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Blinken Presses For Unified Approach In Syria; DOJ Watchdog Report: No Undercover FBI Agents Were At The Jan. 6 Capitol Riot; Biden Commutes Nearly 1,500 Sentences, Pardons 39 People; FTC Wins Case Blocking Kroger-Albertsons Supermarket Merger; CNN Goes Inside Secret Prison In Syria; CEO Killing Sparks Online Rage At Healthcare, Insurance Industries. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired December 12, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:34]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM.

And let's get right to the news.

We begin with the Middle East, once again. Syria's new government and its uncertain future, to say the least, are the focus of urgent talks today involving the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. A short while ago, he wrapped up his meeting with the Turkish President Erdogan after sitting down as well with Jordan's King Abdullah and other top officials earlier today.

This morning, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss not only events in the region, but also the possibility of securing a hostage deal for Gaza.

CNN's MJ Lee joins me now to discuss.

I want to get to the hostage deal to see where that stands, but before just about the enormous change were witnessing in Syria here. Is the White House saying that U.S. officials have made contact with rebel leaders there, the HTS group. And do they believe that this is a group they can work with?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, there's no specific example that U.S. officials have offered of there being direct communication between U.S. officials and this group, but they've made pretty clear that they have various ways of being in touch with any of these groups.

So whether that is direct or indirect, obviously, you mentioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken being in the region, and really the purpose of this trip is to oversee and sort of take stock of what is happening in Syria and the communication that needs to continue happening between the U.S. and its regional allies, as they are hoping that the Syrian people will be able to successfully stand up a Syrian government, that the people have actually chosen. I mean, I think that's a big question mark, whether that is actually

possible. And even someone like Blinken doesn't know exactly how this will all fare out.

SCIUTTO: Is there any discussion of elections at some point? Because obviously this group gained power via the point of a gun.

LEE: Yeah. I mean, they're keeping things pretty vague at this point. They are using language like we support any kind of sort of democratic process, any kind of government that is chosen by the Syrian people. But when U.S. officials right now are talking about this rebel group, I mean, they're being pretty careful and injecting a good amount of skepticism, basically saying for the time being, yes, we're hearing them say a lot of the right things, but really, the actions are going to have to follow. And I think it's just a good reminder. There's very little that is directly under U.S. official's control.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, that's the thing. Limited influence. They got to watch to some degree.

LEE: Right.

SCIUTTO: All right. Let's talk about the deal because Sullivan said parties are, quote, looking to close a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. I have not heard that language in some time. There's been a lot of hope. There's been a lot of, you know, progress over weeks and months and it just doesn't come together.

Are they really -- do they feel like they're just on the doorstep here?

LEE: I mean, your guess is as good as mine. The only caveat is that there's not a lot of time left.

I mean, we have done this for over a year. We have covered every twist and turn of the U.S.'s efforts to try to get the ceasefire deal across the finish line, and they have said in the past, we feel good. We feel as optimistic as one can feel. We feel like things are close, and then everything had fallen apart. I mean, so many times before.

I do think, though, the fact that this is now not just about sort of the politics of getting this war ended, this was a big deal, obviously, in the election and particularly when President Biden was still a candidate. I think now the bigger question is sort of the legacy of it all and what he wants, sort of his foreign policy legacy to be as far as the entire region is concerned.

And U.S. officials are pointing to some of the other big shifts that we have seen in the Middle East, the fall of the Assad regime, that we were just talking about this ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah across the Lebanon border. I mean, these are all things that they would point to, not to mention the weakening of Iran's capabilities. They are pointing to those things to say and suggest that perhaps Hamas might be in a different place, might feel like they have to strike a deal. They just don't know whether they will. SCIUTTO: And that's a fact. I mean, listen, Hamas has backers, right?

They've been weakened. Iran -- Iran in particular. And I imagine President Biden would love as part of his legacy, getting those remaining Americans home.

LEE: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: MJ Lee, thanks so much.

Well, in the wake of the toppled Assad regime, we have witnessed the release of thousands of people from prisons across Syria, horrible prisons.

[15:05:06]

One of those newly liberated prisoners is Travis Timmerman, an American citizen who was found walking barefoot in the streets of Damascus. The 29-year-old said he had been detained in a Syrian prison for several months after entering the country as a pilgrim for what he described as spiritual purposes. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. is working to bring Timmerman back home safely now.

