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Washington Post Reports, Friend Says Pentagon Documents Leaker Worked at Military Base; Appeals Court Partially Blocks Ruling That Threatens Abortion Pill Access; South Florida Hit with Historic Flooding, Airport Shuts Down. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 13, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Every time the Raptors shot a free throw.

[07:00:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you're hearing when Raptors shoot, she's screaming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In terms of the total number of the quality of shots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Life is really good for him right now. He's in a good hit speed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: So, it's just incredible dedication from D.R. to help her dad win, and it worked. The Raptors missed 18 free throws. It's the most misses in a winner take all game since 1969. The Bulls, they were down 19 of the third, but thanks to all the missed free throws, they battled back. DeRozan and Zack Lavine leading Chicago to a 109-105 win.

And here was DeRozan after the game on his daughter's performance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEMAR DEROZAN, CHICAGO BULLS FORWARD: Sure viral. She -- now, I haven't let it soak in yet. Everybody keeps saying, you know what, that's all -- I kept hearing some during the game, and it was one free throw, somebody missed. And I looked back, and I was like, that's my daughter's screaming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: As the Bulls now play in Miami against the heat for an eighth seed guys on Friday. And I'm guessing Billy Donovan is going to be like -- the coach of the Bulls -- we need her on the plane. Bring her to Miami.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. That's the definition of daddy's girl. That's awesome. I loved it. Andy, thank you.

SCHOLES: All right.

HARLOW: CNN This Morning continues now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Federal appeals court, partially blocking a Texas judge's ruling on the abortion pill, Mifepristone.

It means the FDA's approval of that drug still stands for now, but other limitations have been put in place.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The challengers, they now are going to consider whether or not to go to the Supreme Court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're learning new details about who might be behind the leak of highly classified documents from the Pentagon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a young, charismatic man who loved nature.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Washington Post reports that they were posted in a chat room by someone who worked at an unidentified military base.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't realize the sheer just immense nature of these leaks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A once and a half century extreme weather event happening right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The city of Fort Lauderdale plans to issue a local state of emergency.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lauderdale pushing over 12 inches. There's still room for more to come.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never seen rain like this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stinging setbacks for Fox News in the defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The judge accusing Fox's legal team making misrepresentations, saying he's likely to appoint a special master to investigate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one wants to head into a trial, particularly a trial where $1.6 billion is on the line with the judge's set on that.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: You've been calling for a red flag law for a while now. Do you think one can get passed here?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): We know somebody is right on that brink of going out and committing a horrendous action, don't you think we should be able to take action? I don't even think that's political.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Good morning, everyone. Kaitlan is off. You saw her doing the interview with the governor there, Beshear.

But this is the big story this morning. This is the big story this morning. As we look at this, I'll put it over here, The Washington Post reporting about this leaker. That's what it is. It's remarkable. We're getting as much information as possible and we got some great guests on it. So, that's where we're going to start all these details about the leaker posted hundreds of classified Pentagon documents online.

The Post reports that he shared photos of top secret U.S. intelligence in a private group on Discord. It is a platform that is popular with video gamers. One of his online friends says that the alleged leaker indicated that he brought the documents home from his job on a military base. The user claimed that he worked inside a secure facility that prohibited cell phones and other electronic devices that could be used to steal the secret information. His friend says that the leaks started months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was first made aware of these documents. I want to say about six to eight months ago. I was in a Discord server by the name of Doug Sticker Central (ph). And in this channel, there was classified documents being posted by a user who I will refer to as O.G. from this point.

The documents were often listed as Ukraine versus Russia first. However, it's slowly spiraled into just intelligence about everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And some of the members of this online group are apparently from Russia. The Post reports that the photos included highly classified satellite images and detailed charts of battlefield -- of the battlefield in Ukraine.

We're going to begin our coverage this hour with Cyber Security Reporter Sean Lyngaas. Sean, good morning to you. These classified documents spread like wildfire across social media. What is the latest?

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Don. I mean, last night, we saw the Washington post break the story on the origins of the leak and going into some of these chat rooms where the alleged leaker was talking with his acquaintances, you could say. And according to the reporting, you know they bonded over video games, guns, God, military gear during the pandemic.

