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Alex Murdaugh Sentenced to Life in Prison for Killing Wife & Son; Man Accused of Threatening to Kill Jewish Elected Officials in Michigan Ordered to Remain in Jail; Work Begins to Remove Track Near Ohio Derailment Scene; Ethics Panel Extends Inquiry into Ocasio- Cortez's Met Gala Appearance. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired March 03, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Others say they're still trying to decide. But then there are others - another group that are basically saying, look, all you're doing is kowtowing to the Republicans here and you're turning against a basic principle that Democrats believe in and that is that the district should be able to govern itself, even though the law says the federal government can overturn what it does, they're saying the district should have autonomy and some of them are saying they're disappointed, D.C. has this right. It's a sad day for D.C. Home Rule, deeply disappointed. It is a very divisive issue for the Democrats, and it is a harbinger of the challenges Democrats may have on this issue of crime going into the next election.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: All right. Tom Foreman, certainly something to watch. Thank you so much.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: It is the top of the hour on CNN Newsroom. Hello, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell.

Today, disgraced former South Carolina attorney, Alex Murdaugh, was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and his youngest son, Paul. The Judge handed down two consecutive life sentences without parole for the killings.

His defense team plans to file an appeal in the next few days, but before he was sentenced, the former lawyer maintained his innocence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX MURDAUGH, CONVICTED OF MURDERING WIFE AND SON: I'll tell you again, I respect this court, but I'm innocent. I would never, under any circumstances hurt my wife, Maggie. And I would never under any circumstances hurt my son, PawPaw.

JUDGE CLIFTON NEWMAN, SOUTH CAROLINA CIRCUIT COURT: Might not have been you. It might have been the monster that you become when you take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opioid pills. Maybe you become another person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: CNN's Dianne Gallagher has been following this case from South Carolina. So Dianne, it was really fascinating to hear judge Newman give those remarks and his thoughts and his connection to the Murdaugh family and even Alex himself seeing each other in passing it in the years prior, before he handed down the sentence. What is the reaction been there?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The reaction from people just around Walterboro where this trial has just completely encompassed this city for the past six weeks, I can tell you that as soon as it came down. There were people who started saying cheering, shouting.

There has been a bit of almost like a pep rally vibe outside of the courthouse, which is strange because this is a double murder trial. This is serious. This is somber. But so much of it is rooted in that family history that you mentioned and Judge Clifton Newman referenced as well: It is about power and privilege.

And as the Attorney General and the lead prosecutor said, proving that no one is above the law. And so there were people who were extremely surprised, including those who follow this case very closely, myself included, that the jury came back so quickly.

The judge, of course, putting down that life without parole sentence, consecutive sentences for the murder of Maggie and Paul. He did not pull any punches though. Judge Clifton Newman spoke for quite a while and he is a very respected, well known even tempered judge here in the state of South Carolina and he laid into Alex Murdaugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWMAN: And I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the nighttime when you're attempting to go to sleep. I'm sure they come and visit you, I'm sure.

MURDAUGH: All day and every night.

NEWMAN: Yes, I'm sure. And they will continue to do so and reflect on the last time they look to you and eyes. As you look the jury in their eyes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: There was a juror who spoke with ABC who said that it was Alex Murdaugh's lie, but also his testimony when he got on the stand for those 14 hours last week, he just didn't buy it, the juror said. He simply did not find Alex Murdaugh to be sincere and could not get past the lie that Murdaugh had initially told over and over again, that he was not at the kennels in the moments before his wife and son were killed.

His defense attorney said today, Victor and Bianna, that they do plan to appeal this.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, that was chilling to hear Judge Newman say that Maggie and Paul will continue to haunt you at night.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Dianne Gallagher, thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right. Let's discuss now with State Attorney, Palm Beach County, Florida Dave Aronberg and jury consultant Alan Tuerkheimer. And welcome to you both.

And Dave, let me start with you. And on the question of how quickly this jury returned, they said we know that they had the case for three hours, but I want you to listen to that juror who spoke with ABC News about actually how long it took to determine that Alex Murdaugh is guilty. Let's watch.

[15:05:09]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you feel like he was a liar?

CRAIG MOYER, JUROR: A good liar, but not good enough.

I didn't see any true remorse or any compassion or anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even though he was - he cried a lot on the stand.

MOYER: He never cried.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He never cried? What do you mean by that?

