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"Washington Post" Identifies Leaker of Pentagon Documents to Discord Server; Appeals Court Rules Abortion Medication Mifepristone Will Remain Temporarily Available; Some Democrats Call on Senator Dianne Feinstein to Resign; Protests Continue in Paris against French President Macron's Raising of Pension Age. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 13, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And now he's coming for them.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I told you about Tim. We were walking from dinner the other night, and a rat scurried out of a thing. And he's just like ah! I was like, what? He goes it's a rat. I'm like it's just a rat.

HARLOW: My husband almost made us move to the suburbs.

LEMON: Because of a rat?

HARLOW: He's still trying. Because of the rats outside of our home in Brooklyn.

LEMON: We have to admit as New Yorkers, they are enormous, enormous.

HARLOW: They're enormous. The first time people visit me in New York when we take the subway, they're like, oh, my God! What is that? And I'm like welcome to New York.

LEMON: Welcome to New York. Hey.

HARLOW: Hey. We are we are glad you're with us. It is the 8:00 a.m. hour. Good morning, everyone. Kaitlan's on assignment today. And breaking overnight, really significant, "The Washington Post" has apparently discovered who leaked hundreds of classified U.S. documents. A young gun enthusiast, that's how he's described, shared secrets with fellow video gamers online.

LEMON: And also breaking overnight, new restrictions on a widely used abortion pill. And CNN is on the ground in Paris where hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets for 12th straight day of protest over plans to raise the retirement age. There's lots to get to.

HARLOW: There is. But first to this breaking news overnight. It looks like "The Washington Post," they have figured out who leaked hundreds of highly classified Pentagon documents. Yes, it's the lead there. It's a huge story, really excellent reporting by "The Post." "The Post" reports the alleged leaker posted these classified documents in a private group online on Discord. It's a platform used by video gamers. "The Post" interviewed one of his online friends. He says the leaker, who is known as "O.G.," indicated he brought the documents home from a job on a military base. O.G. claimed he worked inside a secure facility that prohibits cell phones and other electronic devices. It could be used to try to steal secret information. His friend says 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 Thug Shaker Central, 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 at first. However, it's slowly spiraled into just intelligence about everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: "The Post" reports O.G. shared hundreds of photos of classified documents, including highly classified satellite images and detailed charts of the battlefield in Ukraine. Some of the members of this online group were apparently from Russia.

Let's talk about all of this with CNN national security analyst and former director of the national -- of national intelligence, James Clapper. Director Clapper, this is so stunning in so many ways, and buried in this reporting, "The Post" reviewed about 300 photos of classified documents, most have not been made public yet, which means this isn't over, and there's more to come. What's your reaction?

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, it's not good. Obviously, Poppy, this is pretty serious thing. And I think, when I first heard reporting about this, I wondered how much more is yet to be revealed. And some of which could be quite serious. So for somebody who spent his whole life in intelligence, it's pretty disturbing.

LEMON: According to "The Post," O.G. claimed that he spent at least some of his day inside a secure facility that prohibited cell phones and other electronic devices. So if they prohibited that, it also prohibits people who work there from printing, how does this leak happen then? Wouldn't -- aren't people searched or what have you when they're leaving the facility to make sure they aren't carrying these documents?

CLAPPER: Well, Don, the system that we have is ultimately based on personal trust. That's why there's an attempt made of -- we use a fairly rigorous clearance process to ensure that people who are granted access to such classified information are trustworthy and are not going to expose it. So that's, that's the weak link here. And tightening up administrative procedures, which is understandable, there's a feeling you've got to do something, but really the concern here is people. And people, if they are bent on exposing classified information, they'll figure out a way to beat the administrative procedures. And that's the real issue here. HARLOW: I thought this was striking that his friend who talks the

Washington Post said that O.G. got upset many times because people weren't paying enough attention to these documents that he was posting, so he changed his tactics. Rather than spending time copying documents by keyboards, he took photographs of them and dropped them into the server. And he had to make his followers pay attention to this. It just sat there for months ignored before.

[08:04:58]

CLAPPER: Yes, that's, Poppy, that's one thing is in reading the article really struck me, that this sleeker O.G., if that's about who it is, has in common with his predecessors, leaker predecessors, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and Edward Snowden, a degree of narcissism here where there's an ego element that of feeling self- important by having access and exposing such material. And then in this case, being irritated because people weren't paying proper attention after he'd gone to all the effort to purloin these documents. So I found that striking and something in common with his predecessor leakers.

LEMON: As you were reading the information in "The Washington Post," I'm wondering if it gave you any insight into who this person could be, what their role could be at this facility.