[07:05:01]

And during the pandemic is when the social media platform Discord got a lot more popular. And so The Post was able to trace where these conversations started. And when this person who went by the online handle O.G. started, you know, first transcribing, apparently some of the documents but then just all and out posting it, posting these documents.

And it's only in the last week, as you know, Don, that this story sort of broke onto the national scene because we had these photos of these documents that CNN has also reviewed. So, it really speaks to the fact that I don't think anyone would have expected anyone in the Pentagon. You know of a certain age that's not so familiar with Discord would have expected these highly sensitive documents about intelligence on the battlefield in Ukraine, for example, to be posted on this, you know, in this chat room where people were also playing Minecraft and Counterstrike, other video games that are not necessarily familiar to a certain generation of people, the Pentagon.

So, it's just a wild story all around, and we were able to communicate with some people on one of these Discord chat rooms where the documents were shared. But this reporting from The Post traces it back to a different chat room where it all began and where this apparent leaker was boasting about his knowledge about military operations and for clout, for -- you know, to sort of bond with these with these other guys. There's some unknown questions, but there's a lot to unpack this morning, Don.

LEMON: Yes. Listen, I said it spread like wildfire, but, initially, according to the reporting, that it sat there for a while, and people didn't believe that it was real until they started reading it right. And then I guess the intention of the leaker was just distrust in government and so he wanted to get the information out there.

LYNGAAS: Right. I mean, we're still sort of analyzing his motives. But, I mean, part of the culture on some of these chat rooms is sort of one-upsmanship and bragging and sort of doing it for the for the LOL, for the LOLs, for grins, so there's certainly a bit of bravado there. And then, according to The Post reporting, there's this sort of reverence for this guy, these younger people in this chat room. The Post talked to his supposed friend, who is a minor. And so this guy cultivated this almost cult-like, you know, image there in the chat room. Don?

LEMON: Yes. His name is O.G., they call them, the alleged leaker. Sean Lyngaas, thank you very much for that.

HARLOW: We also have new CNN reporting this morning. The Pentagon is now limiting who gets access to highly classified daily intelligence briefs. Some U.S. officials are being cut out from an email list despite having the proper clearance following that major leak of classified documents Sean was just talking about.

Natasha Bertrand joins us now. Well, this is separate from the issue of overclassification, which we heard Bill Burns talking about this week, but, you know, it's interesting what the Pentagon is doing to try to put a lid on this because we don't know if the leak is over.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Exactly right, Poppy. So, as we've reported, the Pentagon has been doing this internal investigation to try to figure out how to stem the flow of future leaks. And what they have done is they have started to comb through the distribution lists of these highly classified documents that are distributed across the entire government daily, and they have begun to whittle down those lists.

And we are told that people across the government at different agencies, State Department, you know, even within the Pentagon, who were receiving this daily highly classified intelligence briefing that is put together by the Pentagon's joint staff, are now not receiving it anymore. So, clearly, they have begun to put a lid on who is able to receive these documents.

And we should note that the Pentagon previously distributed these documents widely across the government to potentially thousands of people, and all of those people did have proper clearance to view these documents. It's not as though the individuals who are receiving it did not have the right security clearance. But not all of those people had a need to know when it came to these documents.

And so the Pentagon now is trying to figure out who actually needs to see these highly classified documents that are prepared for senior Pentagon officials on a daily basis and who doesn't. And so they've begun to seriously limit the distribution of these documents in an attempt really to prevent these kinds of leaks from happening again, Poppy.

HARLOW: Of course, whatever they can do. Natasha, thank you for that reporting.

LEMON: So, a huge development this morning in the legal battle over a widely used abortion pill. An appeals court has ruled that Mifepristone will remain available for now, but the court also imposed some temporary restrictions. Women will not be allowed to have the medication delivered by mail. This all comes as the Justice Department fights a federal judge's ruling in Texas. He abruptly suspended the pill's FDA approval last week after it had been on the market and available to women for more than 20 years.

Let's bringing now CNN's Supreme Court Reporter Ariane de Vogue with more on this.

[07:10:02]

Good morning, Ariane. This is only a partial and temporary freeze on the judge's ruling, right?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right. This amounts to a partial win for the Biden administration here. Basically, what this appeals court said is that the government's approval of this drug could stay in place for now.

