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CNN This Morning
Ex-Louisville Cop Hired as Deputy; Melting Snowpacks Cause Flooding in Upper Midwest; Russian Official's Ex-Wife Living in France; Aaron Rodgers Goes to Jets. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired April 25, 2023 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:34:12]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, there is outrage this morning after a sheriff's department in Kentucky hired the former cop who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in Louisville. Former officer Myles Cosgrove's attorney has confirmed that the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, about an hour outside of Louisville, has hired his client. Cosgrove, of course, was one of the seven cops who was involved in that botched overnight raid on Taylor's apartment just three years ago. The state's attorney general says that he fired the bullet that killed her. The Louisville Metro Police Department fired him nearly a year later. Now here we are.
CNN national correspondent Jason Carroll is here.
Of course, this must be so painful for her family.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It really, really is. I spoke to Breonna Taylor's mother last night. And she says, when something like this happens, it once again makes her question whether or not she's ever going to see some sort of justice.
As for Cosgrove, I spoke to his attorney and he says his client is willing, that he is capable, and he's ready to start his new job.
[06:35:08]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CROWD: Breonna Taylor!
CARROLL (voice over): Breonna Taylor's mother had one word to describe how she felt after learning former Louisville Metro Police Officer Myles Cosgrove had been rehired by another department.
TAMIKA PALMER, BREONNA TAYLOR'S MOTHER: Anger. To think that another department would even want this guy to be a part of any department for that matter just angers me.
CARROLL: According to a CNN affiliate, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department cited Cosgrove's experience as the reason behind the hire. His attorney confirmed the former LMPD officer recently started with the sheriff's department.
SCOTT MILLER, LAWYER FOR EX-LOUISVILLE POLICE OFFICER MYLES COSGROVE: So, on behalf of Myles and myself, we don't want anything to take away or diminish the value of the tragedy that happened to Breonna Taylor and her family. We're not minimizing that at all, but he definitely has had a hard road to go in getting back to trying to figure out a way to support his family in the future.
CARROLL: Cosgrove was one of three LMPD officers who fired their weapons during a raid on Breonna Taylor's apartment the night of March 13, 2020. Cosgrove fired more than a dozen times, including the fatal bullet that killed Taylor. The Louisville Metro Police Department fired him in January of 2021 for failing to use his body camera and violating the department's use of force rules.
MYLES COSGROVE, FORMER LOUISVILLE METRO POLICE OFFICER: I started shooting as soon as I saw the flash. Almost simultaneously.
CARROLL: During a department hearing to appeal his firing, Cosgrove expressed remorse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you regret that Breonna Taylor ended up being shot and killed?
COSGROVE: Of course. Of course I do. It's - it's horrible.
CARROLL: The department's merit board upheld his dismissal. Despite that, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department decided to hire Cosgrove. His attorney notes four other officers in the raid face federal charges in connection with that raid, three accused of lying in order to obtain a search warrant.
One former LMPD officer, Kelly Goodlett, admitted in federal court that she and another officer had falsified information in the warrant that was used to justify the raid on Taylor's apartment. U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland says had it not been for that faulty warrant, Taylor would be alive today.
Cosgrove's attorney reminded those who oppose his client being hired that he has not been charged with any crime.
MILLER: There was a grand jury that met in the state of Kentucky that cleared him of any wrong doing. A federal grand jury was convened and also determined that there were other people who warranted being charged criminally but not Myles.
PALMER: It's this good ole boy system, like, so I'm not surprised at all.
CARROLL: Those seeking justice for Breonna Taylor say Cosgrove getting a badge back is a danger to the new community he is serving.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The people of Carroll County should be very afraid and should not let this hire stand.
PALMER: You don't know what to trust anymore or who to trust. It's insane to me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: And the mayor of Carrollton, there in Carroll County, weighing in on this. He says that he was completely unaware that Cosgrove had been hired. The first that he heard about it was actually on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. He said this was a decision made solely by the Carroll County sheriff and that it had nothing to do with the city. And, actually, Kaitlan, he said that Cosgrove had actually applied for a job with the city of Carrollton in the past but was not hired.
COLLINS: Wow. And now, of course, maybe they had nothing to do with it, but they will be facing a lot of questions about this as well.
CARROLL: Without question.
COLLINS: Jason Carroll, thank you.
CARROLL: You bet.
COLLINS: And also we should note that in the next hour Breonna Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, is going to join CNN THIS MORNING live.
HARLOW: Meantime this morning, major flooding across the upper Midwest. Near record snowfall is now melting and causing the Mississippi River to slowly crest. Waters are rising from North Dakota, to Wisconsin and Iowa, where residents are preparing for the flooding that is expected to get worse this week.
Let's go to our meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
I keep thinking about that, right, from Minnesota. The Mississippi runs right through us. There was a lot of snow and now there's bad flooding. Is it going to get worse?
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Without a doubt. This annual slow- moving disaster is forecast to be some of the worst in decades for some of these cities that do line the Mississippi River from Wisconsin through Minnesota, your home state, Poppy, and further southward into Iowa as well. You're looking at Fountain City, Wisconsin. You can see people sandbagging their businesses. Seems like their efforts are a bit futile at the moment because that water finding and seeking its own level and already finding it into the basements and homes of the residents who reside there.