For more on the end of the Assad regime, its implications for Syrians, for the international community, for the region, I'm joined by Wa'el Alzayat. He served as Middle East policy expert at the Department of State and is also the CEO of Emgage Action, a Muslim advocacy organization.

Thanks so much for joining.

WA'EL ALZAYAT, CEO, EMGAGE: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you, before we get to the big picture here, so many questions, but so many, particularly his family, are still waiting for hopeful news regarding Austin Tice, of course, the longest held American in Syria. Are you here hearing any hope or any progress about locating him?

ALZAYAT: You know, this has been a long, long running saga. I remember it when I used to work at the State Department during my time, really, we did not see any indications to lead us to believe that Austin was alive. Though I have heard that since then, there's been, you know, other information regarding it, but nothing really precise. The Assad regime clearly was using it to lessen the pressure on it, perhaps remove some sanctions, and now it's gone.

So there is an active search for him by both the new government as well as intermediaries on behalf of the United States government. But right now, there's nothing certain on where he is.

SCIUTTO: Well, gosh, I could only hope and pray for his family to get good news.

Okay, let's talk about the situation in Syria. Syria, of course, entering a period of deep uncertainty about next steps here, though, some -- some stability in the midst of that, as we've seen the Assad regime fall.

How do you believe the international community and the U.S. specifically should approach these rebel leaders that now hold power in this country? And are they -- are they people that the U.S. and others can work with?

ALZAYAT: It seems that they can be clearly -- Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS and its leader, have thought about this quite a bit, and you see that reflected in their not only statements, but in their early actions since the fall of the regime and the takeover of these cities, whether it was the release of regime soldiers, of statements regarding protection of minorities, respect for women, choice, whether to wear the hijab or not, and also they even put out statements assuring the neighbors, the Iraqi people, the Jordanians who may have been concerned about what may happen.

So they have said all the right stuff and so far so good, as they say. And therefore, in terms of what should the Biden administration, certainly the next one do is they got to engage.

You're seeing the Turks are on the ground. The Arab countries have maintained their embassies. Some are going to reopen them. I hear some Europeans are engaging directly with the new transition government, and the U.S. should do the same to figure out for itself whether to trust what's happening, but obviously to verify it.

And I think the country is going to need international and U.S. support, particularly in easing the sanctions that have been on the country for so many years.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. President-elect Trump said prior, we should note to the fall of Assad, but in the days leading up to it that in effect, the U.S. should stay out of Syria.

ALZAYAT: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: Sounds like you don't believe the U.S. should or can do so. Why? And specifically, should the U.S. keep those several hundred U.S. forces there who are stationed with Kurdish forces in the north?

ALZAYAT: Well, the situation in Syria is still very fluid, and we have some enduring interest. One of them is to ensure that the Islamic State does not return, does not return to pose a threat to Syrians and to the international community, right?

The second piece also is even if we withdraw these troops, maintaining or even ramping up our diplomatic and dare I say, development assistance to the Syrian people with partners is so important to preserving this peace that we're seeing and helping them on their transition.

Can you imagine a country right now of 22 million, 6 million refugees, or a lot of them may want to return? That's going to add a lot of pressure on the country and its ability to provide for them. That itself could create political unrest and a new vacuum for radical groups. So it's absolutely in the U.S. interest, including under a Trump

presidency, to not completely leave the file to others.

SCIUTTO: Are we going to see a significant return of those many millions of refugees that have fled to neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, et cetera, but also to Europe, where, of course, led to some pushback, certainly, and political developments that follow?

[15:10:09]

Are we going to see many of them go home willingly?

So you're seeing a large number of significant -- numbers return, particularly from Turkey as well as Lebanon. I don't have the statistics, but the videos, it's in the thousands.

Now, will all the 6 million return? I don't think so, not immediately. And I think host countries have to be really careful here not to be forcing anyone to return. The country is still unstable. The -- even the new government does not have control of all the territories. There's a lot of young men with guns as well as the situation that we just discussed regarding potentially ISIS returning and, chaos unfolding for whatever reason.

So international humanitarian law prevents countries from forcibly returning people, and they need to be a little more patient here rather than undo what is happening even unintentionally.

SCIUTTO: Before we go, of course, the world has witnessed decades of human rights abuses inside Syria by the Assad regime against its own people torture, imprisonment, countless murders. Do you expect justice for the Syrian officials right up to Bashar al Assad, who committed these crimes? You know, I think over the course of time, especially as the situation settles down a little bit, there was a lot of work on transitional justice mechanisms that Syrians have been working on thinking about.

