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The Situation Room

N. Korean Operatives to Fool U.S. Companies into Hiring Them; Epstein Victim's Family Call on Trump Admin to Invite Survivors; Witkoff and Putin Meet for Three Hours; Sean Combs' Lawyer Approached Trump Admin About Pardon. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 06, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: North Korean operatives backed by leader Kim Jong Un are tricking American companies into hiring them. CNN's Ivan Watson shows us how in this Situation Room special report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Arizona resident Christina Chapman takes what may be one of the longest walks of her life, trailed by a documentary crew. She's going to court for sentencing after pleading guilty to criminal charges, including wire fraud and identity theft.

WATSON: Did you know that you were working with North Koreans?

WATSON (voice-over): U.S. Law enforcement says Chapman ran laptop farms for North Korea.

MATTHEW GALEOTTI, ACTING ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: She was involved with an extremely dangerous and serious and sophisticated criminal scheme in which individuals were directed by the government of North Korea to apply for information technology jobs to make it appear that they were either U.S.-based workers or workers in third party countries that were not sanctioned.

CHRISTINA CHAPMAN: Hi, everybody. TikTok --

WATSON (voice-over): Chapman documented her life extensively on TikTok, from poverty in 2021.

CHAPMAN: I'm classified as homeless in Minnesota.

WATSON (voice-over): To two years later when she had a new job in what she described as the computer business. It allowed her to rent this house in Arizona.

CHAPMAN: I start at 5:30, go straight to my office, which is the next door away from my bedroom.

WATSON (voice-over): The FBI raided Chapman's house in October, 2023. Seizing more than 90 laptops and accusing her of helping North Koreans use stolen and purchased U.S. identities to get remote IT worker jobs at more than 300 U.S. companies. Earning North Korea more than $17 million.

[10:35:00]

WATSON: Why is this case important?

GALEOTTI: It's funneling money back to North Korea, which is sanctioned for its nuclear weapons program. So, in other words, we are resourcing one of the most hostile nations in the world, funding their weapons program.

BRIAN JACK, CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER, KNOWBE4: If you post remote software engineering jobs and those positions are listed on a site like Indeed, I can guarantee you, you are fielding resumes from North Korea.

WATSON (voice-over): Brian Jack knows firsthand. Last year his company discovered it had unwittingly hired a North Korean. Now, he says his teams are experts on spotting North Korean job Applicants.

JACK: In the last year I know of and have looked at least a hundred North Korean resumes.

WATSON (voice-over): They often use similar generic names and almost identical job and educational experience. They also use A.I. generated photos and even A.I. face filters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like are you using something to like change your camera view?

WATSON (voice-over): Such as this one, where the man on the left used a Caucasian filter to hide his identity in an online job interview.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can see that you're using some kind of software.

MICHAEL BARNHART, PRINCIPAL I3 INSIDE RISK INVESTIGATOR, DTEX: This is an instruction manual by them, for them.

WATSON (voice-over): U.S. Army veteran and IT security expert Michael Barnhart has been collecting evidence that the North Koreans accidentally share.

BARNHART: We've seen their chats, we've seen their emails, we've seen their faces.

WATSON (voice-over): Including Google and ChatGPT searches that show how they're trying to fit in with American society. Asking questions like, I want to know about American football and when is lunchtime in the USA? U.S. law enforcement can't physically catch North Koreans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was working in remotely most of the time.

WATSON (voice-over): Believed to be running their schemes out of China and Russia. But American laptop farmers are a different story.

GALEOTTI: These schemes always happen with U.S.-based facilitators, whether they're financial facilitators, allowing their bank accounts to be used, whether they're hosting laptop farms, or whether they're helping create or sell false identities.

WATSON (voice-over): Christina Chapman's prosecution is a warning to corporate America about the North Korean threat that can come with every job application.

WATSON: Moments ago, I watched a judge in this courthouse sentence Christina Chapman to eight and a half years in prison. He said the safety of the nation was at issue in this case. As for Ms. Chapman, she told the court weeping that she hates herself for what she did and that she feels like a monster.

In June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it conducted raids against 29 suspected laptop farms across 16 U.S. states. They said that this was part of a scheme that involved accomplices in Taiwan, in China, and the United Arab Emirates, and two suspected laptop farmers were arrested in New Jersey. This is part of a much larger criminal activity that officials estimate earns North Korea between $225 and $600 million a year. It is so successful that they're worried that other adversary, nations, and organized crime groups may try to get in on this copycat, these illegal activities.

And there's one final note here, the A.I. techniques that are being used are only growing more and more sophisticated. So, this activity is likely to get much harder to spot.

Ivan Watson, CNN Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We have some breaking news coming in. The family of Jeffrey Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, is now speaking out about the strategy dinner top Trump administration officials are set to have tonight. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. CNN Anchor and Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins broke this reporting. Kaitlyn, what is her family saying?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pamela, obviously, the family of Virginia Giuffre has been weighing in ever since President Trump first acknowledged on Air Force One in recent days that Jeffrey Epstein had lured her away from his Mar-a- Lago club, Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her away.