Now, that's a sigh of relief for supporters of this medication abortion drug. The drug stays on the market for now. However, what this court did is it did block some more recent changes that the FDA had put in place to make it easier to obtain the drug. And those changes, they said, it could be distributed by mail, it could be dispensed later in pregnancy. So, the appeals court did move there to block that.

It's interesting to see this appeals court that had two Trump nominees on it is still expressing some skepticism about the safety of the drug. So, even while it scaled back on that broad district court opinion, the fact that it's still expressing some skepticism, that's got to bother the Biden administration.

HARLOW: Do you think this goes to the Supreme Court?

DE VOGUE: So, it's hard to tell, right? This is the early part. It's a partial win for the Biden administration. So, they may think okay, right now, we won't go on this emergency basis to the Supreme Court and, plus, the fact the appeals court is now said it's really going to expedite its hearings in the lower court.

Now, the case moves on to the merits. So, maybe, for now, the Biden administration doesn't go up, the other side doesn't go up. They wait and see. But it's too early this morning. We haven't heard from either side now. But, again, the Biden administration was always thinking how unprecedented this lawsuit has been, because, as you said, this particular abortion medication drug had been on the books for some 20 years, and millions of women really use it. That's why the Biden administration was so stunned by this entire lawsuit.

HARLOW: Yes. It was fascinating reading Judge Kacsmaryk's order that, you know, it goes all the way back, he takes it back to the Comstock Act and just the -- it's going to be fascinating to see as it goes to the courts, that's for sure. Ariane, thank you.

DE VOGUE: Thanks.

LEMON: So, we turn now to Congressman Ro Khanna, who joins us to talk about both of this morning's big stories, abortion pills and the leaks and also what's happening with Congresswoman Dianne Feinstein. Good morning. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. There's a lot to get to, Congressman.

You're in the Armed Services Committee. So, let's start with this document leak and the latest that we are learning from The Washington Post at the leaker worked on the military base, shared docs in a discord group that he was part of. What's your response to that?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Well, it's deeply concerning. We need to make sure that our secrets are safe and our committee will be working to see why those leaks happen and how we can protect America's secrets so our troops are not in harm's way.

LEMON: Are you surprised by the young person leaking this on a gaming site, and then you have, you know, these teenagers following this gaming site? I mean, the mere fact, if this reporting is true, that classified documents and secrets can get into the hands of people on a site like this, it's stunning.

KHANNA: It's stunning and it's not a game. I mean, when you have a leak of sensitive information, it puts American military personnel at risk. These are people who are wearing the uniform. They're taking risks with their lives. This is not a light matter. It puts Ukrainians, civilians at potential risk. And so we have to understand why there was a breakdown, why these leaks happen, how to prevent them from happening again.

LEMON: Can you share anything? Because you were at the Pentagon brief too yesterday, your committee.

KHANNA: Well, I don't want to get into the details, obviously, of anything that is sensitive, but all I can say is that the committee is deeply concerned about any leaks and we'll be doing everything we can to make sure that this kind of situation doesn't happen again. And we'll be asking why there was a breakdown in the protection of intelligence.

LEMON: Congressman, also overnight, an appeals court partially froze Texas judge's order that would have suspended FDA approval of medication abortion pill, Mifepristone. What is your take on this?

KHANNA: Well, it was an outrageous ruling by the Texas judge, as is evident by the fact that it was overturned in a few days. The idea that you would deny a pill that millions of women have been using for years, and the FDA approved shows how ideological extreme some of these judges have become.

[07:15:00]

Now, the court of appeals are glad that they have allowed the pill to be used, but they still have put some restrictions in place that make no sense. I mean, why should you not be able to get a medicine in the mail in the 21st century America? That makes no sense. Why can't you get this pill near in a health clinic without having to go through your doctor?

So, there are common sense measures that the appeals court still needs to fix, and I hope that the Supreme Court will fix it. But I'm glad that the Biden Justice Department is fighting this every step of the way, and it's a step to have the outrageous FDA decision by the Texas judge overturned.