And I think you're going to see some of that. It's good that there's been general amnesty to lower level, you know, soldiers and functionaries. But I do expect the Syrians on the ground right now, probably with some international support, to think to how to implement some justice mechanism here.

It's going to be needed and it's going to need to be transparent, otherwise, as you know, there's always a risk of retribution and revenge. And nobody wants to see that.

SCIUTTO: No question. Yes. Well, Wa'el Alzayat, thanks so much for joining and sharing your views.

ALZAYAT: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: Coming up, a new report from the U.S. Department of Justice watchdog, which completely shuts down a MAGA conspiracy theory about the January 6th Capitol assault. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:15:22]

SCIUTTO: No undercover FBI agents were in the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. That, according to a report released today by the Department of Justice's watchdog. The inspector general's review rejects speculation from allies of President-elect Donald Trump, who have for years suggested the violence was provoked by federal agents.

CNN's Evan Perez, he's been looking through the details.

And it seems that one of the big distinctions here is that there weren't agents there. There were informants, but these were informants tasked with monitoring the kinds of groups that were taking part.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right, Jim, and I think this is a very important finding here because obviously the this has been a steady set of claims that have been made by allies of the former president and the incoming president that the FBI actually instigated and actually encouraged the violence on January 6th.

And what the inspector general found is that there were no undercover employees from the FBI. That's been a very strong conspiracy on the -- on the right about January 6th. And they also said that these -- these informants, these were members essentially of the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, these are the groups, the violence, the groups that carried out a lot of the violence on January 6th, that these people were being paid by the FBI and they were supposed to be reporting back what they were seeing.

Now, of 26 of these informants that were actually in Washington that day, three of them were actually tasked by the FBI to report back. And a couple of them actually went into the capitol. One of them actually went into the Capitol. The other two stayed outside.

And so far, we should note that nobody none of these informants have been charged with any criminal activity, according to the inspector general.

Now, there's a couple of other important findings that we should discuss. One of them is that the FBI was -- should have gone to all of its 56 field offices and gotten intelligence from its informants ahead of January 6th to try to prepare for that day. And according to the inspector general, they didn't do it, even though they told Congress that they had. It appears that that was an inaccurate declaration from the FBI, but it was not on purpose.

And so, now, for the FBI -- look, Jim, the problem here is that this is baked in on the right, on the certainly among the president -- the incoming president's supporters. And you can also see that part of this was also part of the reason why Republicans said that Chris Wray needed to go from the FBI. They believed that the FBI was actually behind what happened on January 6th.

And so that that -- that idea, I think, will continue to live on despite this report.

SCIUTTO: So -- and listen, that's a path that we've seen before. We saw it with the lies about the 2020 election being stolen. So, is it expected that Trump's new appointees, presuming they are confirmed, will just say, hey, whatever that last inspector general said, I'm going to do my own asking of questions about this.

PEREZ: I think that that you and I both know that they're not going to drop this. And I think we've already seen from members of Congress they want further investigation of this issue.

Here's the other problem: the FBI, you know, spends a lot of time right now looking at these anti-government groups, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and so on. And that is a big part of their mission, trying to prevent violence from some of these groups.

The question is when Kash Patel if he becomes FBI director, is that still going to be part of the mission for the FBI? Is that going to be something that the Trump administration, which is coming in, is going to actually be focused on? Because after all, a lot of these groups are supporters of the incoming president.

SCIUTTO: Indeed. Evan Perez, thanks so much.

PEREZ: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Well, today, President Biden again flexing his pardon power. He commuted the sentences of some 1,500 people currently serving home confinement, serving their sentences at home as a result of the pandemic. And he pardoned 39 people for nonviolent crimes.

This move comes after Biden's controversial, much criticized blanket pardon of his own son, Hunter. And as some Democrats are pushing for preemptive pardons of president elect Trumps perceived and stated enemies people he has suggested should be jailed or prosecuted for doing their jobs.

Joining me now to discuss is Rachel Barkow. She's a professor at NYU Law School, an expert on clemency.

Thanks so much for joining.

[15:20:02]

RACHEL BARKOW, PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So -- so, first, let's start on the pardons that are part of this largest single day grant of clemency in modern history. Who is actually getting released? And can you explain the rationale for this?

