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FAA Administrator Faces Congress; Intel Leaders Grilled on Capitol Hill; Louisville Police Department Accused to Excessive Force. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 08, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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


[13:00:35]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'm Abby Phillip in Washington.

The Justice Department has just issued a scathing and disturbing report on the Louisville Police Department nearly two years after a nearly-two-year civil rights investigation.

Now, Attorney General Merrick Garland launched this probe in the months after the Louisville police shot and killed unarmed black woman Breonna Taylor inside of her home. And a short time ago, Garland explained that that botched raid in March of 2020 was part of a practice of abuses by the city.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: LMPD leader told the department: "Breonna Taylor was a symptom of problems that we have had for years."

The Justice Department's findings and the report that we are releasing today bear that out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And listen to this.

These are just some of the very ugly examples that Garland cited today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARLAND: The Justice Department has also identified deficiencies and LMPD's response to and investigation of domestic violence and sexual assault.

LMPD has relied heavily on pretextual traffic stops in black neighborhoods. Some have videotaped themselves throwing drinks at pedestrians from their cars, insulted people with disabilities and called black people monkeys, animal and boy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: CNN's Evan Perez is tracking all of this.

So, Evan, what else do they find in this extensive investigation, some 90 pages of findings here?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abby, this is a very ugly report on the practices of the Justice -- of the Louisville Police Department, not only using things like invalid court warrants, trying to disproportionately target African-Americans for searches.

They were using things like pretextual traffic stops, which is somebody driving with a broken light, for instance, and they're using that to try to find other crimes. You see excessive force. You see unlawful stops of African-Americans throughout this entire Louisville metropolitan area.

It's also a problem that, according to the Justice Department, the Louisville Police Department knew very, very much was existing for years and years. They did internal reports to study the problem, came up with these reports, and then just buried them.

Here's Attorney General Merrick Garland describing more of what they found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARLAND: The report finds that LMPD uses excessive force, including unjustified neck restraints and the unreasonable use of police dogs and Tasers, conducts searches based on invalid warrants, unlawfully executes warrants without knocking and announcing, unlawfully stops, searches, detains and arrests people, unlawfully discriminates against black people in enforcement activities, violates the rights of people engaged in protected speech, critical policing, and, along with Louisville Metro, discriminates against people with behavioral health disabilities when responding to them in crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: Abby, the report also found that this pattern of abuse extended to people with disabilities, as well as people who are suffering from sexual assaults. Sexual assault victims were also being abused.

PHILLIP: That stood out to me too, Evan. Thank you very much for breaking all of that down.

And for more on this, let's go straight to our analysts. We're joined by former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe and also former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams.

Elliot, I want to start with you.

As you just heard Evan say, I mean, this report really points to widespread abuses. It touches not just on race, but also on gender, on people with disabilities. These probes have happened before. They happen all over the country in police departments big and small.

What stood out to you on this one?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What stands out to me, Abby, is the fact that this is with the consent and agreement of the city of Louisville's police department and mayor.

[13:05:08]

Oftentimes people think of this relationship between the Justice Department in these local police departments as hostile or combative, and it's the folks from Washington coming and wagging their fingers at a local police department.

Here., everyone worked together and came to the report. There's a reason why the attorney general gave these remarks in Louisville, right, flanked by leadership of the police department and the city there. And that's really significant here. And it's a call for change both at the federal and local level.

And it seems that there's broad agreement with leadership there.

PHILLIP: Yes, that's such a good point.

I mean, I wonder, Andy. Do you think that is really the only way that these things change, if the local officials not just take it -- take this kind of feedback from the DOJ, but also are a part of the process of actually fixing these problems?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Abby, it's really essential that you have that sort of collaboration, for a number of reasons.

First is that, oftentimes, police departments and police leaders are hamstrung in what they can do and what they can actually change within their own department, particularly where it comes to disciplining officers, because they are restricted by broad collective bargaining agreements that don't allow any really effective, quick, substantial change.

And so often police leadership is pleased to have DOJ come in, and basically enforce the law and require that sort of change. And then, as you mentioned, in order for this stuff to really stick, to push cultural change across a law enforcement institution, it's very hard. It takes a long time. It takes commitment over years and years to really change the mentality, and that -- you can't force that on people.

You have to have them bought into that process.

PHILLIP: But, on the other hand, it does seem that these pattern and practice investigations, they're a key tool in DOJ's arsenal, but they happen so often, it almost seems like -- is it Whac-A-Mole that they're playing here, Elliot?

