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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Resign; Officer Could Have Shot Gunman Before He Entered School; New York Times Reports, Comey, McCabe Faced Invasive Audits in 2017 and 2019. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 07, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:03]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR Is that tenable with so many officials calling for him to go now?

Joining us, CNN's Nic Robertson and Bianca Nobilo in London.

Nic, first to you, at 10 Downing Street, set the scene for us, where are we at this moment?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, we're beginning to hear that Downing Street will go into lockdown shortly, which is what the police and security do here ahead of the prime minister or another senior official coming out of the building. It is expected that the podium that hasn't been put out yet will be wheeled out into the street.

Typically, that takes perhaps half an hour to get the podium in place, the microphone set, the speakers set, and that would set the stage for the prime minister to be able to speak to the nation, which is what he said he will do. So, it does seem within this coming hour, we will get that precise or more precise understanding about precisely the handover and changeover that is going to take place at Number 10.

Will the prime minister have his wish and be able to hang on until the fall? That's not clear. There is certainly a huge amount of pressure for him to leave, but in the interim period, we know the prime minister has been replacing those members of his cabinet, who have either resigned or have been fired or shifted into other positions. That is a work in progress. A big work in progress for the prime minister, because so many of his senior officials have stepped down in the past 24, 36 hours, but that precise understanding of how the party will handle this moment is yet to be made clear.

And if the prime minister, again, as he did yesterday, appears to want to dig in and refuse to go and wants to hold on, on his terms, until the fall, that could bring an addition to this already historic level of chaos that is surrounding this transition, absolutely huge.

Historic, without precedent, Boris Johnson had more people resign from his cabinet and senior positions in 24 hours than any other prime minister has had during history. These are monumental moments and monumental hours and minutes we're waiting for right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Bianca, what is the argument for Boris Johnson to stick around? Is that in the interest of Britain or is that just in the interest of Boris Johnson?

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's certainly in the interest of Boris Johnson. And whoever you speak to in the party, Brianna, whether it is his fiercest critic who will say that Boris Johnson has a self- interest which borders on sociopathy or those who are loyal to him who will acknowledge that his entire political career has been about his personality, he loves to be the center of attention and he's always coveted the role of prime minister. So, he will not want to vacate that role any earlier than he absolutely has to.

But as Nic was saying, and I would corroborate what Nic is physically seeing there at Downing Street, I've heard that that statement will be coming in the next half hour. And it is stunningly brazen to see the prime minister making appointments like his new education secretary, within the hour that he's going to make a resignation statement. It does add fuel to the concerns that many members of parliament have that he will continue with an agenda, wanting to consolidate whatever legacy he desires to have.

And I'm sure that the prime minister in a speech that we're about to hear will also be leaning in to the war in Ukraine, because what we have witnessed over the last few weeks when he's come under greater and greater pressure at home and been under more scrutiny is that he's more comfortable on the world stage and enjoys being a statesman and presenting himself in that way, and while he shamelessly at times has lent into the war in Ukraine, conversations with Zelenskyy and so on, when things have gotten fractious and difficult for him in the building behind me, in parliament here. So, I'd expect to hear something about that in the speech too.

But the concern here today is what happens over the next few months. Because in any ordinary circumstance, it would be normal for the prime minister to continue as a de facto caretaker throughout the summer until a new leader is found, because that would offer a measure of stability. But if there is one thing that Boris Johnson doesn't bring to government, certainly over the last few months, it is stability.

And with over 50 members of his government resigning, this is not a prime minister who can command confidence and support. If he wants to stay on for those few months, can he even fill those roles? Would those ministers be willing to go back, in which case government may cease to function?

So, this is a very unusual set of circumstances and one where process is really up in the air like never before.

BERMAN: Look, it is a country with a long history and this is unprecedented. This country has never seen anything like this before.

Nic Robertson, the government, these officials have resigned, largely because they say they don't trust Boris Johnson anymore, this cloud of scandal. What is the most recent scandal, because there have been a lot, that precipitated this mass exodus?

[07:05:05]

ROBERTSON: The most recent scandal is an appointment that Boris Johnson made, to a deputy chief whip, a senior in responsible position, within the party, of an M.P. called Chris Pincher. Now, Pincher was alleged earlier this week and found to have been -- found to have sexually assaulted two people at a private club in London.

Boris Johnson then fell under scrutiny because he'd appointed Pincher, Pincher had a previous track record of sexual assault. The prime minister denied initially knowledge of those -- that sexual assault. It then emerged by a former government official who wrote a very public letter saying that he knew for a fact that the prime minister had been informed of Chris Pincher's past misconduct.

The prime minister then had to backtrack by then, but by then a senior cabinet member -- a senior cabinet member had already been out speaking on the prime minister's behalf, defending the prime minister, not knowing the extent of deception that was going on behind the scenes.