MOYER: All he did was blow snot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you not see tears?

MOYER: No tears.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How did you know he wasn't crying?

MOYER: Because I saw his eyes. I was this close to him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you first got in the room, you took a vote:

MOYER: It was two not guilty and one not sure and nine guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was your vote?

MOYER: Guilty. You start deliberating going through the evidence and everybody was pretty much talking. And, I don't know, about 45 minutes later we - after all are deliberating we figure it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Forty-five minutes, you're surprised by that?

DAVE ARONBERG, STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY: Yes. I wasn't surprised by the guilty verdict, but I was surprised at the speed. This was a five week trial.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ARONBERG: And it took three hours and those two jurors who originally thought he was innocent switched in and 45 minutes, that is unusual. I guess they didn't have the courage of their convictions. But the evidence was overwhelming. I mean, the key bit of evidence was that video that Paul Murdaugh took, essentially Paul Murdaugh solved his own murder with a hat tip to the dog Baba, because had Baba not had that chicken in his mouth, you wouldn't have heard Alex Murdaugh's voice on the video and that exposed his lies. That the alibi that he gave was a fraud was wrong, and that forced Alex Murdaugh to take the stand. And you saw what happened, it backfired in the end.

GOLODRYGA: Well, Alan, most legal experts that we spoke to at the time said that hearing from Alex probably convinced them at least that he did a good job that he was able to stay in there, given his legal background for 14 hours and answer all of those questions and to go into detail and even admit that yes, I am a liar; yes, I have stolen; yes, I have a drug problem, but I didn't kill my family. Ultimately, the jurors didn't see it that way.

ALAN TUERKHEIMER, JURY CONSULTANT: No. His testimony was very poor. In fact, I think it was borderline atrocious. Jurors don't like it when witnesses being questioned and they don't answer and what he kept doing continually was going beyond the scope of the questions. He kept trying to interject his own narrative. He was evasive, I thought he prevaricated a lot and his testimony was self serving and jurors do not like that. He should have stuck to quick yes or no answers when he was being crossed. And as the juror who spoke to you indicated, they didn't buy it, jurors have good BS detectors and he didn't pull another lie over on them.

BLACKWELL: Alan, I wonder even he used it today and I think one of the prosecutors questioned on the first day of his questioning of Alex Murdaugh about the use of PawPaw and Mags, and said have you used or referred to your son as PawPaw at any point in other recorded statements in this case, and he said he couldn't remember. Is that typically effective using some of those monikers and pet names?

TUERKHEIMER: It's effective if it's genuine and it just did not come off as genuine. And I think the testimony was necessitated by the video with his voice in the background. But once he started to testify - look, lawyers love to testify. Their - they use words to persuade people. And once he was on the stand, he just couldn't contain himself.

And when he was using those terms in trying to endear himself with the jury, they just didn't think that it was authentic. They rejected it and it was a hail Mary that he had to testify and like most hail Marys, it didn't work.

GOLODRYGA: So let's talk about another hail Mary. We know that the defense attorney is going to be appealing in 10 days, any grounds for appeal, in your view? ARONBERG: Well, they could say that by allowing the evidence of the financial crimes, it went beyond motive to what's called propensity evidence. Meaning, he's a bad guy, you should find him guilty and there were some questions from the prosecutors that led the witnesses to say, yes, now that I know that my opinion of him has changed, and that could give grounds for an appeal.

But look, in the end, this case dependent on his lies and the jurors didn't believe the lies. So even if there was some conduct that could be right for appeal, I think it's what you call harmless error. Because the bottom line was he lied about his alibi. And then when he got on the stand, he lied about the reason why he was lying, which was that the opioids made me paranoid, even though I guess he's saying that it made him so paranoid that he lied all the time, but not paranoid enough for him to kill.

[15:10:03]

BLACKWELL: Dave, there are these 99 financial crimes that - with which he has been charged, he's admitted to stealing money during this trial. Does it behoove at all to fight those?

ARONBERG: The prosecutors hadn't (inaudible) the rights on that, he admitted to the crimes on the stand. I think the reason why he did so was that he was so worried about his family name, his legacy. He was willing to go down for financial crimes, for being a fraud, but not for being a family annihilator and that was a bridge too far for him.

That's why even today, he said, no, I still maintain my innocence.

BLACKWELL: Mm-hm.