LEMON: You used the original ruling that you said was outrageous. You used that ruling to call for the resignation of one of your colleagues. And you also are the coach of the Democratic Congressman Barbara Lee's campaign to fill Dianne Feinstein's seat come 2024. Why are you asking Dianne Feinstein to resign?

KHANNA: First of all, let me just say this. I have an enormous amount of respect for Senator Dianne Feinstein. She has had an extraordinary career in public service. She has been an icon on issues of gun violence and women's rights.

But it has become painfully obvious to many of us in California that she is no longer able to fulfill her duties as she doesn't have a clear return date. We haven't been able to confirm judges at a time where women's rights and voting rights are under assault. Senator Durbin himself was the chair of judiciary has said that the reason we're not being able to move these judges is because Senator Feinstein isn't there.

And so as someone from California, I felt an obligation to say what's so many colleagues are saying in private, that the time has come for her to gracefully step down and have a dignified end to a very distinguished political career.

LEMON: Overnight, she said, Dianne Feinstein said that she wanted the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to temporarily appoint someone to take her place on the committee. Does that alleviate any of your concerns or do you still want her to resign?

KHANNA: It's a step but, as has been reported, it's not that simple. Any single senator, Republican senator can object to that. Senator Schumer has done the right thing. He said he's going to try to get that done in the Senate. But we have to see if that's even possible.

And I guess my question is, why not just take the step and resign instead of going through all of these motions. But I will say it's constructive. The most urgent issue is that we can get our judges confirmed.

LEMON: Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you.

KHANNA: Thank you, Don.

HARLOW: All right. We have a lot coming up ahead. Jury selection about to begin in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, that is ahead.

Also in South Florida, the rain has just been stunning, historic downpours and it isn't even hurricane season yet.

LEMON: Look at all that water.

HARLOW: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see that we've been showing this to you now a couple different times, these sections of the parking lot and sections of some green space between the main section of campus and the road that gets you out to Biscayne completely flooded here.

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[07:20:00]

HARLOW: This morning, officials say South Florida is now experiencing a 1 in 1,000-year rain event, up to 20 inches of rain fell in just 24 hours. This flooding is turning streets into rivers, stalling cars breaching buildings, it has even shut down Fort Lauderdale's airport. It leaves a lot of travelers stranded.

Our Carlos Suarez joins us live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with more. I mean, you are in the street turned river, right? CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right, Poppy, good morning. So, if these are flooding, numbers hold, if all of this rainfall total numbers hold, we're talking about two feet of rain that fell across parts of Fort Lauderdale yesterday. Those kind of numbers are we what we might usually see with a hurricane where in a neighborhood just north of Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, whereas you can see behind me, the story right now is all of this flooding. Cars here are making -- the drivers out here at least are making the difficult decision of whether or not they want to go ahead and try to get through all of this water.

What's happening out here in Fort Lauderdale and some of these neighborhoods is drivers are deciding to go against traffic because they will hit a pocket of water where they don't know if it's deep enough and their cars are going to get stuck. And so this is what's happening for a good part of Broward County.

To give you a sense of just kind of traffic that all of this is causing, we are just a few minutes off of Interstate I-95, which is a pretty busy interstate that connects north and south. You can see the line of cars out here, the drivers unsure of exactly how long it's going to take them to go where they need to be.

The situation, the flooding here in Broward is bad enough that Broward County schools decided to cancel classes for the day. And all of this is playing out just a few minutes north of Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, where things there remain closed at this hour. It appears the airport might open at the earliest around noon. But already, we're looking at about 300 flights have been canceled or delayed because of all of this flooding that is going on across a good part of Broward and Miami-Dade County.

It's a little bit loud out here because you've got some trucks moving by us, but I can tell you one of the big problems that happened here yesterday is that this rain really just sat on top of a good part of Broward County for most of the day. And so we just saw hour after hour all of this rain falling across a good part of Fort Lauderdale. And as you said, coming back out here if these numbers hold, we're talking about a rainfall event that we have not seen in a very long time. We're talking about numbers that we might normally get when it comes to a Hurricane.

HARLOW: Yes. And it's not even hurricane season yet. Wow.

[07:25:00]

Carlos, thank you, I appreciate it.