Does there need to be actually federal intervention here, so that DOJ isn't just going after these departments one by one year after year after year? WILLIAMS: Well, the Justice Department is kind of limited in its

ability to set nationwide policing policy. That's a federalism question, where the Justice Department can't really set standards for local police departments across the country.

And what can happen is when you have systemic abuses and problems, go in and try to come to an agreement. But let's not forget here, the Justice Department does have the ability to go in and sue and use the law if these negotiations break down.

So it is a very powerful tool. Your point is very well-taken or the question is very well-taken, in that why can't -- it's clearly -- it's a bigger problem than just one police department. I think we can all stipulate to that.

But what our government gives us is the ability only to handle it on a local, case-by-case level.

PHILLIP: Yes. Yes.

And, Andy, Merrick Garland also specifically talked about violations by this VIPER unit in Louisville. It was renamed something else later. But it piqued my interest because it sounded almost identical to what was going on in Memphis with that SCORPION unit that was involved in the Tyre Nichols case.

What are your thoughts about the scrutiny now that we're seeing on these specialized units and whether they really need to be looked more closely at?

MCCABE: There are many -- we can cite many examples of specialized units kind of going rogue and creating more problems than they're solving.

However, you have -- we have to look at it from the other side as well. Police chiefs and mayors are under enormous pressure to respond quickly to raises in the crime rate. And so they're often compelled to pull together these units and to kind of give them the green light to pursue some very aggressive law enforcement tactics.

I think it's a great idea that DOJ is coming in here and at least opining and offering some guidance on how to best equip, train and most, importantly, supervise those units, so they don't become units with a -- with a broad remit and basically out of control and not subjected to the rigorous sort of supervision that you need when you're really pushing the envelope on enforcing crime aggressively in places where the crime rates are very high.

PHILLIP: All right, Elliot and Andy, both of you stay there for a bit.

In Memphis, there's new fallout over the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, as we were discussing. The DOJ now says it will work with the city to review the Memphis Police Department. And this comes as we wait for Memphis to release 20 hours of additional audio and video from that January incident, but a court today just ordered a delay. CNN's senior crime and justice correspondent, Shimon Prokupecz, is with us now.

[13:10:03]

So, Shimon, we were supposed to get this additional video, extraordinary amount of it, actually.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

PHILLIP: What happens now?

PROKUPECZ: Yes.

I don't know. And I don't -- I am not entirely clear on this, Abby, as well. So the city, which has -- for weeks has been promising to release this video, they had every reason to expect to release it today late this afternoon. And then all of a sudden, we get word that one of the attorneys for the now former officers, of the defendant Desmond Mills, his attorney, Blake Ballin, suddenly at the last minute filed this motion with the Memphis court to prevent the city from releasing the video.

We don't know why this motion was filed. We don't know why the judge has agreed to this. They had a very quick hearing. My understanding is, it was in chambers. It wasn't even in the public. And this decision was made that they were going to delay the release of this video that certainly we have been asking to see, that the public, that the community has been asking to see, some 20 hours more of what went on in the moments before and after police encountered Tyre Nichols.

So we're not getting this video today. And, certainly, I think our lawyers are going to get involved in it, and we're going to try to figure out what happened here. And all of this comes, as you said, as the Department of Justice today announcing that, in Memphis, they're going to do a review, a review of the police department's use of force policies, their de-escalation policies.

But also, Abby, you were just talking about specialized units. The DOJ said that, after the Tyre Nichols incident, they got calls from police chiefs across the country saying: We need help. We want you to start giving us some guidance and assistance on these specialized units.

And so, as a result of that, they are now going to start looking at specialized units all across the country. So there's a lot still obviously going on in the Memphis investigation. And now we're seeing DOJ starting to look at what the Memphis police there have been doing.

And there's a lot of similarities. You talk about this VIPER unit in Louisville. Same thing here. You had a car stop that was -- we're not entirely clear for why, that then ultimately led to this encounter with police, this aggressive encounter that Tyre Nichols had with police.

But, again, a lot happening there in Memphis, as we now have to wait to see exactly what this other information is and when it's going to become public.

PHILLIP: Yes. And we know that you will stay on top of it.

But, Shimon, before you go, I know that the names of the five officers that have been charged have been released, but not the six other police personnel. Any idea of why that is, even at this late stage?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, it's not entirely clear why that is.

And we were expecting to get more information tomorrow, like personnel records and how they ultimately decided in these administrative hearings. They have had administrative hearings for 13 officers; 13 officers in Memphis have faced administrative hearings in relation to this. Seven have been fired. Three have been suspended. One resigned in the middle of this because they were expecting that they would be fired.