ARONBERG: So he's got to live with the fact that he is now a convicted murderer, whether he likes it or not. But, yes - no, I don't think it matters what happened with the financial crimes, because he's going to spend the rest of his days in a prison cell either for the murders or for the 99 counts that are yet to come.

BLACKWELL: Mm-hm.

GOLODRYGA: Family annihilator, that was a question that the prosecutor - one of the first questions that he asked him, are you a family annihilator, do you remember that?

BLACKWELL: Yes. Yes, indeed.

GOLODRYGA: All right.

BLACKWELL: Alan, Dave, thank you both.

GOLODRYGA: Well, the man accused of threatening to kill Jewish government officials in Michigan has just been ordered by a judge to stay in jail.

BLACKWELL: Authorities say Jack Carpenter III posted about his plot on Twitter last month. The FBI also says he wrote posts supporting an anti-government extremist movement that is classified as domestic terrorism.

CNN's Omar Jimenez joins us now from Detroit.

What can you tell us about the hearing?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we just got out of that hearing where he appeared in-person in orange jumpsuit and glasses. He consented to continue being detained, but he also distributed a letter through his attorney challenging the personal jurisdiction of the court.

Now, we haven't seen the contents of that letter, but it's likely because as the FBI has said he does not believe that the either law enforcement or the government has jurisdiction over him. Nonetheless, he remains in federal custody and the threats he's accused of making were allegedly posted online while he was out of state.

And one of them reads, in part: "I'm heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is Jewish and the Michigan government if they don't leave or confess, and now." Later adding: "Any attempt to subdue me will be met with deadly force in self-defense now."

Now, he was eventually arrested but Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel confirmed what a source had already told CNN that she was a target of - I mean, an alleged target of this person and a state lawmakers also now come forward telling CNN that she was notified she was an alleged target and that to her it wasn't really a surprise, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SAMANTHA STECKLOFF (D-MI): We've seen the rise in anti-Semitism pretty much since the Charlottesville ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

STECKLOFF: ... when President Trump came in 2016, we saw this rise and wave of this great Christian national group and it really, really, really hit the fire when Kanye West said he was going to go DEFCON three on all of the Jews back in October, November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And in this case, in particular, this suspect is accused of violating international or interstate communications laws when it comes to threats. We have not seen a plea at this point. When I approached his public defender afterwards, he did not have any additional comments.

GOLODRYGA: Thank goodness this was all thwarted by authorities. Omar Jimenez, thank you.

BLACKWELL: In East Palestine, Ohio, the EPA has not fully accepted Norfolk Southern's derailment remediation plan as the company is just now beginning to remove the track of the derailment scene. GOLODRYGA: And later, Republican heavyweights are out in full force at the Conservative Political Action Conference. But there is one notable absence from the event previewing a deepening divide within the GOP.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) are wrong about everything they say ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:52]

BLACKWELL: Today marks one month since that toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. But in the weeks since it happened, many who live there still worried about their health and safety.

GOLODRYGA: Today, scientists from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon say air testing revealed higher than normal levels of one concerning chemical. The announcement comes as crews began removing some of the tracks and excavating contaminated soil, a quarter mile from the crash site.

But a source tells CNN that the EPA has not fully accepted in Norfolk Southern remediation plan.

CNN's Miguel Marquez is on the scene in East Palestine, Ohio. Miguel, what are you hearing?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Victor, Bianna, people are very upset. They want answers, they want certainty. And unfortunately, because of the complexity of this disaster, they're not going to get it very quickly. One big piece of this cleanup is about to take place and that is the removal of the tracks in the soil, the contaminated soil underneath directly underneath those tracks.

The way this will work, says the EPA and Norfolk Southern is at the southern track, there's two tracks that run through that area where it derailed, the Southern tracks will be removed the soil under it removed. It'll be replaced with fresh soil, the tracks will be put back in place.

And then the tracks on the north side, that same process will occur there. One of the things that EPA has instructed Norfolk Southern to do is test for dioxins here in town that was a big concern for people in East Palestine, because many of those chemicals that burn can create dioxins and that can be harmful to human health.

So EPA now has a regime that they are going to put in place to test for those. And a Carnegie Mellon-Texas A&M study confirms today that there are elevated levels of chemicals in East Palestine, but they are still within EPA standards for human health. But there are some concerns because they are seeing a slight increase in some of those chemicals. The NTSB also issued that advisory to other freight carriers that the caps on the valves of those rail cars, they should check those because the ones that ended up having to be vented here, the caps were made of aluminum.