[06:40:03]
Now, look at this three dimension graphic. I can show you just the Mississippi River Basin into the Red River area. The Mississippi -- or the Missouri River Basin as well. Those purple dots indicate river gauges that are at major flood stage. There are over 30 right now. And it's only going to continue to get worse as we go forward in time. And the reason is that we've had record-setting snow pack this season for many people across the upper Midwest. And I want to show you this. This is the current snowpack across the
upper Midwest. And this white line right here, I'm actually drawing a blue line over it, but this is the Mississippi River Valley. So, any water droplet that melts from the snowpack here is going to eventually filter into the Mississippi River. And that is going to allow for this slow-moving disaster to continue to build further and further south as it continues to see that water push into places like Lacrosse, Wisconsin, for instance. We have over 400 miles of flood warnings from the Mississippi River further southward. And you can see those purple dots starting to expand in coverage later into the weekend. Places like Muscatine, Iowa, expected to crest with some of the worst flooding that they've seen in decades.
Poppy.
HARLOW: Thank you for keeping a very close eye on it. Thinking about folks there. Derek, thanks.
COLLINS: Yes. Absolutely.
VAN DAM: Absolutely.
COLLINS: Also this morning, Tucker Carlson's tenure at Fox News has now come to an abrupt end. How he could use his influence, though, among conservatives in the upcoming election and beyond. We're going to talk about it all, next.
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[06:45:31]
COLLINS: All right, she is leading a life of luxury in France, while her ex-husband is leading Russia's invasion into Ukraine. A Russian socialite has been caught shopping in Paris and partying at an exclusive ski resort despite her previous partner's ongoing role in the war.
CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward joins us now from London.
Clarissa, who is this socialite? You know, what is she up to? And just the contrast of what she's doing and what's happening in Ukraine is striking.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's very striking, Kaitlan. And, honestly, it's one of those stories that literally makes people's blood boil. And it has caused a big uproar in France where Svetlana Maniovich continues to travel despite the role of her husband in the war and despite the fact that, you know, she is spending all this money as people are dying and there are very real questions as to where that money comes from.
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WARD (voice over): Svetlana Maniovich is a woman of expensive tastes. Diamonds and couture, extravagant parties and European vacations. Just last month she was seen shopping and dancing in the elite French ski resort of Courchevel.
But Maniovich is no ordinary Russian socialite. She is the other half of Russia's deputy minister of defense, Timur Ivanov, one of the most senior architects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And, according to a shocking investigation, Maniovich continues to galivant around France, more than a year into Russia's bloody war, despite the fact that Ivanov was sanctioned by the EU in October.
The explosive report put out by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and investigative outfit founded by Russia's jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is based, they say, on a leaked archive of more than 8,000 of Maniovich's emails over the last 12 years, and has racked up more than 6 million views on YouTube. It claims that on March 25, 2022, as dozens of missiles rained down on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Maniovich spent more than $100,000 in a top Paris jewelry store on the Place Vendome.
WARD (on camera): How is it possible that she can continue to do this?
MARIA PEVCHIKH, HEAD OF INVESTIGATIONS, ANTI-CORRUPTION FOUNDATION: It's a very simple trick that they've played. Point number one, Svetlana has an Israeli passport through her first - through her first husband. And, second of all, six months into the war, they have filed for divorce. They haven't - they haven't split any assets. Nothing has changed in terms of like in their daily life. This -- whatever they owned, they keep owning together. But technically they're not legally married anymore.
WARD (voice over): Equally shocking are the opulent lifestyle and lavish spending that the leaked emails document. According to Russian business publication RBC, Ivanov's official income was once declared to be around 14.2 million rubles a year, less than $175,000. Yet the Navalny Group's report calculated that the couple spent more than a quarter of a million dollars in just one summer. CNN has not been able to independently verify those numbers.
WARD (on camera): How is he funding this lifestyle?
PEVCHIKH: Well, the answer is corruption. Corruption and specifically kickbacks.
WARD (voice over): According to the Russian government, Ivanov overseas construction for Russia's ministry of defense, including what the Anti-Corruption Foundation describes as lucrative contracts to rebuild the Ukrainian city of Mariupol which fell to Russian forces under punishing bombardment last May.
PEVCHIKH: The Russian army has destroyed, demolished 70 percent of the apartment blocks in town. They had to build new ones, and they did. So, that company that built those display (ph) houses in Mariupol, it's as -- the same company that pays for Timor Ivanov's personal bills.
WARD: Despite claims of such brazen corruption, Putin toured the construction project last month. A request for comment on the investigation from the Russian ministry of defense received no reply. [06:50:00]
In France, though, the pressure may be mounting. On Sunday afternoon, the Anti-Corruption Foundation organized a small protest outside the Paris apartment it claims Maniovich still rents, demanding to know how she is allowed to spend the profits of Russia's war in the heart of France. A question so far without any satisfactory answer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WARD: CNN has reached out to France's ministry of foreign affairs. They released a statement saying, we do not comment on individual situations. France, with its EU partners, has ended visa facilitation for Russian citizens and has also adopted targeted individual sanctions against 1,499 Russian officials and their supporters, which resulted in an asset freeze and a ban on their entry into the European Union.