BARKOW: Yeah, sure. So these are people -- they've already been released from prison. They were released under Attorney General Bill Barr during the Trump administration, during the pandemic, after Congress passed emergency legislation that allowed prisoners who were particularly vulnerable to COVID to be released. And after Bill Barr released them, they have been out and on home

confinement, living law abiding lives. And so there's been some pressure on President Biden to make that release permanent. So there was no threat that they would be sent back to prison now that the pandemic emergency is deemed to be over.

SCIUTTO: Right.

BARKOW: So that group is about 1,500 people.

SCIUTTO: You yourself have called for more aggressive pardons for Americans serving excessive sentences, including some who may have been sentenced under Biden's own 1990s era crime law. Can you explain who you're speaking about specifically? What kind of crimes, what kind of sentences?

BARKOW: Well, there's a lot of people in federal prison who are serving mandatory sentences for drug offenses of decades -- some of them are serving life sentences, and they would never get those sentences today, because many of those laws have changed. But the changes weren't made retroactive. So those folks have petitioned with the pardon attorney in the Department of Justice have, you know, shown that they are rehabilitative, they are safe to be released, and their sentences are too long.

And the pardon attorney and the Department of Justice have recommended that they get a grant. And, you know, my understanding is there's hundreds of these petitions sitting over in the White House somewhere, and they're just waiting to be signed by the president.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. The laws have changed so dramatically from that time, particularly as it relates -- as it relates to drugs.

I want to ask you about a category of pardons being discussed, at least in Washington, and that the president is reportedly considering and some Democrats are pushing for. And that is blanket pardons for some of the many people Trump and his allies have singled out for the prospect of criminal prosecutions. So it's not clear what crimes they committed at all -- Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci, members of the January 6th committee, elected lawmakers who did a congressional investigation.

Do you believe such pardons are warranted?

BARKOW: You know, I think, well, they would be unprecedented, with the exception of President Nixon and Hunter Biden. So we've never seen anything like that other than those two cases. And I think the worry with doing something like that is there's no way he's going to be comprehensive and get every possible target. And whoever you leave out of a pardon is going to find themselves under that same kind of abusive investigation.

And, you know, I do think it may make people wonder, what are they hiding? You know, cant we have a transparent process that reveals the truth? And I believe these people are not guilty, and we will find that out if there is an investigation. So, you know, on balance, I tend to think it's not the right thing to do. But I do understand the impulse for wanting to do it.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. I mean, as you know, there was an enormous amount of criticism for Biden's pardoning of his own son and part of his argument was that the prosecution of Hunter Biden went too far. That had his name not been Biden, he would have been would not have been prosecuted.

Now, it's the troubled -- troubling aspect of that argument, right, is that's exactly the case that Donald Trump made about the cases against him, you know, for attempts to overturn the election and for the classified materials in Mar-a-Lago. You study pardons, you work with pardons have, in effect, both presidents tainted the pardon power to some degree or over extended the pardon power.

BARKOW: Yeah, I think the pardon power has not had a good run. You know, I think the Trump administration was -- was definitely worse in terms of, you know, he pardoned all kinds of cronies and people he viewed as loyalist allies.

So I do think were not comparing apples to apples. I think his was significantly worse. But the Hunter Biden pardon does stand out. There's really no denying it.

I get it. You know, as a parent, I understand how he felt the -- just the push to protect his son from something that I think he genuinely believes and is rightly believing would not have happened if he weren't the president of the United States. You know, I think Hunter was pursued because he is the president's son.

Having said that, though, you know, it is -- it doesn't look good, because what it looks like is we just have a system of preference for people with connections to the president, and then everybody else gets left behind. And so I do think that's what puts some pressure now on President Biden to show that's not true. And I really think he needs to go big in the time he has left.

[15:25:01]

SCIUTTO: Is there any way to limit the pardon power? I mean, the trouble is it's in the Constitution changing. The Constitution is hard. You can do it, but it's hard. And, of course, I suppose you could you could release a list of norms, you know, establish a commission, et cetera, but you and I have watched a lot of norms get shredded in recent months and years.

I mean, would there be a way to establish some ground rules?

BARKOW: Not really. You know, this is a really broad constitutional power that short of a constitutional amendment, we leave it up to the character and the dignity of the person holding the office of the president to uphold the norms of the pardon authority. And so, you know, if you don't like how it's being exercised, you got to pick a different person for president.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. Well, there's a lot of that going around.

