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Judge Demands Answers Over Redactions, Unreleased Files; Scrutiny Of ICE Tactics Amid Controversial Incidents; Exiled Putin Critic Speaks To CNN Ahead Of Russian Election. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired August 14, 2026 - 04:30   ET

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

JOHN RENTOUL, CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, THE INDEPENDENT: -- his credibility with these antics and with the actual issue involved is the fact that he received a five million pound personal donation just before he became an M.P., and that really harms his image as a man of the people, as an ordinary bloke, and makes him look like a member of the political elite, and I think that is really going to limit his appeal to the British public over the coming years.

[04:30:30]

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR: John Rentoul there, thank you again for reminding us of the issue at the heart of this, which is that undeclared donation. Thank you for humoring me this morning.

RENTOUL: My pleasure.

ABDELAZIZ: CNN was inside the courtroom as a judge laid out dire consequences for Justice Department lawyers for not releasing more of the Epstein files. That's after the break.

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ABDELAZIZ: Welcome back to CNN Newsroom. I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London. A U.S. federal judge is demanding to know why the Justice Department has kept so many Epstein files redacted. A journalist and attorney filed a lawsuit to force the removal of some of those redactions and the release of more files.

Now, the judge told the DOJ attorneys that he's willing to impose tough consequences that could ruin their careers. Our Katelyn Polantz has this report for us.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: A federal judge making a stern warning to the Justice Department, specifically the attorney sitting in his courtroom, and saying that they didn't have any answers for him on questions he was asking about the Epstein files and the redactions, the documents that have not been produced yet under the transparency law Congress passed.

[04:35:04]

The key quote today from Judge Emmet Sullivan in the D.C. District Court, it's that he said, and the documents that have not been produced yet under the transparency law Congress passed. The key quote today from Judge Emmet Sullivan in the D.C. District Court, it's that he said, the public has a right to know what the hell is going on in this case. The victims have a right to know. The court has a right to know.

That was the judge telling the prosecutors that their answers so far, especially when they were trying to say they didn't know when the work would be done to explain the redactions to the American public about what they've done with the Epstein files. They released millions of those documents but have redacted or withheld many, many more.

There also is no explanation from the Justice Department today about files in the Epstein documents or related to the Epstein investigation that are in foreign languages. And the Justice Department had nothing to say to the judge that they had a reason to withhold handwritten notes the FBI took during interviews. They said they didn't need to put them out because they were the same as memos that were released by the FBI summing up those interviews.

So not the interview notes themselves that were handwritten, but the memos are out there. They're not the same thing. And Judge Sullivan was not pleased with that answer. He also gave them a warning by telling them a story about the past. The story was the trial of late Senator Ted Stevens. Judge Sullivan presided over that, found prosecutorial misconduct after there was a verdict in that case.

And it severely hurt the lives and the careers of the prosecutors who worked on it. He told the story for about 20 minutes and then just put it out there that contempt was not something that was happening right now in these Epstein files cases. But the parties and specifically the Justice Department needed to know that this is the judge that wouldn't be afraid to sanction lawyers if they needed to be in the future if they weren't answering the questions that the court demanded. Back to you.

ABDELAZIZ: Donald Trump's name is going back on the Kennedy Center. Sources say his handpicked board for the institution voted to inscribe the president's name below the Kennedy Center sign so that it will now say the iconic building was, "restored and by President Donald J. Trump."

The move is testing the limits of a federal judge's order in May that had blocked the President's attempt to name the building after himself. After that order, his name was removed. But as you can see there on that facade, it is still covered by a massive tarp. The board also voted to close the arts complex for a two-year renovation.

According to data reviewed by CNN, U.S. immigration agents detained more than 46,000 people in July. This sets a new high record under the Trump administration. Videos showing agents' use of very aggressive tactics are raising even more questions, along with scrutiny of the agency. CNN's Jason Carroll has the details. And a warning, his reporting does contain some disturbing images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to stop following me.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A tense exchange between ICE agents and a woman in Virginia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You almost ran us over.

CAROLINA MOLINA, ACCUSED OF BEING ANTI-ICE AGITATOR: I didn't almost run you over.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You almost ran us over. Stop playing. Stop playing.

MOLINA: You are full of --.

CARROLL (voice-over): The Department of Homeland Security now describes her as an anti-ICE agitator. They accused of trying to weaponize her car against their agents. But the woman in question, Carolina Molina, says her dash cam video shows what really happened.

The incident took place on Monday. That's when Molina says she saw agents handcuffed two Latino men and escort them to an unmarked car. She rolled down her window and shouted insults at the officers.

MOLINA: You're a ho. You're a --.

