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Roberts Worked for Business Clients as Litigator; Hurricane Emily Strikes Texas, Mexico; CIA Operative Talks About Life After Cover Blown

Aired July 20, 2005 - 15:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILIPS, HOST: "Now in the News:" Manning the battle stations. Abortion rights activists waste no time in taking it to the streets to protest Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts. Republican Arlen Specter, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee and who is an avowed supporter of abortion rights, promises full, fair and complete hearings.
Party politics in Baghdad. Several members of the tribunal that will hear war crimes proceedings against Saddam Hussein were dismissed today after an investigation turned up possible links to the former regime's Ba'ath Party. It's not clear what effect the dismissals will have on the pending war crimes trials in Iraq.

Cracking down in Pakistan. President Pervez Musharraf orders a nationwide sweep for members of banned jihadi and extremist groups. More than 200 arrests so far. One government official says that the move has nothing to do with the July 7 London attacks, but another says that British investigators have asked the government to pick up an undisclosed number of men for questioning in those bombings.

Indonesia's health minister confronting -- or confirming, rather, his country's first human death from bird flu. A man and his two daughters died from bird flu last week. And health officials were concerned that a new and more deadly strain of that virus had developed. But tests confirm the victims died of conventional bird flu virus.

Judge John Roberts has some big legal shoes to fill. And that's how one Democratic senator describes the test for President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge Roberts and top lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, held cordial talks on Capitol Hill today. Roberts is trying to secure enough support to assure an easy confirmation. Earlier, President Bush again urged senators to act quickly on his nomination.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He will strictly apply the Constitution and laws. He will not legislate from the bench. I urge the Senate to rise to the occasion to provide a fair and civil process and to have Judge Roberts in place before the next court session begins on October the 3rd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: As a private litigator, Judge Roberts argued some big business cases before the court. CNN senior correspondent Allan Chernoff joins me with a look from New York on his record there.

Hi, Allan.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

Well, the label pro-business is being slapped onto John Roberts across the Internet, but legal experts say that's actually very simplistic. The fact is, as an appellate court judge, Roberts has often ruled against business.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on which Roberts sits often hears regulatory disputes brought by corporation. Roberts has often ruled in favor of agencies like FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

In one case involving the Internet, he ruled that music companies do not have the right to immediately get names of people from Internet providers who are suspected of illegally downloading songs. In that case, he said, they simply have to get court approval.

Now, in private practice as a lawyer at the firm Hogan and Hartson, Roberts was part of the team that argued on behalf of the government for the break-up of Microsoft.

Most of the work -- most of his work, though, at the firm was on behalf of corporate clients. He represented Toyota in successfully arguing an assembly line worker with carpal tunnel syndrome should not be considered disabled and entitled to a desk job.

Legal experts point out, though, the cases that Roberts took on as an attorney do not necessarily reflect his personal opinion or opinions that he might issue from the bench. Like any good lawyer, he was simply trying to give his client's good representation, legal experts say.

Now every single lawyer that we did speak with says that Roberts is extremely sharp and definitely has the ability to fairly hear any business case -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You can't question the sharpness, that's for sure, or the background. Allan Chernoff, thank you.

Hurricane Emily still packs a punch and increases fears about floods in northeast Mexico hours after making landfall. Emily's outer bands of rain and wind also hit south Texas, knocking out power for more than 20,000 customers. Thousands of people spent the night in shelters.

CNN is your hurricane headquarters, of course, and we've got teams in place to bring you extensive coverage of Emily. Chris Lawrence is on South Padre Island in Texas. But we're going to begin with meteorologist Jacqui Jeras at the CNN Weather Center. What's the deal, Jacqui?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Kyra, it's weakening quite a bit. Still holding on to hurricane status. Category 1 hurricane with 80 mile per hour winds. The location about 105 miles away from Monterey, Mexico. Expecting it to weaken into a tropical storm, we think, by tonight and even a tropical depression by tomorrow. Within 36 hours it should be relatively gone altogether, outside of a little bit of moisture.