Rachel Barkow, thanks so much for joining.

BARKOW: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: Well, the Biden administration is rushing in its final weeks to cap off what was an aggressive antitrust enforcement of big corporations and mergers. Today, the Federal Trade Commission revived a dormant 1936 law to sue the nation's dominant liquor distributor for ripping off customers.

And on Tuesday, a federal judge sided with the FTC, halting what would have been the largest merger in the U.S. supermarket business ever a $25 billion deal between Kroger's and Albertsons. Both are big moves for the FTC chair, Lina Khan, who just this week President-elect Trump announced he would replace with current Commissioner Andrew Ferguson. Ferguson will inherit a number of blockbuster antitrust cases.

Here to discuss what's going to change under the incoming president is Diana Moss. She's the former president of the American Antitrust Institute, now the director of competition policy for the Progressive Policy Institute.

And I want to begin with a big picture question, because under the Biden administration, they were effectively trying to right what had been, frankly, a bipartisan openness to mergers for many years under this argument that, hey, if its efficiencies and it makes things easier for customers, it's all fine, trying to turn that back or at least establish some guardrails.

Trump, of course, Republican, business friendly, is promising a more permissive environment. I mean, is -- are we going to swing back to all mergers are just fine?

DIANA MOSS, VP & DIRECTOR OF COMPETITION POLICY, PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE: Good to be here, Jim. I don't think we are going to see that kind of pivot. In fact, you know, we can trace strong merger enforcement, at least back to the Obama administration. And we saw increasingly more vigorous enforcement through Trump 1.0 and certainly through Biden.

And I would expect to see some of that continue. There may be -- the answer may be in the nuance, right. The Biden enforcers really wanted to shake things up to make antitrust sort of the tip of the spear, to solve bigger social, economic and political issues. I think we might see more of a retraction to antitrust as more traditional law enforcement.

SCIUTTO: So tell us the significance of this, Albertsons, Kroger -- Kroger deal that being blocked, and the evidence that would have led the judge to make this decision in this case.

MOSS: Absolutely. This is a huge win for consumers. Jim. You know, we have -- we have seen a downturn in what I call consumer facing antitrust enforcement in the sectors that really hit the pocketbooks hard. That's housing, food, health care, personal insurance, transportation. That's been turning down over the last 15 years. We want to see it turn up. So very heartening to see the federal

district court judge in Oregon, deliver a win for the FTC in blocking this merger. The FTC has a history of approving every grocery merger that comes along, subject to divestitures. And as we saw in Safeway, Albertsons, those divestitures failed.

And those failures, the failure of that in the form of higher prices is borne by consumers. So the first block of a retail harmful retail grocery merger really in recent history is an enormous win. It's kudos to the FTC. And, you know, similarly on the DOJ side, we saw very consumer-centric antitrust enforcement in blocking the merger of JetBlue and Spirit that protects consumers who are at leisure travelers -- yeah.

SCIUTTO: Listen, I mean, we all fly, right? We'd all like more options. And Trump himself has said he wants to go after higher grocery prices.

I do want to note, because CNN obtained a memo by the new FTC head coming in, Ferguson, putting himself forward to be chair. It included this on his agenda. And I'm quoting: Stop Lina Khan's war on mergers. Most mergers benefit Americans and promote the movement of the capital that fuels innovation.

That would seem to signal a more permissive approach. Are you saying that Trump might not buy all of that?

MOSS: Yeah. You know, it's a -- it's a funny situation. Certainly, Commissioner Ferguson is echoing a more traditional ideology that we've seen with GOP antitrust chiefs to more business friendly, more likely to credit pro-competitive effects to mergers.

But look, Trump ran on a populist agenda. And the reason why, despite very slim voter margins, the reason why he's in is in part because he -- he had a better message for working class Americans. Working class Americans are struggling to put food on the table and manage a high cost of living and enforcement that really focuses in -- hones in on the -- on competitive problems like harmful mergers, practices in those sectors is likely to -- is likely to convince or reassure voters that voted for Trump that they did the right thing.

The big question, of course, is whether he's going to do that or not.

SCIUTTO: No question.

MOSS: Or whether he's --

SCIUTTO: He's got a lot of big donors, too, from big companies.