LEMON: So, jury selection is set to begin today in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox. Fox is experiencing new legal setbacks in the case. A judge is now sanctioning Fox over concerns that it withheld key evidence. He plans to appoint an outside attorney to investigate the matter. Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis admonishing Fox attorney saying, and I quote here, I am very concerned that there have been misrepresentations to the court. This is very serious. So, Fox News is being sued for allegedly promoting false claims about Dominion machines rigging the 2020 presidential election. Fox denies that it ever defamed Dominion and says that it properly disclosed Rupert Murdoch's role and its public financial filings.

So, joining us now, Attorney Ken Turkel, he has represented multiple high-profile figures, like Sarah Palin and Hulk Hogan in defamation cases. So, it's interesting that we have him and we're so glad that you're with us this morning. Thank you, sir.

So, a judge sanctioning Fox News, appointing a special master to investigate, what is behind this? I mean, this is really significant legally.

KEN TURKEL, ATTORNEY WHO'S REPRESENTED HIGH-PROFILE FIGURES IN DEFAMATION CASES: Don, I think one of the most significant things is when it's happening. It's not uncommon in cases to have battles over discovery, what was, what wasn't produced. But to have evidence of this substance showing up in the discovery fight on the eve of trial, I've never experienced in 33 years.

HARLOW: Never. And, again, you were you even represented Hulk Hogan in that very famous case. I mean, I read that -- I read that in First Amendment class in law school. Yes. I mean, that's so for you to have not seen something says a lot. That's my point here.

Can you talk about -- go ahead.

TURKEL : Well, I was going to say, you know, you see discovery fights, right? But you have the Grossberg recordings, the Murdoch testimony on the eve of a trial that has been this hotly contested, there's been so much back and forth, that, to me, is just -- it's uncommon. The discovery fighting, not so much. You're getting those in every case. But this kind of evidence, when they're about to pick a jury and their sanctions now in a master, it is fascinating to me, okay? I don't know how it plays out because (INAUDIBLE) does his investigation. So --

HARLOW: It is fascinating, especially of a special master looking at this. Can I just ask you because yesterday, we had Sara Fischer on one of our journalist colleagues, who said she is a little bit worried about what this suit could mean for journalism because of the malice standard here? Can you just speak to your view on that at large?

TURKEL: Yes. I mean, you know, the Palin case was malice case. And, you know, I default to something that I think is the panel discussion that hasn't been had yet, and that is in an internet age, right, when everyone has the same access to media by tagging media outlets, and you have a computer and you put out whatever salacious content and then tag everybody, you've really gotten to the core of what started the public figure exception, the political figure exception and actual malice.

Information is traveling. We just didn't anticipate it's being consumed in disseminated in a way that people and newscasters are on the news telling their stories, and at the same time, the stories are changing real-time all over the internet.

So, look, I think we need to take a hard look at that component of this anyway. Beyond that, though, you know, in this case, I don't know how much it's going to be tested because there's an overwhelming amount of documentary evidence that memorialized the state of mind, and you don't really have that most of the time. It's emails, texts, et cetera.

LEMON: It's interesting. Listen, not all public figures are the same. Right, I mean, do you have the Fox News newscasters, and then you have Fox News on top of which they work for. I'm just -- and that's another thing because we were talking about journalists. I don't want to get bogged down. I want to talk about Rupert Murdoch taking the witness stand. What do you think that's going to do for the case?

TURKEL: Don, you know, we've talked about it last time. I said it's more about the atmospherics of the case, the optics of the case, right? Because the state of mind of Hannity, of Carlson, the four that are in the line of fire, since you (INAUDIBLE) reports is what's going to matter. What is in the mind of the writer? What is in the mind of the broadcaster with respect to actual malice, the knowledge of truth or falsity or reckless disregard?

Rupert Murdoch doesn't really matter for that. But as a trial lawyer, you're telling a story and the optics, the atmospherics around this guy, the head of everything, admits under oath that he did not believe in the veracity of these statements.

And as I told Don, the last time we talked, it was what they led with their summary judgment opposition, what Dominion lead with, right, the Rupert Murdoch testimony.

[07:30:03]

Jurors -- I have a great deal of faith in the jury system but they're humans, too.