since March of 2021.

As CNN's Kristin Fisher reports, about half of these so-called UFO sightings can be explained away. It's the other half that remain a mystery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Capitol Hill has been waiting for this report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the ODNI.

What this report found is there have been more than 300 new sightings of what the government calls UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomenon, or more commonly called UFOs, since the last time that ODNI put out a report like this in 2021.

Back then, the ODNI could not explain 144 sightings of UAPs. This time, now they can't explain 171 one of them.

One part of the report that stands out is this one. It says that some of these uncharacterized UAPs "appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities and require further analysis."

So is it advanced U.S. technology? Is it advanced technology from a foreign adversary like perhaps China or Russia? Or is extraterrestrial in origin or something else entirely? We just don't know.

And the U.S. government says it doesn't know either, or at least it will not say so publicly in this unclassified report.

But they did give some explanations for about 163 of the sightings that have been detailed in this report.

[17:55:01]

And here's how they explain those. The vast majority are either balloons or balloon entities. A handful were drones. Another handful were what they called airborne clutter, things like birds, weather events or airborne debris like plastic bags.

So the bottom line here, members of Congress say this is a step in the right direction to reducing the stigma associated with reporting sightings of UAPs. It's also a step in the right direction to enhancing national security.

Because remember, a lot of these sightings happen right around military bases or assets.

While it's a step in the right direction, members of Congress say the Pentagon, the office of the Director of National Intelligence still has a long way to go to giving them the answers they ultimately want.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: All right, thanks, Kristin. The truth may still be out there.

That's the news. Reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you back here tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. Eastern

Pamela Brown takes over the CNN NEWSROOM, live, after a quick break.

Have a good night.

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