I want to ask you a difficult question. Are you concerned at all that Trump might use the FTC to do favors that is approved mergers of companies he likes, block others. And I want to give you an example. During his first term, there was a merger, I should note involved this company, AT&T and Time Warner. And there were some who saw the DOJ attempting to get in the way of that and what was otherwise a permissive merger environment, as personal. Is that a concern?

MOSS: It is the politicization of antitrust is a concern, and it shouldn't be. Antitrust is law enforcement. It's there to protect competition and markets and consumers and workers. And we did see some of this in Trump 1.0, certainly with the challenge of the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, where CNN was an important asset. That was, in retrospect, not a particularly controversial merger and in fact, was unwound less than three years later.

I would even put into that same category, Jim, the ongoing Nippon Steel/U.S. Steel merger. That is a merger that would not only help U.S. steel, but help boost investment in the United States but it's being -- you know, it's being blocked by Biden and Trump because of a focus on keeping U.S. steel American owned.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. I mean, it's sort of evocative of the '80s, right? Japan-bashing from the '80s. But that's politics.

Diana Moss, thanks so much for joining.

MOSS: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Coming up, new information on the assassination of health care CEO on the streets of New York, what investigators are saying about piece of evidence -- pieces of evidence found at the scene, as well as the suspects relationship with his own family.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:37:27]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

It is the end of a very dark chapter for Syria. In the wake of the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime, many families are now desperately searching for their loved ones. Hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared into Syria's notorious prison system.

CNN's Clarissa Ward is in Damascus trying to find any trace of the missing American journalist Austin Tice when she made a startling discovery. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep in the belly of the regime's Air Force Intelligence headquarters --

These are English letters.

We are hoping to find traces of Austin Tice, an American journalist held captive in Syria since 2012. It's one of many secret prisons across the city. This specific branch was tasked with surveillance, arrest, and killing of all regime critics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are all cleaned out.

WARD: We don't find any hints of Tice, but come across something extraordinary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't tell though. It might just be a blanket, but it's the only cell that's locked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he going to shoot it?

WARD: The guard makes us turn the camera off while he shoots the lock off the cell door. We go in to get a closer look. It's still not clear if there is something under the blanket.

WARD: Oh, it moved. Is there someone there? I thought I saw it move. Is someone there? Or is it just a blanket? I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) someone. Hello?

WARD: OK, (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Oh, that's OK. It's OK. It's OK.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: I'm a civilian, he says. I'm a civilian.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's OK. It's OK.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: He tells the fighter he is from the city of Homs and has been in the cell for three months.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

WARD: OK. You're OK. You're OK. You're OK. You're OK.

Clutches my arm tightly with both hands.

WARD: OK.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: Does anyone have any water? Water?

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: OK. It's water.

[15:40:00]

It's water. OK. OK. OK. You're OK. You're OK. You're OK.

We start to walk him outside. Thank God you are safe. Don't be afraid, the fighter says. You are free.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: This is the third prison they brought me to, he says, the third prison. After three months in a windowless cell, you can finally see the sky.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: Oh God, the light, he says. Oh God, there is light. My God, there is light.

OK. OK.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: You're OK. Stay with me. Stay with me, he repeats again and again. For three months. I didn't know anything about my family, he says. I didn't hear anything about my children.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: The fighter hands him something to eat. He barely lift it to his mouth.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: His body can't handle it. OK, you are OK. His captors fled during the fall of Damascus, leaving him with no food or water. That was at least four days ago.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: I'm shaking. My face is shaking, he says. The rebel tells him there's no more army, no more prisons, no more checkpoints.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: Are you serious, he says.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: Syria is hurriya. Syria is free, he tells him. It's the first time he has heard those words.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: He tells us his name is Adul Hurbav (ph) and that officers from the much feared Mukhabarat Intelligence Services took him from his home and began interrogating him about his phone. They brought me here to Damascus. They asked me about names of terrorists, he says.

Did they hit you, the fighter asks? Yes. Yes, he says.

As a paramedic arrives, the shock sets in. There's nothing, everything's OK. The Red Crescent is coming to help you, this man as assures him. You are safe. Don't be afraid anymore. Everything you are afraid of is gone. Tens of thousands of Syrians have disappeared in Assad's prisons. Up until 15 minutes ago, Adul Hurbav (ph) was one of them. He's still petrified.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, the ambulance worker reassures him.

Every car I got into, they blindfolded me, he says.

