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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Trump University Documents; EgyptAir Crash Black Boxes; Zoo Gorilla Incident. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 01, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

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[12:00:16] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We're going to begin this hour in a corner of the Trump empire that no longer exists, except in lawsuits. Trump University, which never was a university at all but was a program that claimed to share Donald Trump's real estate secrets in exchange for fees that ranged from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. Over the strong objections of the lawyers representing the now presumptive GOP presidential nominee, a federal judge in California has made public reams upon reams of documents that show how the university was managed and sold and to whom it was sold to.

And CNN senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin has been looking through those pages and he joins me now with some eye-opening claims. And with us also, CNN legal analyst and former New York prosecutor Paul Callan.

Drew, if I can begin with you. Lay out what we're finding out in these, you know, previously sealed documents now being made public.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: They're declarations are they're declarations of people who worked at Trump University, were hired by Trump University, and were involved in selling what these attorneys that are suing alleged is a scheme. And I think that's why they are most damning. And I'm going to give you a declaration from Ronald Schnackenberg, who was a sales manager with Trump University from October 2006 to May of 2007. Very bluntly he says, "I resigned from my position in May of 2007 because I believed that Trump University was engaging in misleading, fraudulent, and dishonest conduct. In my experience," he writes, "virtually all students who purchased a Trump University seminar were dissatisfied with the program they purchased. It preyed," he says, "on the elderly and uneducated, to separate them from their money."

And later on he explains, Ashleigh, about a couple that he was told to sell a $35,000 elite program to. He didn't think that they could afford it. He writes this. "They had no money to pay for the program, but would have had to pay for the program using his disability income and taking out a loan based on equity in his apartment." He says he refused to talk them into buying the seminar but they actually were buying the seminar from somebody else. He was just disgusted.

BANFIELD: From another salesperson here in this other quote from (INAUDIBLE). What were the - what did the other salesperson do?

GRIFFIN: The other salesperson, they stepped in, sold this couple the $35,000 program and that's when this Schnackenberg said he was so disgusted that he quit.

Let me give you a little example of how this was done from a perspective of one of the Trump University students, Bob Guillo. He said he would go into these seminars and motivational speakers would take over, get you very excited about buying properties, and he explained how he was set up to buy a $35,000 elite program by what he now says is, you know, deceiving means. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB GUILLO, TRUMP UNIVERSITY STUDENT: And one of the things that James Harris told us to do was to use our cell phones if we had them, or go down to the lobby in the hotel and call up our credit card companies to increase our credit limits because we might be able to buy some property that might be available during this three-day workshop. What that was for was so that we could increase our credit limits to pay $34,995 for the Trump Gold Elite Membership that was a 12 month membership program with retreats in various hotels throughout Manhattan. And at every one of these retreats, they tried to up sell us for more a more money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: It's all part of our continuing look into Trump University, which the allegations are was just nothing but upsell. There were no really real estate experts teaching this. They were motivational speakers. In one case, a jewelry sales personas was teaching real estate courses. And all part of these three lawsuits that are ongoing and marching on towards trial.

BANFIELD: OK. So, Paul Callan, from a legal perspective, there are always two sides in a case. We are hearing a lot from these depositions, from these former students and employees. But Trump's lawyers, who are working on this California case, have said that - that they've got depositions that - that show the testimony was, quote, "completely discredited." They were pushed by reporters to release those depositions, but they're not doing that. Is there a good reason why you wouldn't release those depositions?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, yes. In litigation like this - and I've been involved in many class action cases - you don't release depositions because while a witness might be discredited, there might be some negative things about your own client in the deposition. You know, depositions are sort of a general fishing expedition for evidence - limited evidence that actually gets presented to a jury at trial. So it's very rare prior to trial that depositions are released. It's why, probably, a lot of business people don't go into politics because their lawsuits, most of which are quietly settled out of court and records are sealed, are never brought to the public eye. In Donald Trump's case, of course, all of this is going to be looked at.

[12:05:28] BANFIELD: All right, Paul Callan, thank you for that. Drew Griffin, I know you're still working your way through the documents so we'll continue to get your reporting as we look through this issue as well. Thank you to both of you.

I'm now joined live in Dallas by Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson.

Katrina, thanks so much for being with us.

I know this is a busy day for you -

KATRINA PIERSON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SPOKESWOMAN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Because you're having to sort of, you know, fend off a lot of these criticisms that are all over the press. This is really tricky stuff. These are depositions and students and teachers who have said under oath things like, you know, this was a facade and a total lie. That's reported in "The New York Times." Someone else who said these things were just things people could not afford. How do you respond to this?