Still pumping out quite a bit of heavy rainfall, especially south of the border. You can see some of that rain that's been pumping into southern parts of Texas. You folks can expect to see maybe two to four inches here. But further south, we're looking at anywhere between five and 10 inches on average. But locally, heavier amounts are expected, and we're starting to see that now.

This is Doppler radar out of Brownsville, Texas. And these are the estimates of the rainfall totals from the storm. And take a look at this line right here with all those purples and those reds. And here's your scale on the top of the screen. That's anywhere on average between about 10 and 15 inches of rain. So you know that's causing quite a bit of flooding there.

The tornado threat also remains across much of southern Texas. There you can see the watch at this hour. This will continue throughout the rest of the day and lightly lingering into the evening hours. The red highlighted counties, these are all the warnings we have in effect right now. That includes you in Webb, Goliad, Live Oak, La Salle, Bee and Refugio counties.

And we have had at least 10 reports of tornadoes from the storm prediction center. So a lot of ground truth on these. A lot of times in tropical systems you get a lot of tornado warnings but nobody ever sees them. Well, this time around we've had at least 10 of those in southern part of Texas. And we'll continue to see that throughout tomorrow.

So here's your forecast track as it moves slowly inland. It's going to make its way into the mountains and it's just going to be falling apart. But still that risk of mud slide. And that moisture, believe it or not, is eventually going to be making its way into parts of the southwest. It's getting to be that monsoon type season into parts of Arizona, and a little bit of this moisture will be hitting you by the end of the week -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Jacqui Jeras, thank you.

In south Texas crews are working to restore power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Hardest hit was South Padre Island where the ocean had covered the beach by midmorning.

CNN's Chris Lawrence is there with the latest.

Chris, what are the conditions like? CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, right now the wind still a little bit gusty but the rain has stopped. And we're actually starting to see the first breaks in the clouds that we've seen all day today.

Now, there has been some damage done, although it has been minimal here on South Padre Island. Some of the traffic lights are still out. And that wind, some of those really extensive wind gusts that we saw earlier this morning, busted windows at some of the businesses there on the main strip.

Also, there were a few signs that were torn down. Power lines that went down, as well. The crews have been out there trying to restore power. Still about anywhere between 20,000 and 24,000 people without power, but the crews say they don't expect them to be without power for very long.

Back here on the beach, it's an entirely different scene than we saw just a couple of hours ago. You can see the families are already starting to come back out here. We've seen kids with their boogie boards, back out in the water already. Even very small children just walking up and down the beach, getting into the surf a little bit.

This is what it was like just a couple days ago. Cleared out like that when the storm started to move in yesterday. But, again, a lot of these folks stayed here on vacation, because they thought, "We're not going to catch the eye of the storm. They think it's going to blow through." And they expected to be back on the beach by Thursday. And you can see they already are.

So Kyra, it's nice to report some good news when we cover so many of these hurricanes. This one, it looks like, as long as this weather holds up the way it is right now, looks like the worst of it missed us.

PHILLIPS: That's good news. Chris Lawrence, come home soon. Thank you.

Monterey, Mexico, is also bracing for floods and mud slides. Blame Emily's rains and the fact that Monterey is in a valley surrounded by mountains. CNN's Randi Kaye brings us the report now from Monterey, Mexico.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The situation here in Monterey, Mexico, has been deteriorating rapidly. We've seen heavy, heavy rains here, steady rains, throughout the day.

Also the streets in the downtown Monterey area are flooded. And this river here, this is the Rio Santa Catarina. That is the main river that runs through the heart of Monterey, Mexico. We've been out here all day, and we've seen the river rise by many feet already. So the main concern here is flooding and flooding from this river.

Yesterday afternoon some of the emergency workers went around to some of the low lying areas along the river and tried to get the folks to evacuate their homes. There are folks who were affected by Hurricane Gilbert when that came through here back in 1988.

Those folks were told to go to some shelters. There's 155 shelters open here in the Monterey area. And we are told that a few hundred people are in those shelters.

Now when Hurricane Gilbert did come through here in '88, this river rose to 10 feet. The water was 10 feet high, and it was 150 yards wide. That is one thing that they are trying to avoid this time around.