CARROLL (voice-over): Molina says she turned around and tried to drive away. And that's when she says ICE agents blocked her in with their cars, and an agent drew his weapon. Part of that confrontation, captured on her dash cam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I won't arrest you. Keep it up.

MOLINA: I'm a legal citizen.

CARROLL (voice-over): The Department of Homeland Security giving a much different account of what happened, saying in part, "While ICE was conducting targeted immigration enforcement in Falls Church, Virginia, an anti- ICE agitator began to drive her car in circles around our ICE officers and then attempted to harm officers by weaponizing her vehicle against them. All in an attempt to help illegal aliens get away. Fearing for their safety, ICE officers conducted a vehicle stop of the driver."

RYAN SCHWANK, FORMER ASSISTANT CHIEF COUNSEL FOR ICE: When I hear the story is that this is exactly one of the scenarios that we train the officers to address at the academy.

CARROLL (voice-over): Ryan Schwank spent four years working at ICE as an assistant chief counsel.

SCHWANK: We trained them in what we call roving vehicle stops on how to deal with agitators or individuals who show up and yell insults or slurs at the officers. What we taught them when I was there is those people have every right to do that. These officers were agitated and upset and they took it out on this individual.

CARROLL (voice-over): This latest incident, coming in the wake of other controversial ICE encounters, some of them deadly.

[04:40:03]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of the car now.

CARROLL (voice-over): Last month, ICE agents accused a man of weaponizing his vehicle during a targeted traffic stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Surveillance video obtained by WGAL showed officers had boxed in the SUV. An agent fired a shot as the vehicle drove away.

Law enforcement experts criticized how ICE responded. The incident occurred just days before an ICE agent fatally shot a 52- year-old man during a car stop in Houston. Less than a week later, another ICE agent killed a 25-year-old man during a vehicle stop in Maine.

Neither of those victims was the intended target of ICE operations. In a report released last month, the ACLU reviewed more than 1,200 incidents of immigration enforcement in 2025 across eight states, identifying 432 incidents involving misconduct by agents, 418 incidents were people who were pushed, shoved, tackled or pinned, 128 involved threatened force, including brandishing weapons, 82 involved agents using their cars, such as boxing-in or hitting other people's cars.

Adding to concerns over ICE tactics comes word ICE has approved a plan to spend millions on electric shock gloves.

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: It's another device, you know, to help someone be compliant, whether or not, you know, you just can't go from 0 to 100, right. And first thing you go for is lethal force.

CARROLL (voice-over): Critics worry the devices will be misused.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ABDELAZIZ: He's been banned from running in next month's elections, but a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stay silent. His conversation with CNN right after the break.

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[04:44:58]

ABDELAZIZ: Ukraine is blaming Russian drones for a pair of strikes on passenger trains in the Odesa region. The driver of one of the locomotives and his assistant were killed and a child was. Ukraine is blaming Russian drones for a pair of strikes on passenger trains in the Odessa region. The driver of one of the locomotives and his assistant were killed and a child was reportedly injured in the attacks. Emergency workers rushed to evacuate passengers and bus them to safety. Meanwhile, Ukraine has hit an oil refinery and another Wildberries facility very deep inside Russia. Kyiv accuses the retailer of providing equipment to the Russian military. I want to bring in now CNN's Clare Sebastian. She's standing by live here in London. Good morning, first of all, to you, Clare. I know today you're bringing us a voice that we very rarely hear, and that is of the Russian opposition. Tell us what you learned through the course of your reporting.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some of the backdrop to this, and you showed some of it there, is that I think this year we have witnessed the fundamental failure of the Russian state to insulate its people from the war that it euphemistically calls the special military operation.

It's hitting people's lives in all kinds of different ways, from, you know, e-commerce warehouses, we've seen fuel shortages, internet outages. Now, obviously, Ukraine, its gloves are very much off when it comes to these deep strikes, and we're seeing mounting casualties as a result of that. And this is now playing out politically.

This year, we're seeing anti-war sentiment rising. Putin's approval ratings are dropping, albeit from a very high level. And with parliamentary elections coming up in September, the Kremlin is now moving to stamp out the last vestiges of political opposition. And one of those last vestiges is a man called Boris Nadezhdin. He has spent 40 years in Soviet and Russian politics and is now Russia's newest political exile.

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SEBASTIAN: This has happened so suddenly for you. One minute you're running for parliament, and now you're here.

BORIS NADEZHDIN, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION POLITICIAN: It's -- all my life is -- all my life, I have a lot of adventures.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Boris Nadezhdin, Soviet bureaucrat, Russian opposition figure, and former presidential hopeful, can now add exile to his list. We meet in Paris a couple of weeks after he was forced to flee Russia amid a mounting pressure campaign to bar him from running in upcoming parliamentary elections.