And then two actually had their charges dismissed at these administrative hearings. And the city also told us yesterday in a city council hearing they were going to release information about those administrative hearings tomorrow. But now all of that, again, is delayed, as we try to figure out why the judge at this at this late hour, really, just before the city was getting ready to release this information, decided to prevent them from doing so.

PHILLIP: All right, Shimon Prokupecz, thanks very much. We will get back with you if you have any more information on how that is going to go.

But let's get back to Elliot Williams and Andrew McCabe standing by for us.

So, Elliot, can I just start with you? I don't know if you have any thoughts on this delay. I mean, it seems odd to me, considering that so much of the other video was released. If it's video of the same incident, what would be the justification for holding it back?

WILLIAMS: So, these are pure -- this is pure speculation and guessing, Abby.

And I'm guessing that perhaps, because there have been defendants charged with crimes now, this is now evidence in a pending criminal investigation. And perhaps there's some caution the part of the judge about either, number one, prejudicing the defendants who have been charged with crimes or people who are shown in the videos, but haven't been charged with crime, the uncharged sort of free citizens, as it were.

I don't know. Now, I would think that this material would eventually come out, given the immense public interest in it and, like you said, Abby, the fact that other videos have been released too. Also perhaps because they're moving toward a criminal trial in a few months, they're worried about further tainting or prejudicing the jury pool, as they might move toward picking one.

But, again, it's hard to see why the judge came to this conclusion today.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, it's definitely a little bit of a head- scratcher.

Andy, I want to get back to this issue of the DOJ conducting this collaborative review, their description, of the mess Memphis Police Department. From your understanding, what would that entail?

[13:15:05]

MCCABE: Well, Abby, this is essentially the very beginning of the process we're seeing kind of come to a bit of a conclusion in Louisville.

So, DOJ will go in with a team of investigators, and they will really focus on the activities, it sounds like, of the specialized unit, the SCORPION unit that we know was involved in the Tyre Nichols attack. But it will probably go much broader than that.

They're going to look at -- look for things that we refer to as pattern and practice investigations to see if they can uncover whether or not the Memphis Police Department is routinely violating the law, routinely violating their own policies, and really creating an environment that tolerates those sorts of violations and bad behavior on the part of their officers.

It's important to point out though, Abby, each one of these investigations, even one like Louisville, where we have seen some significant findings, even if it's just a small percentage of the sworn law enforcement work force in Louisville, the bigger concern here is that they were able to do these things for such a long period of time, and really not receive any consequences from their own management and leadership.

People knew this was going on and did nothing about it. So, really, the goal of these pattern and practice investigations is to restructure the way the department is supervising their law enforcement officers to ensure they find acts of poor behavior and violations of law and take care of them immediately, so they don't let that stuff persist.

PHILLIP: And it was notable to me that Merrick Garland made the point that police officers want their departments to operate lawfully and need to be fully equipped to be able to do that, so that they themselves don't get caught up in these criminal cases and criminal investigations.

But thank you both for being with us on both of those stories. Elliot Williams and Andrew McCabe, thank you very much.

And the nation's top intel leaders getting grilled on Russia and China in a hearing on worldwide threats. Why the head of the FBI is saying that TikTok is one of Beijing's most dangerous weapons.

Plus, new details on the deadly kidnapping of Americans in Mexico. What a survivor said about watching her two friends die.

And even more hard evidence that top FOX News stars like Tucker Carlson did not believe the false narratives that they routinely still spout on their shows.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:52]

PHILLIP: On Capitol Hill today, talk of the potential danger China poses to the United States.

Beijing is a top focus of the annual Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing on worldwide threats. That hearing offers a rare opportunity for the public to hear directly from the U.S. intel leaders. And their message was simple: An aggressive China will not back down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AVRIL HAINES, U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The People's Republic of China, which is increasingly challenging the United States economically, technologically, politically and militarily around the world, remains our unparalleled priority.

President Xi Jinping will continue efforts to achieve Xi's vision of making China the preeminent power in East Asia and the major power on the world stage.

To fulfill Xi's vision, however, the CCP is increasingly convinced that it can only do so at the expense of U.S. power and influence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining me now is CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier and retired lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He's a military analyst and a former commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army.

So, Kim, that quote, "China remains our unparalleled priority," that's really significant, especially in the context this week of China basically warning the United States to tone down the rhetoric, but it almost seems as if both sides are denying their role in kind of the spiraling of tensions between the two.

And the U.S. intelligence community is not backing down.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Absolutely.

The U.S. intelligence community years back felt like nobody was listening to their repeated warnings about Beijing's expansion and intentions of expansion in terms of military, their military intelligence, and also things like their influencing operations, trying to influence what Americans think about China, but about their own government.