We also know that Hurricane Emily made landfall in Mexico in northeastern Mexico in the city called Metamoris that is just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. We know there were some -- not anything major that has been reported so far. But that's in the area of Metamoris, Mexico.

The main thing that happens here is flooding. They're not real concerned about high winds. They're not real concerned about storm surge, since we are inland. Here in Monterey, we are surrounded by the Sierra Madre mountain range. Those mountains are about 14,000 feet high. And when a hurricane rolls through, it comes up and over the mountains and basically drops all of its moisture that has been packed into that storm, drops it on the low lying areas.

So that, again, is the concern. Certainly good news and many folks here did the right thing and chose to evacuate when they were warned about Hurricane Emily heading this way.

I'm Randi Kaye, CNN, reporting from Monterey, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And stay with CNN as we track Emily throughout the day. We are your hurricane headquarters, right here, CNN.

What does a spy do when her cover is blown? A "TIME" magazine reporter goes to the home of CIA employee Valerie Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, to find out. We'll talk to that reporter, just ahead.

And if you're fed up with cell phone interruptions, we've got about a billion reasons for you to get even more irked. We're dialing that one right up straight ahead.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Washington has been consumed by the question, who told what to whom? We're talking about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, of course, and the fate of Karl Rove, one of the president's closest advisors and the alleged controversial leak in this case.

"TIME" magazine reporter Massimo Calabresi talked at length with Plame and her husband Joe Wilson. Massimo joins me live from Washington to talk about that article.

Good to see you, Massimo.

MASSIMO CALABRESI, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Good to be here.

PHILLIPS: "Life After the Leak" is the title of your article. You are one of the few that has had a chance to sit down with these two since this has all come out. You came to the door. You rang the doorbell. Valerie Plame wasn't really thrilled to see a reporter, was she?

CALABRESI: She wasn't. She had a real scowl on her face, I have to say. She apologized when we got inside and said that some other reporters had showed up at her door unannounced. So the first thing out of her mouth was, you know, "Is my husband expecting you?" But once we got past the introductions, things were a little smoother.

PHILLIPS: Well, it goes to show what a toll this has taken on her life, no doubt. And she didn't want her picture taken either, right?

CALABRESI: Yes. We went out to take some photos of her husband and asked if we could take a few of her. And she politely but firmly declined.

PHILLIPS: Well, as the conversation continued and you started asking questions, did she talk more? Did former Ambassador Joe Wilson talk more? Was it pretty even? Did she just sort of want to listen and sit back as he remained, I guess, the main point of the conversation?

CALABRESI: She was affable and perfectly willing to talk, just not about anything to do with her work at the CIA or anything to do with the case involving Rove and the leaking of her name.

She was very pleasant. Talked about family life. They chatted about errands they need to run and things like that.

He was a little more forthcoming about what her experiences have been like, both personally and at work, since her cover was blown two years ago. It's obviously been strained out at the CIA. And personally, it's been an adjustment, they said, for her to inform friends who had known her for a long time that, in fact, she wasn't sort of a mild mannered business consultant but in fact an officer at the Central Intelligence Agency.

PHILLIPS: Well, she talked a lot about her family and her kids. And you get a personal sense for how they're living day by day. But did you get the impression that maybe she doesn't want to go back to work? Or do you think she does want to stay part time at the CIA, taking on a different role, because she can't -- she can't operate as a covert agent anymore, right?

CALABRESI: Right. It would be impossible for her to be a covert officer for the agency at this point. She took a leave of absence for eight months back in -- well, she just got back to the agency in early June.

And her husband made a point of saying that she vests into her pension at the end of this year, and he made it clear that she was considering leaving at that point, although obviously retaining her option to stay, depending on what, you know, her work situation turns out to be there.

PHILLIPS: And critics have come forward saying that both of them are exaggerating what type of toll this has taken on her. What kind of sense did you get for how it has really affected the family, the marriage, the kids, her career, her future?

CALABRESI: Well, family life seemed fine. It was a very cheerful household with the kids running around and so on. Professionally, like I said, it seemed as if there had been a degree of strain.

She had asked to send a letter to an editor of one of the major papers backing up her husband and been -- had been denied. Obviously, her career is, you know, off track as a -- as a covert operative.