PIERSON: Well, first of all, I'd like to say, I appreciate you mentioning earlier that there are two sides to this story. And because the way I've been hearing this mostly is that there wasn't a single person successful after going to any of these seminars. And in fact, that there were people that were successful afterwards.

And, look, this is about equal outcomes. This was a seminar. This was a way for people to buy and sell. And these were marketing practices. This is standard operating procedure when you're looking for your market and you do your research on that market.

But, at the same time, these depositions also show that some of the people that are now complaining were also saying great things about their experience with the classes that they were in. So there are two sides of this story.

BANFIELD: OK. I want to move on to the - to the story that's also been big in the headlines, that is the - the press conference about the veterans money from yesterday. One of the things that Donald Trump said at the - really at the outset of the press conference was, ask how much the Clintons have given to veterans. They've given them none. Nothing. And as it turns out, there's quite a robust list of veterans causes that Mr. and Mrs. Clintons themselves, to the tune of $108,000 have donated to and then actual legislation and actions that Senator Clinton did with various other senators, John McCain being one of them. So the work for the vets is pretty clear and the money that she's given to vets is pretty clear. So how do you defend Donald Trump by saying those words, "ask how much the Clintons have given to veterans. They've given them none."

PIERSON: It's all relative. If you're talking about 100 and some odd thousand dollars over a period of time where Bill Clinton was president, twice, Hillary Clinton was a senator in the state of New York and secretary of state and that's it, that is all the Clintons have to show for the work that they've done for the veterans? Are you kidding me? And she was just talking about how the VA is OK, when we have veterans dying waiting in lines for health care, that she supports free health care for illegal aliens.

BANFIELD: But it - you - you - you do agree it's not nothing. First of all, I - I - I personally couldn't afford to give the veterans causes $108,000 and other causes, you know, charity causes, but - but nothing, that's what he said, they've given them nothing. That's not nothing. And all of those actions resulted in -

PIERSON: In the - in the relative position -

BANFIELD: Hold on a second. All of those actions, Secretary Clinton tweeted out, they resulted in millions upon millions of dollars in benefits for veterans. So her personal donations plus her legislative actions actually was worth a lot of money.

PIERSON: The relative positions that both of the Clintons have held, that veterans should not be in the position that they are in today, not to mention the number of people that have now gone to war in the last 15 years, even under Hillary Clinton's lack of leadership, have been detrimental to veterans in this country. And to say that the VA is doing OK is completely absurd. So when things are relative, it is nothing.

BANFIELD: So let me ask you this. I know that Donald Trump is very frustrated with the media. And he's not the first politician who has been frustrated with the media, angry with the media. He's certainly not the first person to use invectives against the media. He might be the first to use them as publicly as he is. But I do have to take issue with why the media has been dogged in this particular story. It seems that May 24th has become a very critical date in this story. It is the date that Donald Trump held up yesterday of his check for a million dollars. That's last week, May 24th, his check for a million dollars, which, by the way, is very benevolent, was dated last week. But it's the same date that "The Washington Post" sort of had that big story saying Donald Trump's million dollars hasn't come in yet, nor has, according to the Associated Press, $1.8 million in donor's fees. And that all happened on the same date, $1.8 million in checks went out in the mail in overnight mail on the same day that "The Washington Post" story broke. So you can understand why the press would be dogged saying it took - it took the press to push you to release that money after four months after saying you'd already done it.

[12:10:29] PIERSON: No, not at all, because it wasn't that he had already done that in four months and it wasn't because of the press. Again, this was an event that was scheduled within 24 hours. Mr. Trump was just going to hold an event and he said, let's now raise some money for veterans. And he had pledged donations. It takes time to get that money in, time to get those organizations vetted, and Mr. Trump had already said he was going to write a million dollar check. Just because he didn't do it that night doesn't mean he didn't have the intention, which the media is trying to insinuate. And -

BANFIELD: I understand you 100 percent. And I - I can't repeat enough how nice it is to give that money -

PIERSON: and one more thing, Ashleigh. One more thing.

BANFIELD: Go ahead.