Of course, we also tried to reach out to Svetlana herself. We sent her an email. We reached out to her on Instagram. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, Poppy and Kaitlan, we have yet to hear back.
COLLINS: Yes, remarkable to see they've severed ties on paper but clearly not when it comes to the assets so far.
WARD: Yes.
COLLINS: Clarissa Ward, a fascinating report. Thank you.
HARLOW: Aaron Rodgers, New York bound. Could he help the struggling Jets take off this season? National insider for the NFL Network, Ian Rapoport, is here to discuss.
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[06:55:58]
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
CROWDS: J-e-t-s, Jets, Jets, Jets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: From Packer land to the big apple, Aaron Rodgers, an all-time great and future Hall of Famer will soon be a New York Jet. After a six-week long stalemate, the Jets finally reached a deal with the Green Bay Packers to bring the four-time MVP to New York, but it will cost them an arm and a leg. Is it going to be worth it?
Joining us now, Ian Rapoport. He's the national insider for the NFL Network and nfl.com.
I was just saying in the break, wasn't he going to retire? There was - he would retire. And then there was the darkness retreat. And then he saw the light of New York City and now he's coming?
IAN RAPOPORT, NATIONAL INSIDER, NFL NETWORK AND NFL.COM: I mean, it has - it has all been amazing. It all been a journey. Not quite like the personal journey that Aaron Rodgers has been on the last six weeks or so, but a journey for all of us.
Yes, Aaron Rodgers did consider retirement. He said on "The Pat McAfee Show" he was 90 percent going to retire. Then he went to the darkness. Then comes out wanted to play for the Jets. And that really kickstarted this whole thing. When he said he intended to be a member of the Jets, I would say trade talks probably picked up from there. They were going along, kind of slow. Then there was about a two-week lull. And then my understanding is, right before the weekend, the Jets and Packers re-engaged. And a significant issue here, the one thing that - that kind of took this from dormant talks to talks that were really imminent was the Green Bay Packers wanted a hard (ph) first rounder with no conditions, wanted a first rounder next year no matter what. They finally gave in a little bit of that and ended up being a conditional one based on how Aaron Rodgers played. That basically allowed this deal to happen and end up in the block buster that we saw yesterday afternoon.
COLLINS: Yes, and it's that conditional second round, right? And so now, obviously, that this has happened, you know, he's finally got this team that is desperate for him. The big question, of course, is, is he going to be able to make them, you know, championship contenders and what that looks like. What do you predict for his tenure when he's in New York?
RAPOPORT: The Jets, as a roster, are good. It is a good team. They got talent. They got lots of young talent. They had really a - you know, I would say an all-time foundational draft from general manager Joe Douglas last year, including at least four starters, probably more. The offensive player of the year - the offensive rookie of the year, the defensive rookie of the year, Breece Hall, who probably would have been had he not gotten injured. They just needed one thing. They needed a quarterback. And that is why this Aaron Rodgers trade made so much sense and I would say it had to happen for Woody Johnson and the Jets because they have a team that is built to compete, built to go to the playoffs. They just needed someone who would probably becomes the best player ever to play for the Jets, even though he's never played a down for them. Aaron Rodgers turns the Jets into a playoff team and maybe more.
HARLOW: OK. We'll see. Will they be Super Bowl contenders? I don't know.
COLLINS: Got some hopeful Jets fans in the studio this morning. We'll see.
HARLOW: We hope. We have a lot of Jets fans behind the cameras. We hoped when Brett Favre came to the Vikings that it would have taken us to the Super Bowl.
COLLINS: Yes, can he do what Brett Favre did?
HARLOW: I don't know.
Thank you. Thanks, Ian.
COLLINS: Thanks, Ian.
HARLOW: CNN THIS MORNING continues now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: President Biden has made it official.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's why I'm running for re-election.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: There's new polling how Americans feel about a possible rematch between him and the former president.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: If I'm in the White House right now, I'm hoping and praying that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee because by far Joe Biden is strongest again him.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: New details coming in from the Georgia D.A. on when she'll announce possible criminal indictments against Trump and his allies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will happen between July 11th and September 1st, according to Fulton County DA Fani Willis' letter to local law enforcement.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These letters show she really does have the former president set in her sights.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A sheriff's office in Kentucky has hired the officer who fired the fatal bullet that killed Breonna Taylor.
SCOTT MILLER, LAWYER FOR EX-LOUISVILLE POLICE OFFICER MYLES COSGROVE: His entire life has been up ended as well. Not to take anything away from the tragedy that happened here.
[06:59:59]
TAMIKA PALMER, MOTHER OF BREONNA TAYLOR: To think that another department would even want this guy just angers me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A new three-day ceasefire between Sudan's war .