So, the prime minister eventually admitting that he did know about this past misbehavior, that he did make the appointment in that knowledge, and that it perhaps wasn't the smartest thing to do, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. That's what signaled to members of his cabinet and senior government officials that he was no longer trustworthy, he had just lost two bi-elections. One of those bi-elections, local elections in the U.K. had been a massive, monumental, historic swing from a conservative member of parliament to another, from the Liberal Democrat Party, away from the conservatives. So, all of this mounting up against the prime minister.

And it is his credibility, it is his ability to lead the party and his credibility within his own party where he was once sort of perceived as a magician who could conjure a huge electoral majority, as he did in the elections back in 2019, an 80-seat majority. It was huge at the time. That was Boris Johnson's star power that did that. The whole party was behind him. And that's gone right now. That's entirely gone.

BERMAN: All right. Nic Robertson, Bianca Nobilo, stand by, please, both of you, because it does appear imminent at this point, the countdown is on for Boris Johnson to make this public statement. We will bring it to you live the second it happens.

KEILAR: And joining us now is Ambassador Peter Westmacott. He was the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. ender Prime Minister David Cameron. He is the author of the Call It Diplomacy, 40 Years of Representing Britain Abroad.

So, Ambassador, we know that Boris Johnson is resigning. The question is, is he going to give three months' notice. I mean, in your opinion, can he stick around that long?

PETER WESTMACOTT, FORMER U.K. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Well, this the debate that everybody is having here in London at the moment. Most of the people who think it was time for him to go wanted him to go and hand over the reins of government to a caretaker, probably his deputy, Dominic Raab, which is the least controversial.

But everyone is puzzled by the fact that Boris made these ministerial appointments to fill some of the vacancies left by 55 or so who resigned from his government and so they wonder what he's playing at. Is it possible that he's going to stay in charge for the next three months or so while the succession is sorted out by his own party or will he go quickly, having made some appointments with some of his friends and allies, if you like, in the government, to ensure that it remains broadly favorable to him and perhaps pursuing some of his policies? We do not know. It is a muddle and people are a bit bothered that he might be announcing he's going but not going at all.

BERMAN: Yes. And, again, we're waiting to hear. We just don't know at this time how this is going to play out. So, you may end up with controversy on top of controversy and scandal, just in the next few minutes.

Ambassador, he's leaving one way or the other, whether today or three months from now. What is he leaving behind in terms of how the world now sees the United Kingdom?

WESTMACOTT: His legacy really is that he got a Brexit bill through the British Parliament, which his predecessor failed to do, Theresa May. Not a very good package but he did it. And then he won a big election, majority with 80 people in the House of Commons, absolute majority, so his party was thrilled. They thought he was a winner. But that was at the end of 2019.

He's made achievements therefore, finalizing sort of the Brexit deal, although there're a lot of loose ends still there and winning the election. Beyond that I'm afraid, it is not a lot. Although, I suppose you would probably add that the degree of leadership and commitment he showed to the cause of Ukraine against Vladimir Putin in the last few months has been a foreign policy achievement.

[07:10:10]

But, otherwise, I'm afraid he leaves behind a very divided conservative party and one which is very bothered about the decline in public standards about the serial lying, as many of them call it, and about the loss, if you like, of integrity and responsibility of public office. Those are the big complaints which his own party colleagues have leveled at him in the last few days.

KEILAR: Yes. I mean, his flamboyance is a double-edged sword, right? His style and maybe, I guess, the cost of his style is sort of his legacy more so than some of what he leaves behind in his achievements.

WESTMACOTT: Well, yes. Much of this is about style. There are people who have known him most of his life who say this is one great big theater act. That's why you have the smirk, that's why you have the grin, that's why you have the hair ruffled up deliberately every time he has a public appearance and that's why you have a lot of the bluster and the same things that he wants people to hear, perhaps wants to believe, without there necessarily being very much substantial backing to what he said.

So, government is feeling a bit of a muddle and one of the accusations that the opposition has leveled against him is that he seems to believe that saying something makes it so. But he says he's built 40 new hospitals and it turns out hasn't built any, then people begin to say, well, how much of this should we believe? So, there is an issue there.

He never really had very many friends and allies in the parliamentary conservative party but they backed him because they thought he was a winner and are now not backing him partly because they think he's no longer a winner, but mainly, I'm afraid, because of the questions of integrity and standards which they expect for somebody who is the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

BERMAN: Ambassador, you've worked in the United States, you've been ambassador in the United States. How do you think the United States will feel about this and seeing him go as a partner and getting a new one?