PIERSON: Not only that, but the organization that he donated to, that somehow is this just happened because of "The Washington Post," had been an organization that he had been contributing funds to over the last few years. This was not (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: Yes, I know, I'm aware of that. And I think that's great as well. He has done things in the past as well for vets. But he was asked repeatedly and he had said on the campaign trail repeatedly, I have done it. And Corey Lewandowski, one week - or I think two weeks actually before the check was actually dated, said it was done. He had given the million dollars. So I think the bigger question here is, to attack the press for asking the question, you understand more than anybody being in the business you're in that when you're, you know, running for public office, you're going to be under the microscope. When you are in public office, that microscope is infinitely more acute. So why is he so angry about that?

PIERSON: Because when you're a Republican running for office, the microscope is drastically more different than it is when you are a Democrat running for office. We didn't see this microscope on Barack Obama for that matter twice. It was infinitely different. But -

BANFIELD: Well, you know what, I've got to say, a Democrat I know, two of them, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Whitewater, Trooper-gate, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Travel-gate, Vince Foster's suicide, Juanita Broderick, Benghazi, e-mail server, the e-mail update from the State Department, that is a pretty acute microscope. So I don't think it's fair to say that it has been not commensurate with the kind of microscope that Donald Trump's been under.

PIERSON: Well - well, it's definitely not because it's not 24 hours, seven days a week with the same thing all day every day. I mean everything you've just mentioned are things that are completely relevant today, but you don't see that in the 24 hour loop like you've seen things having to do with Mr. Trump. And that is the difference.

And maybe you have talked about some of these things, but in the grand scheme of things when Mr. Trump talked about the majority of the media, that is not occurring and it is different for Mr. Trump. And so he will absolutely defend himself. He does feel like that this type of skepticism wasn't warranted because, yes, I understand politicians are corrupt. They pocket money. They steal. They do all kinds of terrible things. But Mr. Trump simply isn't like that. He and his family have been donating money for a very long time and for very worthy causes. So this idea that somehow - and there was a headline that said that the organization was just going to keep the money. Of course Mr. Trump was offended by that.

BANFIELD: And I am not going to report that. I don't think that's fair reporting at all and I certainly wouldn't put that to you. But you - he's very lucky to have you. You do yeoman's service in working for him and doing what you do with us every day.

PIERSON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Thank you, Katrina. Appreciate it. Nice to have you on.

PIERSON: Great to be here. Thank you.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, we've got some breaking news, confirmation that the French navy has detected signals from at least one of those black boxes of the missing Egyptian airliner that went down in the Mediterranean.

And a reminder to you, you can watch LEGAL VIEW anytime at cnn.com/go and you can find me on Twitter @cnnashleigh. Or check us out on FaceBook as well.

Back in a moment.

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[12:17:55] BANFIELD: A military thumbs up officially from the cockpit of those search crews who were looking for the plane that crashed nearly two weeks ago carrying 66 men, women, and children. It is over the Mediterranean and a French search team says that they're zeroing in on at least one of that plane's black boxes. The flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder, whichever one it is, hopefully it will tell investigators what brought that plane down.

We're talking about just the data recorders at this point, though. We are not talking about the greater signs of the wreckage itself. Sixty- six people were onboard that EgyptAir flight when it crashed May 19th. And Mary Schiavo is who we turn to after all of these tragedies in the air. She's our aviation analyst and used to be the inspector general at the Transportation Department.

Mary, thank you so much for joining us. I always come back to the issue of once you find the black box, you may be able to find the rest of the wreckage, but will you find the answer to the mystery. What happened?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think you will on the black boxes. And this is indeed good news because the - the navy ship will be able to determine and have already determined that it's the right kilohertz. So, you know, so many times they get different frequencies from the ocean. It should be, depending on the black box, about 37.5 kilohertz and they confirm it is the underwater locator beacon from a black box, not the emergency - not the ELTs that they were talking about before. And that means they're probably within one to three miles. That is the distance that these beacons can broadcast. So they are literally almost on top of them and they should be together. So I think that they certainly will have them very soon.

Then the real work starts because while you can download them very quickly, once you download the flight data recorder, it kind of looks like an EKG. There are lines of data across a graph and it takes experts to decipher what all that means. The cockpit voice recorder is just that, it will have every sounds in the cockpit and everything the captain said. So you might have your answer right there.

But as for the wreckage, they're in the tail. It should be with the bulk of the wreckage. So, hopefully, they have finally got the right beacon, the right location and soon we'll have answers.