In terms of broader effect it's a little harder to say. For Wilson, Ambassador Wilson, her husband, obviously, there's been some benefits to all of this. He's written a best selling book. He's significantly improved his public profile in Washington from where it was before.

There is a broader issue of just how big a deal cover is under some circumstances. People, I think, rightly have said that, while she was undercover, it wasn't -- it's not the same being under deep cover overseas when you're driving to work every day at the CIA headquarters.

PHILLIPS: Massimo, what about her dealings with people that she's known as an undercover agent? Has that been difficult? Because, obviously, people are now finding out that the person they have known for so many years is not really the person that they were dealing with.

CALABRESI: Yes, I could see that being slightly uncomfortable. I mean, someone else might argue that it adds a sheen of mystery to your life with people you know around the neighborhood once they discover you're a covert operative of the CIA. Perhaps more so, even, than is justified in some circumstances. But there's no question it's been an adjustment for her.

The larger issue of how much it's actually cost the country or the CIA or the directorate of operations, where she worked, is something that still has to be fully looked at. The Senate Intelligence Committee is planning on having a look at that in the fall and, of course, there's ongoing investigations at the Justice Department by the special counsel into the whole issue of how her name was leaked.

PHILLIPS: "TIME" reporter Massimo Calabresi, and I know you, you'll be on the story. We'll be reading your stuff in "TIME" magazine. Thank you.

CALABRESI: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: He's made the careers of some of the NFL's hottest players. And now a sports super agent is credited with saving a life. Details on his heroics, straight ahead.

Also should the government pay for your toupee? Some people are wigging out over the ruling.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Bald men better hang onto their hats in Germany. A court in Dresden ruled today the government is not required to pay for toupees. Threw out a legal challenge by a bald 46-year-old man who claimed discrimination. The state health insurance does cover the cost of wigs for women but rejected the plaintiff's claim for a rug that ran more than 500 bucks. The court refused to split hairs on this case and sided with the state.

Drew Rosenhaus is known as one of the toughest player agents in the NFL. I don't think he wears a toupee, does he, Rocky?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

PHILLIPS: Today he's being called a hero. Rosenhaus pulled an unconscious boy from a swimming pool at a Disneyworld resort on Tuesday and then he performed CPR. He was at the hotel visiting clients when he heard the screams.

Rosenhaus, a former lifeguard, was at the hotel, visiting clients, when he heard the boy scream. The 12-year-old was visiting Florida with his family from Chicago. The Orange County sheriff's office says that he's expected to be just fine.

Well, if you're sick of hearing cell phones ringing in restaurants, on buses and movie theaters, we've got some bad news for you. It's only going to get worse. Susan Lisovicz live at the New York Stock Exchange with the details -- Susan.

(STOCK REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, that wraps up this Wednesday edition of LIVE FROM. We will be back here tomorrow. Now Suzanne Malveaux with a preview of what's ahead on "INSIDE POLITICS."

Hi, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Thanks, Kyra.

Judge Roberts hits the Hill today. The president's high court nominee is meeting with influential members of Congress right now. I'll talk with two key senators on the judiciary committee.

Plus we'll look at the Supreme Court battle outside the Senate. I'll talk with the heads of two advocacy groups that are firing away over the president's pick.

All this and much, much more when I go "INSIDE POLITICS" in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Nasty weather along the Rio Grande. The aftermath of Hurricane Emily drenching south Texas and northeastern Mexico today. Some areas could see as much as 15 inches of rain. Add to the misery: worries about flash flooding and landslides. That storm has almost spun off -- has also spun off of a few twisters, we're told. But so far no reports of deaths or major injuries.

More allegations against John Couey, that man accused of kidnapping, raping and killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. Recently released court documents show his own family members had leveled a string of sexual abuse allegations against him, some made by his half sister. But she says when Lunsford disappeared, she didn't think to report him.

To generations of "Star Trek" fans, well, he was the engineer who could fix anything. Actor James Doohan, best known as Scotty on the Starship Enterprise, died today at his home in Washington state. He was 85 years old.

Stay tuned for "INSIDE POLITICS," up next.

END

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