[15:20:04]

The fire around them got so hot that it melted them preventing those vents from - from those emergency events from actually venting the chemicals as it's supposed to work.

Look, people want things to happen very quickly here and the - this big piece of it, the removal of the tracks and that soil under it. It's going to take a while, at least, till the end of April, Victor, Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: All right. Miguel, thanks to you.

Well, the House Ethics Committee is extending its inquiry into Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, why they are looking closely at this moment when she went to the Met Gala in 2021.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:19]

GOLODRYGA: The Congressional Ethics Committee says it is now extending an inquiry into Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now it was this dress that made headlines when she wore it to the Met Gala in 2021. Many noting that tax the rich was a bold message for such a swank event.

BLACKWELL: The Ethics Committee now says the congresswoman may have accepted impermissible gifts when she showed up on the red carpet talking about accessories and shoes and hair and makeup and the dress itself.

CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju is joining us.

So tell us about this, what are the steps happening?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the House Ethics Committee is now conducting a bipartisan investigation after an independent outside body that is affiliated with the Ethics Committee called the Office of Congressional Ethics initially opened an inquiry into this matter and found that roughly $5,600 worth of services, including that dress, including hair, makeup, transportation (inaudible) room services, handbag was not initially paid for by Ocasio-Cortez as is required.

Now, in the report, it said if Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez accepted impermissible gifts, then she may have violated House rules, standards of conduct and federal law.

Now, the report notes that Ocasio-Cortez did ultimately pay for those services. But it wasn't until after the investigation was opened. Now, Ocasio-Cortez seems to agree that there was a mistake. She believed that she should have - it should have happened earlier and she says he has put appropriate safeguards to ensure it won't happen again. Her attorney says the record clearly shows that the congresswoman always understood that she had to pay for these expenses personally and she even work with the undersigned counsel prior to the event to ensure that you comply with all applicable ethics rules.

So going forward, this committee will investigate what happened here and decide what if any recourse is needed, guys.

GOLODRYGA: Meantime, Manu, some Democrats are not happy with the President for saying that he won't veto a Republican-led effort to overturn a D.C. crime bill. How's the White House responding?

RAJU: Yes. There's been a lot of criticism from House Democrats in particular, given the fact that just last month, 173 House Democrats oppose a Republican-led effort to rescind D.C.'s new crime law. The crime law would change a number of mandatory minimum sentences including some violent crimes, Republicans painted as soft on crime.

But Democrats say the District of Columbia has a right to govern itself as they push for statehood and say the district has to be fully autonomous and Congress should not interfere in the district's laws and regulations. But the White House changed its approach. While it issued this statement a month ago when the House voted on this matter, it said that while we work towards making Washington, D.C. the 51st state of our union, Congress should respect the District of Columbia's autonomy to govern its local affairs.

It said in that statement, it opposed the Republican effort to rescind the law. But yesterday when Biden came to Capitol Hill, he told Senate Democrats that he in fact would allow that Republican-led effort to go into law essentially siding with Republicans to rescind the D.C.-led law.

Now, earlier today, the White House was pressed about their - about the President's apparent reversal on this issue and they argue that he never explicitly said he would veto the Republican measure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We never laid out where we - where the President was going to go once that - once it came to his desk, because we wanted to allow Congress to move forward in a way that they normally do with a mechanism when a piece of legislation moves forward and so we never said anything at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: But that position really is not flaunt - going over well, among many House Democrats, including some - in some key swing districts who believe that they were on the same side of the White House, but essentially had the rug pulled from under need them by this late move here. So a lot of consternation on the Hill as this effort is expected to go into law and D.C. is this new crime law expected to be repealed by Congress as soon as next week, guys.

BLACKWELL: All right. Manu Raju for us there on Capitol Hill. Thank you, Manu.

GOLODRYGA: Turning to the Republican Party now where the deepening divide over whether former President Trump should lead their charge in 2024 is on full display this weekend. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Pence are skipping conservatives' biggest annual conference, that CPAC, and instead opting for a big donor event in Florida.

BLACKWELL: But former U.N. Ambassador, Nikki Haley, is attending both events.

CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now from CPAC live.

So how was Hayley received today?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, when it came to her speech, she had a very lukewarm response.

[15:30:01]

There was a little bit of tepid applause as well as at one point some light booing when she said that she was running for president.