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American Morning

Alleged Assassination Plot Against Florida Governor Jeb Bush

Aired January 11, 2002 - 09:05   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More now on the alleged assassination plot against Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Supposedly it was set to take place today.

CNN's Mark Potter is standing by in Miami with an investigation of his own.

Good morning again, Mark. What have you learned?

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Paula.

We know that the big question here involves the credibility of the informant in this case. It's being looked into by the FBI and the FDLE. And this morning, a law enforcement told me on scale of 1-10, in terms of credibility, this informant gets about a three, in the words of the source, and that's being generous.

This all began in December when the governor's office in Tallahassee received a letter from an inmate claiming that there was this threat being made. Investigators began looking into it. And what the allegation is that from this inmate, that four Middle Eastern men in the South Florida area were trying to contract someone to drive a van loaded with explosives to Tallahassee to blow up the governor.

Now it was to happen actually from the beginning of January to today, about a two-week period. This was to have been the end of it, according to this information from the informant. The investigators say a lot of what he has said has been vague, difficult to deal with. He has failed a number of lie detector tests, but he did alert them to a particular van which they found, they searched, they found no bomb- making materials, no bombs, but a couple of bomb-sniffing dogs alerted to something in the van. What that is, according to sources, they don't know. It could be a firecracker, a bullet. Who knows what. They don't know, but it certainly caught their attention, and they are still taking it seriously -- Paula.

ZAHN: What do we know about the suspects, at least the suspects as according to this jail informant?

POTTER: Well, we know that there are four people. One was arrested on INS charges, immigration charged, unrelated to this. So he is currently in custody. One was stopped last night in a traffic stop. He was questioned by the authorities and released. The investigation itself, now that this has gone public, has to be ratcheted up very quickly. No arrest have been made and may never be made, either because this is not true or the investigation has been blown by early publicity.

ZAHN: Thanks so much for that update, Mark. We appreciate it.

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