It is the end of a very dark chapter for him and for all of Syria, but so many ghosts remain.

Clarissa Ward, CNN, Damascus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Gosh, what a story. That poor man, one of many thousands in Syria now.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:46:49]

SCIUTTO: Now to new developments in the UnitedHealthcare CEO's murder case. Following the suspect, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione's arrest, last week, New York police say the gun Mangione had at the time of his arrest matches shell casings found at the crime scene. We're also learning from law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation that Mangione mother had reported him missing in November, telling police in San Francisco the last time she had spoken with her son was in July.

CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst and veteran of the NYPD, John miller. He's been following the case. He joins us now.

John, you've been involved in a lot of cases in your time. It seems that the evidence police have gathered and are gathering here make for a fairly solid case against him. Is that your read?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: I mean, if you are looking at it in terms of as a prosecutor, what would I want to have on the table at that trial? You have a suspect arrested with a gun on him, allegedly. You have a suspect whose fingerprints when he is arrested, match fingerprints found at the scene. You have a suspect who has the gun on him. Whose bullets match shell casings found on the scene.

So fingerprints, guns, ballistics. They're still awaiting the DNA. But at this point, police are saying. And prosecutors are talking about a case that would be pretty strong going in the door.

When you combine that with a written a handwritten manifesto that is on his person and a binder that a spiral notebook that is in the backpack where planning notes for the alleged, for the murder are contained, and the message, you know, the message in the manifesto where he talks about, quote, frankly, these parasites simply had it coming, unquote, or writing where he says others have uncovered the corruption in this industry. A decade ago, but, quote, evidently, evidently, I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.

You're talking about the preponderance of evidence that most prosecutors would walk into a trial feeling pretty confident.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, yeah. I want to ask you a question, and it's a difficult one because police shared several pictures of the suspect prior to his arrest, pictures that for people who knew him, might very well have led them to recognize him or at least ask the question.

I just wonder, are police asking his family that question? Should they be asking the family this question as to as to why they didn't call them?

MILLER: Well, I don't know about the level of contact that police have with the family at this point. It does beg the question. You know, I said on our air many times, if you saw him in the street yesterday, those pictures probably aren't going to register with you.

But if you knew him, worked with him, a family member, a friend who spent time with him, those pictures, you would have said, yeah, I know who that is. So, one would suggest with the amount of time that those pictures were out there, the number of times they were played, and the fact that the family had already reported him missing and was actively searching for him, that that's a good possibility.

[15:50:10]

But we don't know the answer to that. And right now, neither do police.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you now about a broader concern here, because you mentioned when we last spoke a couple of days ago, you had that other CEO event in downtown New York where posters -- wanted posters for made up wanted posters, of course, for CEOs there, you've seen all the reaction online to this among some who seem to be justifying right this murder.

Can you describe the degree of concern among other CEOs and others, that there might be copycat crimes along these lines?

MILLER: I mean, the NYPD intelligence bureau assessment was basically a warning that that is a real possibility in that these things, you know, when they go out online, inspire others who may be feeling either the need for similar outlets for anger or isolation or both. But, you know, Jim, when you bring that up the other day, investigators looking into these spaces found images of eight health company health care company CEOs, insurance CEOs, and, you know, their compensation listed with those pictures.

And those were then spread to TikTok, to Twitter, to 4chan, to Gab, to Telegram chat rooms where they generated these conversations. The wanted posters you talked about the other day, you know, they had pictures of CEOs and they had writing under them talking about, you know, that Brian Thompson was denied his claim to live. Who will be denied next?

So the threat environment out there for something that has nothing to do with international terrorism or the normal domestic extremism has opened an entirely new genre in terms of what CEOs feel they need additional security and what companies are worried about, how many people they need to protect.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, yeah, it seems a reasonable fear.

John Miller, thanks as much as always.

MILLER: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And we'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Before we go, U.S. wildlife officials plan to add the iconic monarch butterfly to the threatened species list.

[15:55:06]

For years, environmentalists have warned that the butterfly's population is shrinking. Many blame the climate crisis as a major factor in that decline. Scientists say the loss of pollinators, such as the monarch, could have far reaching consequences for ecosystems. And the many people like us who rely on those ecosystems.

By protecting the butterfly -- butterfly under the Endangered Species Act, officials hope they can stabilize and maybe even reverse the population decline through a variety of methods. We can only hope.

Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.