CLAPPER: Well, actually not, Don. This could be anybody. The system is set up so that people who need to have access to such classified information, and there are a lot, can have ready access to it. And so it appears that at least in the Pentagon, we're going to clamp down on the dissemination of such material, which is always the kneejerk reaction after such a revelation. And over time, those procedures will prove to be onerous and inefficient and they will be relaxed. So I don't -- I can't tell, because this could be very senior person or someone who's role is a junior who simply had administrative access.

HARLOW: We do know they were driven by conspiracy because "The Post" reports that O.G. was telling his followers the government basically set up the massacre at the Buffalo supermarket to increase funding for police, et cetera, so sort of hooked them with apparent conspiracies.

LEMON: The site was called Thug Shaker Central.

HARLOW: Yes.

LEMON: Thank you, Director. Always a pleasure. Appreciate it.

CLAPPER: Thanks.

HARLOW: Thank you.

LEMON: Also breaking overnight, a significant development in the legal battle over a widely used abortion pill. An appeals court has ruled mifepristone will remain available for now. But the court also imposed some temporary restrictions. Women won't be allowed to get the medication delivered in the mail. This morning, the White House vowing to continue to fight in the courts to try to reverse the Texas federal judge's ruling that suspended the pill's FDA approval last week, even though it has been on the market and available to women for more than 20 years.

Arlette Saenz is here with the very latest for us. Arlette, good morning to you. A partial temporary freeze on the judge's ruling.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and really, if you look at this, this is a partial win for the Biden administration. They had wanted to see a longer-term freeze on this Texas judge's ruling, which essentially had put a pause on suspending the FDA approval of mifepristone until about Friday. This order, or this ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, says that the pill can remain on the market, but ultimately they're trying to put in place some restrictions, that includes people being unable to get this pill through the mail. Also, it affects some of the rules and changes that the FDA had made about when exactly in a pregnancy this can be used.

But this morning so far, the White House simply saying they're going to continue this legal fight. The big question right now is whether the Justice Department will try to take this to the Supreme Court to get -- basically eliminate those restrictions.

HARLOW: What do you think -- so when I hear you say the White House is going to continue the fight, the natural progression would be try to have the Supreme Court look at it this week before the deadline tomorrow night. Do you have a sense they will, or will they wait and sort of put it through the normal process of appeals?

SAENZ: They may just look at this and say, OK, they have said that the FDA approval of this drug will stay in place for now. They may just decide, OK, we'll let this play out in the appeals court. They haven't exactly indicated which way they're going to go. But really the White House and the Biden administration is quite limited in what they can do beyond just fighting this in courts. There's not much that the president can do on his own to try to protect the full access to mifepristone. We've heard of some of the Democratic governors in various states trying to stock up on these pills in the event that the FDA does suspend approval, and the White House has really pushed back on this suggestion by some that the FDA just simply ignore this ruling from that Texas judge.

So I think over the course of the next day, we should have an idea of how the Justice Department is going to act, whether they will try to take this to the Supreme Court immediately or just wait and let the appeals process play out.

LEMON: Some more political news here on this. California Democratic Senator, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has also asked to be temporarily replaced on the Judiciary Committee amid some party pressure to resign from the Senate. Congressman Ro Khanna was on with me last hour. He's calling for her to resign. This is what he told me. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:05] REP. RO KHANNA, (D-CA): 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?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Some context, please, Arlette. What has the committee gone through with Feinstein's, during her absence?

SAENZ: The committee currently has a very narrow makeup. And so right now, many of these judicial nominees that they're trying to get through, it's creating a bit of a backlog. She's been out for about a month. And we know that for the president getting these judicial nominees is a top priority. He had been doing so at a faster clip than the former president.

One of the issues that they're going to run into with this request is it's going to require a resolution to be passed, which typically at the start of a Congress, that goes through unanimously. But this could be an opportunity where Republicans maybe try to block it. We don't know how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is going to act on this. He has a history in the past. If you think towards the end of the Obama administration, he really had stalled and blocked some of his nominees, which then created vacancies for former President Trump to fill.

So Republicans could use this as a moment to try to slow things down a bit, especially at a time when people are seeing the power of the judicial system, especially with this abortion ruling.

HARLOW: The power of one federal judge, right. Thank you very much Arlette. It's good to have you here.

LEMON: Good to see you.

So we're going to take you now to Paris. This is a live look right now. Hundreds of thousands of people nationwide are expected to protest against the controversial pension reform bill that pushes the retirement age to 64 a day before the country's Supreme Court is expected to rule on that. Police are on high alert as past demonstrations have erupted into violent clashes.

I want to get straight now to CNN's Frederik Pleitgen live with more in Paris for us. Frederik, hello to you. What measures are police taking to prevent violence?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi John. Well, they're putting thousands of cops on the street. I can show you that right now here. We're going to pan around a little bit. You can see the riot cops here are already at the ready. And the other thing that you were saying as well, Don, is absolutely correct. There are literally tens of thousands of people coming in here right now, as you said, across France. It's probably, again, going to be hundreds of thousands who are going to protest against that proposed pension reform bill.