And that's where they really got into the whole warnings about TikTok and how it can feed certain messages to U.S. audiences to influence opinion. And now the intelligence community really feels like, OK, we have got your attention, the spy balloon helped, and we're going to lay out for you all the different ways that this is a national enterprise for China to eventually become the premier world power.

And that means taking back Taiwan eventually, hopefully not by force, from Beijing's perspective, but that it's something that bears watching, and that it is their job to keep watching and warning the White House about it.

PHILLIP: And, General Hertling, tensions between the U.S. and China, it would be no exaggeration to say it's the highest it's been in many, many years.

The director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, said that China will continue its efforts to undercut the United States. But, as a military person, how concerned are you that that actually could spiral into a kinetic conflict, a military conflict between these two countries?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Abby, what I would suggest is, the report that the DNI puts out is relatively short. It's unclassified. It's 10 chapters and 40 pages. And they address that.

[13:25:04]

In fact, there's a great line from the report, if I can remember it off the top my head, it said, Beijing is increasingly combining their growing military power with an economic, technological and diplomatic influence to not only strengthen the party in China, but to pursue regional preeminence and pursue global influence.

That, to me, is problematic. Director Haines has a very good point, with all the other intelligence officials, saying that it should be the priority. But, truthfully, Abby, what I'd also say is, it's a short- and long-term priority. We have to address some of the key issues now that China's doing, their advances in wireless communication, semiconductors, quantum synthetic biology, which I had to look up to understand.

But, at the same time, I was commander in Europe in 2011, when the Obama administration said, we need to pivot our attention to the East, to Asia, to China. And what happened was, we started paying less attention to countries like Russia, and we see where that got us in 2014.

So this DNI report, which is relatively short, really addresses all the key factors that the intelligence community has to watch. And, truthfully, I have been reading these for years. This is the most complex and complicated one I have seen, because of the amount of challenges and threats that United States faces today, more so than ever before.

PHILLIP: And, Kim, you teed this up just a moment ago.

The FBI director, Chris Wray, raised his national security concerns about TikTok. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Could the Chinese government through its ownership of ByteDance, that owns by ByteDance U.S., if they wanted to, and ByteDance U.S. were willing to cooperate or forced to cooperate, could they use TikTok to control data on millions of users?

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: Yes.

RUBIO: Could they use it to control the software on millions of devices given the opportunity to do so?

WRAY: Yes.

RUBIO: Could they use it to drive narratives, like to divide Americans against each other? For example, let's say China wants to invade Taiwan, to make sure that Americans are seeing videos arguing why Taiwan belongs to China, why the U.S. should not intervene?

WRAY: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I think a lot of Americans who have TikTok on their phone wonder, is this being blown out of proportion?

DOZIER: I think a lot of people don't realize that President Xi, he did what may sound like a very boring thing back in 2017. He changed Chinese law to give the government access to all private companies' data, programming, et cetera.

So that means -- and also he made all Chinese companies cooperate with military companies and technology if needed. So that means that Beijing can ostensibly tell ByteDance, you're going to show us your code, you're going to show us your data, you're going to change your code, and you're going to let us send certain messages out.

Even though I know the owners of ByteDance push back against that, that is still technically the possibility under this 2017 policy change that Xi made.

PHILLIP: And you heard also there the FBI director making the point that, in China, the line between public and private entities is just not the same as what we're used to here in the United States.

We have to leave it there. Kim Dozier and General Mark Hertling, both of you, thank you very much.

On another major hearing on Capitol Hill today, the FAA's acting administrator facing lawmakers after six major runway incidents and close calls already this year. Flight safety in the U.S. is a growing concern. And just yesterday, in Florida, two small planes collided in midair. Officials say all four occupants of those two planes were killed.

Let's bring in CNN's aviation correspondent, Pete Muntean. Pete's been following the hearings today.

So, Pete, what did we learn today from these hearings on the Hill?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the second appearance by FAA Acting Administrator Billy Nolen on Capitol Hill in the last month.

And, really, the focus here was the aircraft certification changes, the reforms that came after the 737 MAX disasters, but those close calls on America's runways between commercial airliners, mind you, kept coming up.

What is so interesting here is that since Billy Nolen's last appearance on Capitol Hill, there have been three more of these. We're talking six in total since the start of 2023, JFK, Austin, Burbank, Boston, Sarasota, also in Honolulu.

So this is happening quite literally nationwide. The big thing here, Billy Nolen says, the acting head of the FAA, is that this is something that the FAA is taking seriously, but also, he insists, that aviation right now is safe. There will be a safety summit held by the FAA in just one week's time.

[13:30:00]