[12:20:10] BANFIELD: OK. So if and when they can bring up more pieces to the wreckage and those critical boxes, they are destined for Egypt. So I'm going to give you a multi-part question. How equipped is Egypt to be able to do all those things that you said are necessary, all the analysis on the parts, pieces, and the data and how transparent might they be if and when they get those answers?

SCHIAVO: Well, I - I worked on EgyptAir 990 many years ago. It was the Egyptian pilot's suicide case. Egypt never did agree with that. There's a problem with transparency and there's also a problem with experience.

However, here we have a lucky, not a break, but a lucky assistance, and that is with the French investigators. The VEA. They, obviously, were the lead on Air France 447, which was pulled up from the Atlantic. And because - they will be there because it's an Airbus. And the international treaty's in play to investigate air crash accidents say that Airbus has a right to be there in the investigation and France will be in the mix of it. They're very experienced. And they do know how to download and read those black boxes. And if anybody has any trouble, Australia's very experienced, the United States is very experienced. So many people can do it. And the important thing I think is more than one nation will be there. France will be -

BANFIELD: And that they work cooperatively - yes -

SCHIAVO: Right.

BANFIELD: Without question.

Mary, thank you, as always. Appreciate it.

SCHIAVO: Thanks.

BANFIELD: We're going to touch base with you when we know more about what exactly is making those pings, which one it might be and whether they get it. Thanks so much.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, how is that little boy who fell into the gorilla enclosure? How is his health at this point? And while we're at it, the question keeps dogging so many of us, how on earth did he get there in the first place? There are now three different investigations going on. The zoo and the people behind the family as well. You're going to find out where they are, next.

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[12:26:29] BANFIELD: The little boy who was face to face with a massive gorilla over the weekend is happy to say doing well and not seriously physically injured. That's according to the boy's family who says that people are offering them money, but they do not want it and that they will not take it. Officials are now investigating the boy's parents, as well as the Cincinnati Zoo, trying to work out how that boy got into the gorilla habitat prompting the zoo officials to take the extraordinary step of shooting and killing that gorilla.

Also involved in the investigation, the non-profit group that gives American zoos their accreditation. But also the federal government too, since the Agricultural Department inspects all zoos and aquariums. The goal here is to prevent this tragedy, obviously, from ever happening again.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is at the zoo in Cincinnati. And also with me, live from the U.K., is Ian Redmond, a researcher who has spent his lifetime with gorillas. He chairs The Gorilla Organization and his mentor was the legendary Dian Fossey. I want to hear you thoughts just - in just a moment, if I can, about what happened over the weekend, but first to the facts and the latest in the actual case.

So, Jessica, walk me through where everything stands today and what the latest developments are.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, for right now, the family is keeping quiet about the fact that they are the target of this Cincinnati Police investigation. Police are honing in into what happened in those minutes before that three-year-old got past the barriers and got into the gorilla enclosure where he was essentially held captive by that gorilla, Harambe.

As we've seen online, the mother in this case has come under intense scrutiny. People wondering how her little boy got away. Well, while the family isn't commenting directly on the fact that they are the target of this investigation, they have released a statement though and they say in part, "we are also very appreciative for the expressions of concern and support that have been sent to us. Some have offered money to the family, which we do not want and will not accept. If anyone wishes to make a gift, we recommend a donation to the Cincinnati Zoo in Harambe's name." The family also saying in part that they're grateful for the zoo and the fact that the zoo came to this quick rescue.

Now, many people are wondering how, in fact, this three-year-old got past this barrier that the zoo says is very secure. Take a look at some of this video. It was actually shot one day before this incident. You can see, as you walk up to this barrier, the zoo says it's about a three foot high railing. Behind that is a - are some bushes and also protective wiring. That three-year-old got through that and then climbed on to a small wall where he was able to plunge then 10 feet below or so into the moat. And the woman who actually caught - captured this all on video, she essentially said, well, where there's a will, there's a way.

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KIMBERLEY O'CONNOR, WITNESS: The little boy was a typical little boy like at a candy store. Can I get this? Can I get that? And he wanted - jokingly and bantering - to go in and see the monkeys. And the mother was, you know, no, you're not. No, you're not. And I think as they got ready to leave, that to tend to the other children, gather them up, get them in the stroller and move everyone along, I think in the 60 seconds he got away. (END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:29:58] SCHNEIDER: So, the Cincinnati Zoo has stressed that the parents are the only part of this investigation. The zoo is actually under the purview of the USDA and the federal government and the USDA did have an inspection here at the zoo back in April, which the zoo did pass.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Jessica, thank you.