And we say that, and of course, the key to that pension reform bills is they want to raise the pension age from 62 to 64. But a lot of French people are coming out here today because they're angry at the way that the French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing this law through, essentially used executive powers for that, bypassing a vote in the parliament.

And it's quite interesting because you can see here that lots of folks who are coming out on the street, a lot of them are older folks, folks of trade. But a lot of them are also younger people who are just extremely angry at the way the French president is doing this. It's becoming a big problem for him, Macron. Many people are already referring to him as a lame duck president. He is in the first year of his second term, he's still got a lot of time ahead of him. But he has lost a lot of popular support because of the way that he is trying to push through this pension reform.

And, of course, that's led to a lot of these protests. It's also led to some of the violence among the protesters. In fact, earlier today, there was a group of protesters that actually stormed the headquarters of the largest luxury goods maker here in this country, for instance, that makes Louis Vuitton handbags, stormed the headquarters and actually occupied that building for a while.

By and large so far, and we're just beginning stages right now, things here, as you can tell, are still very peaceful, but you can tell that the French riot police not taking any chances with us at all, Don.

LEMON: All right, Frederik Pleitgen in Paris watching it all for us. Thank you, Frederik.

HARLOW: Let's take you to Dublin from Paris. That's a live look right now. President Biden in Dublin, continuing his historic visit to the region, we'll take it live there.

LEMON: And former President Trump is back in New York for a deposition as he faces yet another legal battle. The question is, will he cooperate?

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: President Biden taking questions right now, alongside Irish president Michael Higgins. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Mr. President, can I have a selfie?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATE: No, (INAUDIBLE) selfie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Selfie Mr. President, very quickly just over here. Thank you, I'm Henry McGeen (PH) from news --

HARLOW: More questions from reporter -- what is this?

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Someone want to selfie.

HARLOW: Trying to listen in a little bit. Oh, is that right?

LEMON: Someone wants a selfie, but he was taking questions about the classified --

HARLOW: Yes, he did.

LEMON: -- documents he said there's a whole investigation going on. We should just let that play around.

HARLOW: He also said they're getting close, meeting the intelligence community, trying to figure out who may have leaked this. All right let's bring in our colleague, Phil Mattingly. He joins us live. This is sort of fun chat now with the President. But he did answer, you know, some serious questions about the Intel leak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Yes, and Poppy, what's interesting is it's the first time he really has up to this point hasn't taken many of any questions on this trip. The White House has been very cognizant -- very cognizant of the fact that they don't want to weigh in or take the spotlight off of this trip as it relates to the leaks. And what I've been told behind the scenes from White House officials, the President has been regularly briefed on what they have found on the ongoing investigation.

And probably, most importantly, on the conversations that top U.S. officials are having with their counterparts in an effort to try and tamp down what I think has been a real scramble over the course of the last couple of days. And the President making very clear he wasn't going to weigh in on specifics, noting that that full investigation is underway. Did note I think, somewhat interestingly, that there was -- that they believe they're getting close. So, we'll see kind of what develops here. But this was his first time weighing in on this, guys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are concerned about the leaked?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's time to go. Let's go.

BIDEN: Well, I'm not concerned about the leaked, and I'm concerned in what happened. But there's nothing contemporaneous that I'm aware of that is (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you concern about (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So, there you heard that was just from just a few moments ago, the President's real first time weighing in on this. Again, saying he didn't believe there's anything contemporaneous there, but is concerned and I'm told behind the scenes, and I think we've reported this in real time back in the States while we've been over here, just how acute the scramble has been. Both are trying to identify the leaks, the scale of the leaks, who's behind the leaks, the Justice Department investigation, the defense department investigation that are both underway at this moment. But also, in trying to deal with allies who are subject to some of the leaks that have come out here.

[08:20:05]

The president again, not weighing in on specifics beyond the saying that the investigation is underway, seem to hint that there may be some conclusion to that investigation in the near term. But not saying that he believed there are any dramatic issues here. But I can tell you behind the scenes when U.S. officials, administration officials, very cognizant of the very real problems both with allies and just generally about classified documents here, guys.