NADEZHDIN: When I was announced as foreign agent in 10th of July, I declared for all of the world, I will not stop my campaign. In Monday, I was arrested by police, taken police department, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): He was convicted of displaying extremist symbols and given a small fine. Then came the summons from Russia's powerful investigative committee.

NADEZHDIN: Normally, after you go to this place, you will receive the criminal paper and go to the court. And after court, go to the jail, Lefortovo. When I have received this paper about criminal investigation, I have understood that it's a question of three days.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): I am alive and I am free. He announced on Telegram on arriving in France. Previous Russian opposition figures were not so lucky.

SEBASTIAN: I mean, there was Nemtsov, who you worked with, Navalny, but you tried to do opposition within the system. Then the system came for you.

NADEZHDIN: I didn't cross the red lines for 40 years of my political biography. The red line number one is not to criticize Putin like a person, and cross line number two to have no support from foreign governments. I never cross these lines, but these lines have changed.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Behind Putin's facade of stability, Russia is cracking down harder, Nadezhdin says, because as the war drags on, dissent is rising. In early 2024, his campaign to run for president on an anti-war platform exposed an undercurrent of despair in society. Long lines of his supporters formed across the country-a quiet legal protest. That undercurrent, he says, is now bubbling up.

Just this week, demonstrators gathered as Russia's highest court blocked Yabloko, the only remaining anti-war party, from the parliamentary elections.

NADEZHDIN: The understanding of that everybody wants to stop the war, it's in the society, is in the elite, and in the nearest people around Putin, and of course the understanding of what this war Israel means for Russian economy.

SEBASTIAN: Does Putin understand this?

NADEZHDIN: Yes, he has to. Putin and people around here. It's quite possible to freeze the mutual strikes, and -- but the question of how to be in peace with West, be in peace with Ukraine, it's a question of next generations.

[04:50:05]

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Nadezhdin himself is now in limbo. His family is still in Russia. On the day we met, he missed his daughter's wedding.

SEBASTIAN: She just got married.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): His political project, one of the last vestiges of Russian political opposition, for now on hold.

SEBASTIAN: Do you worry that you've left Russia for good?

NADEZHDIN: I think I could return to my country only when the political situation will change.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEBASTIAN: So, Nadezhdin believes, Salma, that if Russia were to stop now, somehow pause all strikes, they would be able to fire up the propaganda machine and successfully paint this as some kind of victory at home. But, look, Russian actions, Russian rhetoric, none of that suggests that that is the intention. It may be that they even plan to escalate at this point. And so his message is that the longer this goes on, the weaker Putin's grip on power.

ABDELAZIZ: Clare Sebastian there with a very unique perspective and voice. Thank you so much for bringing that to us. We'll be right back after the break.

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[04:55:04]

ABDELAZIZ: Weather forecasters in the U.S. say the super El Nino is intensifying in the Pacific and will likely make history. Now, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there is now nearly a 70 percent chance that this El Nino will become the strongest one on record. CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam explains.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Strong El Ninos, like the one that's building right now, have an outsized influence on the Atlantic hurricane season, reducing both the number and the strength of tropical systems.

Now, El Nino isn't just about the warmer waters here in the Pacific. It's also a change in global circulation patterns. These altered patterns shift sinking air across the tropical Atlantic, stabilizing the atmosphere, reducing thunderstorm development that's needed to create a hurricane.

Additionally, these circulation changes, they help displace the jet stream across the tropical Atlantic. These strong upper level winds create wind shear, which is a hostile environment for tropical development and can deliver a death blow to an emerging hurricane.

In the early stages of a tropical storm's life, it needs a calm environment at all levels of the atmosphere to grow. When wind shear is introduced, it disrupts this vertical alignment, making it harder for thunderstorms to organize into a tropical system and get stronger.

Now, think of a hurricane as a spinning top. Wind shear would be like pushing this top and altering its spin. This is particularly disruptive when the top is spinning slowly, just like the early formative stages of a tropical system. With more wind shear around, it's harder for budding hurricanes to get over that hump.

Now, while wind shear and sinking air can put a big dent in tropical activity throughout the Atlantic, it doesn't eliminate it altogether. Previous El Nino seasons, like the destruction brought on by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, have proven that it only takes one landfall to make this a catastrophic season. So be hurricane ready this year by downloading the all new CNN Weather app.

ABDELAZIZ: Thank you so much for watching. CNN Headline Express is coming up next.

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