WESTMACOTT: Well, the former guy, as President Biden calls him, got along very well with Boris Johnson, and I think at the personal level, President Biden and Johnson have done okay. But it has been no secret that on issues like Brexit and issues like --

BERMAN: We appear to have lost the ambassador, Peter Westmacott, but we thank him for his time this morning, giving us some insights and perspective into how this is all playing there and around the world.

KEILAR: There is a scathing report on the law enforcement response to the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. We'll speak to a member of the investigative team that wrote the report.

And former FBI Director Jim Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, both facing suspicious intensive audits by the IRS. The former IRS director joining us to discuss.

BERMAN: And the breaking news this morning, Boris Johnson resigning as prime minister. We expect to hear from him in just minutes, but how and when exactly he is leaving is still an open question.

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[07:15:00]

BERMAN: They could have been saved. That is the conclusion of a new report on the police response to the deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, a shooting that took the lives of 19 children and 2 teachers.

According to the report, a Uvalde police officer armed with a rifle spotted the gunman outside the school, had him in sights and asked for permission to shoot him. That moment of hesitation proved to be consequential because the officer's supervisor either did not hear him or responded too late. Joining us now is J. Pete Blair, the executive director at Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training at Texas State University. This is the organization that wrote this report.

And, Pete, we know this report isn't about assigning blame. It is about understanding what happened to try to make things better going forward. So, in this specific instance that you write about, what did happen, an officer had the killer in sight before he went in the building?

J. PETE BLAIR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALERRT AT TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY: Correct. The officer saw the suspect moving along the side of the building and moving toward that door in the northwest corner and had an opportunity to shoot that suspect, potentially, before he did. He paused to ask his supervisor for permission to fire. And by the time he got a response, or turned back and looked at his supervisor, the suspect had entered the building.

The officer also indicated that he is concerned about his backdrop because he is firing toward a school, and if he misses the shot, he has to be concerned about where the rounds will go and potentially could injure a student.

BERMAN: Do you feel that an officer needs to ask for permission to fire in that type of circumstance?

BLAIR: Under Texas law, they did not. The law makes it clear that the officer believes that the officer's life or someone else's life is in danger, they're authorized to use deadly force to protect their own life or someone else's life.

BERMAN: And in the vein of being constructive going forward, what is it that you hope people understand about this type of situation?

BLAIR: Well, the first thing for the public to know is these decision s are happening quickly. Use of force decisions are not done in isolation, they're done under stress, they're done in a short timeframe. And so oftentimes people do make judgments that you might later look at and say, I don't agree with that judgment.

But you also have to understand that the officers making that decision and that moment, obviously that officer's responsibility about what happens, if they were it take the shot or injure a student, it would be responsible for that, just as if they had shot the suspect and stopped the suspect. So, that's important to keep in mind when we're judging these things.

We want to do in the report is get accurate information, get it out there, to make sure other officers are able to see that, to look at it, to think through those situations beforehand, so they have a clear picture in their head what they would do in that type of situation.

BERMAN: Right, it is all about the training, it is all about creating almost a muscle memory of an officer so they don't have that moment of pause the next time, God forbid, that this happens.

[07:20:04]

You also write in this report that the officers who did go inside the building quickly lost the momentum. What do you mean by that?

BLAIR: Yes. So, they made entry to the building pretty quickly and then they moved toward the classrooms that the suspect had entered. And as they got close to the classrooms, they received fire, and they fell back to an intersection at the north end of the hallway. And that's not unexpected, if you haven't been training regularly, if you haven't been under fire before, it is very common to see people who have that kind of hesitation, that falling back action when they receive fire.

However, after they fell back to that intersection, there was still a driving force, they had heard gunfire, there was gunfire that happened after they fell back to the intersection. And that gunfire should have driven them to move forward. If they didn't hear gunfire going on, they could assume that a number of rounds had gone before then, there were people injured and they needed to get to those people to provide help.

And, unfortunately, after they received that first gunfire, they're doing a good thing going to where the attacker was at, and they fell back, they didn't regain momentum for more than an hour. They were stuck in that intersection there and didn't really move forward.

BERMAN: So, Pete, I know it has got to be hard for the families there who lost loved ones to look at this report and see that had a few things happened differently, this might have been prevented. What is the biggest takeaway you want people to take from this, that had X happened, it might not have come to Y?

BLAIR: Well, there were many things that happened throughout, and if you read the report, I'm sure you'll see that all these things had to line up perfectly from the exterior door of the school being unlocked to the interior door lock apparently being broken it allow access, to the stalling of the officers after that initial push, all those things had to line up to produce this. And it is rare that you see those things occur, and it is horrible that it happened in this case, but we have also seen other cases happening and since this particular shooting where the officers were able to successfully get to the attacker, stop the attacker quickly and save lives.

BERMAN: Pete Blair, we appreciate the work you do on all of this and thank you for joining us this morning.

BLAIR: Thanks for having me on.