HARLOW: I was going to say, yes, ask our allies. Phil Mattingly, thank you very much.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

LEMON: Well, this morning, the Former President Donald Trump is back in New York for a deposition in a civil lawsuit filed by Attorney General Letitia James, alleging that he was involved in a decade's long scheme to defraud lenders with false financial statements. His children and the Trump organization are also listed as defendants. Former President invoke the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times in a previous deposition, in that case last August. CNN's Kara Scannell joins us now live this morning in New York City, outside of the New York state AG's office. Good morning, Kara Trump expects you to attend the proceedings today. What can you tell us?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Don. So, we are expecting the Former President to arrive probably a little bit later this hour for his second deposition with the New York Attorney General's Office. And, you know, as you said, at the first deposition last August, he asserted his Fifth Amendment right against answering any questions and self-incrimination more than 400 times. That was before the Attorney General's office filed that lawsuit. That lawsuit was filed in September, and now, they're doing all of this pretrial work. And as a part of that, the New York Attorney General's Office has asked Trump to come in for a second deposition.

Now, the question here is will he answer any questions this time? There are a couple of different factors that plan or could be some strategic decisions being made here. The Former President as a defendant in this case and having asserted his Fifth Amendment the last time, that's something that a jury could hold against him. It's called an adverse inference. So, if you know by the jury could look at him not answering questions and say, OK, that, you know, is that goes against him? If he does answer questions this time, you know, they already know the 400 plus questions that he was asked. The last time they also already know what he's been charged with

having done wrong, so they can prepare in a different way for this. If they choose to answer our questions, and they can answer some, they can answer none, they can answer a combination. It's really up to him when he's in there shortly this after, you know, in a few hours. He will be behind these doors behind us and be sitting there across the table from likely the New York Attorney General Letitia James herself.

She was there the last time, she introduced herself, they greeted each other and then she turned it over to her top investigators working on this case. You know, of course, though, there is a gamble, the Manhattan District Attorney's office which just brought the indictment against Trump, they are still investigating the accuracy these financial statements. So, anything he says today if he doesn't answer your questions, is something that they could look at for their investigations, Don.

LEMON: All right, Kara, will be following and we will be watching. Thank you, Kara. Also, tonight on CNN Primetime, our colleague Kaitlan is going to sit down for one on one with Michael Cohen. You can catch their interview at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

HARLOW: We are also following just stunning flooding in South Florida. The airport in Fort Lauderdale is completely shut down. Certain areas seeing up to 20 inches of rain. Just how record breaking is it? Our weather team is on the ground.

LEMON: Plus, urban farming in a sustainable way. We're talking to Jamila Norman, the host of the T.V. show Homegrown, about food and wellness and how to transform your outdoor space.

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: This morning, a one-in-one-thousand-year rain event in South Florida, dumping up to 20 inches of rain in just 24 hours. Fort Lauderdale's airport is now shut down. Until at least noon today, cars stalled, travelers stranded. Its historic floodwaters leave some roads impossible. Derek Van Dam, live in Atlanta for more.

LEMON: It's just crazy.

HARLOW: I know.

LEMON: Yes, I mean, come on up.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Truly, yes, right, exactly. 20 to 25 inches of rain is rare and historic for southern Florida. And this is the type of rain that southern Florida would experience in a high-end hurricane for instance. Now, the National Weather Service, using that one-in-1,000-year event terminology. And basically, this means that the probability of this happening in any given year is very, very low. It's like winning the lottery, could it happen? Yes, but it's extremely rare. Would it happen tomorrow? Very unlikely, look at how the storms kind of formed and trained over the same location right over this heavily populated Fort Lauderdale region. And by the way, we have the potential that we broke a 24-hour state rainfall record which was set back in 1980 in Key West. Climatologists will be on site to analyze the data and assess the information. But we still have flood watches and flood warnings for Fort Lauderdale, Miami-Dade as well as Broward. It's all thanks to the storm system, as if warm front lifts northward is going to trigger more thunderstorms today that could be severe.

And we could see some localized flash flooding as well, another one to two inches of rainfall possible. Just incredible video coming out of this area, look at this aerial video of downtown Fort Lauderdale of stalled-out vehicles. Now, the National Weather Service has a slogan, turn around, don't drown. This is what they mean, six inches of water on a roadway can stall a vehicle. 12 inches of water on the roadway can actually float an entire car but 24 inches of flash flooding water, that can actually tow away an entire SUV. Poppy? Don?

HARLOW: Wow.

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: Very scary.

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: What was the phrase you said? Turn around?

LEMON: Turn around, don't drown.

VAN DAM: Turn around, don't drown.

HARLOW: Smart. Derek, thank you.

LEMON: Thanks, Derek. OK, so, let's talk about farmer J. Jamila Norman, but better known as farmer J. She is on a mission to teach others about food sustainability and wellness through farming. She's an Atlanta based urban farmer who is passionate about creating a healthier, greener Earth. On her television show Homegrown. She helps families transform their outdoor spaces into beautiful and functional backyard farms. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMILA NORMAN, T.V. HOST OF HOMEGROWN: The vision is the most cost- effective way to multiply your garden.

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