KEILAR: So, The New York Times reporting this morning that former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe are facing, rare intensive IRS audits. Both men were famously at odds with former President Trump, to say the least. In a new statement to CNN, the agency says, quote, it is ludicrous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific individuals for national research program audits.

We spoke with Andrew McCabe in the last hour. And here's how he responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It is clearly not ludicrous. We're talking about a coincidence that really is almost impossible, statistically. I think it raises some very interesting questions about the IRS and about how they're administering this program.

The Americans need to be able to have trust and faith that the institutions they rely on are conducting their business in a fair and impartial manner. And there is an indication here that that might not be happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now is former IRS Commissioner John A. Koskinen.

Sir, I want to ask you, you hear the IRS here saying, this ludicrous. Do you agree?

JOHN A. KOSKINEN, FORMER IRS COMMISSIONER: Well, I don't know if I would say it is ludicrous. It clearly is far out of the normal experience of the IRS. And this annual review they do to test the compliance of the tax system and the noncompliance of the tax system. The audits that are selected are selected by a separate division. They're selected randomly. They're designed to randomly audit taxpayers across the entire spectrum, including companies.

So, on the one hand, it is a very carefully managed process, and reviewed, and I've got a lot of confidence in the IRS employees, it is a great workforce that I had the privilege of working with for four years, but on the other hand, as Mr. McCabe says, it is odd at least to see two head of the former head of the FBI and his deputy under great attack with a lot of (INAUDIBLE) statements from the former president, suddenly show up in these randomly selected audits. They're up to usually about 13,000 audits a year over a three-year period to determine the tax gap. And that 13,000 a year is out of 150 million individual taxpayers and over 200 million total returns.

So, it is, I think, from the standpoint of the IRS, important for the inspector general, someone to take a look at all of this because it is important for the public to be confident that the IRS, as it has for years, is treating all taxpayers fairly, is not targeting anyone and is not subject to political, you know, either manipulation or force.

[07:25:06]

On the other hand, as everybody knows, with some of the things you think would never have happened, like the insurrection a year-and-a- half ago, it is hard to say it is impossible.

KEILAR: Hard to say it is impossible. Does the timing of these audits, does that raise any questions for you? For instance, Comey found out he was being audited right after Attorney General Bill Barr decided that he wasn't going to pursue charges for how Comey had handled his memo, which was something that former President Trump wanted for Bill Barr to pursue.

His audit year was 2017, which was when he had a lucrative book deal. McCabe found out he was being audited in 2021, but it was his 2019 tax return, and he found out right after he was cleared, his personnel record was cleared, and his pension was reinstated.

I mean, are those things that just could be coincidence or does that raise questions for you that the I.G. should be looking at?

KOSKINEN: Well, as I say it, as I said in the past, you can have a strange event once, to have it twice in this case with two different individuals in a random process certainly seems to me worth looking at. As I say, I got great confidence in the agency. It is a criminal violation to target a taxpayer or do anything with the taxpayer's return other than normal course of business. So, this would be something truly extraordinary and out of the ordinary.

But I do think it is important for the I.G. to take a look at it just to ensure that the process ran as normal and that this is one of those rare, unique circumstances that occurs, you know, in various ways in life. But it is -- you know, it is a little odd.

KEILAR: Viewers may remember certainly, and this was an experience of yours in the time at the IRS, you became a boogeyman for Republicans when it came to accusations they had about your political bias, as they saw it, or the political bias, I should say, of your predecessor at the IRS during the Obama administration. What can those who are skeptical of the IRS motives take from this?

KOSKINEN: Well, I think what they have to understand is there are only two political appointees at the IRS, the commissioner and the chief counsel. Everyone else is a dedicated career employee. Every year, employees take a course, video course, which I took every year, reminding them of the fact that no one has the ability or is authorized to even look at anybody's tax return, your brother's, your aunt's, your uncle's, unless they have an authorization and need to do it.

So, the system ever since the famous enemies list of President Nixon 50 years ago, the system is designed to protect every taxpayer's return and every taxpayer's information, and the employees take that seriously. So, I think that it is, as I said, extremely unlikely this is what happened, but the fact that it has been given visibility and that it did happen, it does seem to me it is important for people to be satisfied, internally as well as externally, that the system continues to run fairly and treat everyone equally.

KEILAR: Former commissioner of the IRS, John Koskinen, we appreciate your insight here. You're one of so few people who has been in that position. We thank you.

KOSKINEN: Thank you.

KEILAR: So, we continue to follow this breaking news out of the U.K., British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to resign amid several scandals and dozens of cabinet minister level resignations. He's actually expected to speak here in just moments.

We see here the podium is out in front of 10 Downing Street. So, any moment here, we're going to bring this to you. We're live in London.

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[07:30:00]