And I spoke to him last week and one thing they reiterated was they -- and the conversations that have been happening on the administration's handling of this is for people to remember the survivors and the victims at the heart of all of this. And they've issued a new statement on our teams' reporting last night about this meeting that is planned at the vice president's house tonight regarding what the administration's strategy on Jeffrey Epstein is. And in this statement obtained by my colleague Nissan Lee (ph), they say that they understand that the vice president, J. D. Vance, is holding a strategy session this evening at his residence. They say, quote, "Missing from this group is, of course, any survivor of the vicious crimes of convicted perjurer and sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein."

[10:40:00]

They say their voices must be heard above all, and we also call upon the House Subcommittee to invite survivors to testify.

Now, that last -- notable because also we've seen how House Republicans have been handling this, calling on the DOJ to release the Epstein documents with a subpoena coming out from the House oversight chair, James Comer, yesterday. They are just saying essentially that in the terms of how the administration is handling this and also how Congress is handling this, that, you know, what is important to listen to, here are the survivors and are the victims in all of this. And they say that that should be included as the administration is plotting what their next move is going to look like.

We know part of that could include a public appearance by the deputy attorney general after him -- after he sat down with Ghislaine Maxwell for about 10 hours. Whether or not that ultimately happens still remains to be seen. But a notable statement from her family coming out this morning.

BROWN: It certainly is notable. We'll see if we get any response from the administration on this. Kaitlin, thank you so much.

And coming up off Capitol Hill and back home, elected officials are getting an earful from their voters. We're going to speak to Democratic Congressman Seth Magaziner about the questions he faced at a town hall.

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[10:45:00]

BROWN: Well, new this morning, the Kremlin is calling today's roughly three-hour meeting between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Vladimir Putin constructive and useful according to Russian state media. The meeting comes as President Trump grows more impatient with Russia's resistance to peace efforts with Ukraine.

Just yesterday, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about potential sanctions against Moscow. Trump said he would wait until after today's talks to decide whether to impose them.

Joining us now is former Trump national security adviser and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. Ambassador, nice to have you on. What do you think, do you see Russia agreeing to a ceasefire deal by Friday?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER AND FORMER AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: I think that's very unlikely. I think the question is whether the Kremlin came up with something, some kind of proposal that would mollify Trump and avoid getting into a confrontation over sanctions. There's been reporting maybe they'll propose a ceasefire in the air, which sounds good, it sounds like something that would benefit Ukraine to prevent Russians from attacking their civilian targets. But on the other hand, if it also means drones, that would be a major problem for the Ukrainian forces on the battlefield that have used drones very effectively against the Russians. So, hard to say at this point. The fact is Putin thinks that he's winning. He thinks he's making headway, and he's inclined to continue doing that.

BROWN: And clearly, President Trump is showing his frustration with Putin and Trump doubled down on his plans to impose sanctions against Moscow. Yet he also cast doubt that those sanctions would even be effective, saying that they're wily and they know how to get around him. If that's the case, what actions by the U.S. would get Russia's attention?

BOLTON: Well, I'm not sure there are any. Earlier today, Trump apparently also announced he would put up the tariffs on India's goods from the 25 percent he announced some days ago to 50 percent beginning later this month because of India's importation of Russian oil and gas and other things. You know, we'll see if those tariffs actually get put in place. He's also got to worry about the same problem with China, which buys even more Russian oil and gas than India. And -- with which he's obviously in the middle of a big trade negotiation.

So, I think it's -- there's a lot of posturing and rhetoric going on here. And hard to see anything that really could deter Moscow from continuing to pursue the war in Ukraine, notwithstanding the enormous human cost to the Russians, obviously, and the Ukrainians, that's their calculus on human life is just different than ours.

BROWN: So, at what point do you think Russia would be forced to agree to a ceasefire? What would force their hand? And do you think these peace talks are just a delay tactic for Putin?

BOLTON: I think they have that effect. I think you would need to see real military setbacks for the Russians, and that goes to the critical question, which I think remains unresolved from the U.S. perspective. I believe Trump did the right thing by authorizing the deployment of Patriots to defend Ukrainian civilian targets. And what we really need is a statement that we're going to continue our military assistance, weapons, ammunition, most critically perhaps military intelligence to the Ukrainians. If we could make those assurances, I think that would give the Ukrainians some ground to think they could come up with a strategy, maybe to push the Russians back. That would change the diplomatic dynamic as well.

BROWN: I also want to ask you about what President Trump said that two U.S. nuclear submarines have positioned closer to Russia in response to Russia's former president. What do you think about that? Do you see that as an effective deterrent strategy?

BOLTON: I honestly don't think he understands what he's talking about. The fact is the ballistic missile equipped submarines that are nuclear power that we have are effectively the core of what our retaliation would be in the awful event that we were attacked with nuclear weapons. They are already deployed in what our strategists think are adequate numbers to constitute a deterrent.

[10:50:00]

And so, far they have. Obviously, a lot of what that is highly classified, but they're not sitting in port waiting to be sent somewhere. They're out now. And their ballistic missiles have very long range, depending on how many warheads they're carrying. So, to say you're going to move them somewhere doesn't make any sense. They're already where they need to be. At least they better be, or our deterrent is not credible. So, for Trump to say this, I think would cause the Kremlin to think he just doesn't understand America's deterrent policy.

BROWN: Ambassador John Bolton, thank you so much.

BOLTON: Thank you.

BROWN: And coming up, CNN sits down with one of Sean Diddy Combs' defense attorneys. The exclusive interview up next.

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[10:55:00]

BROWN: Well, now for a CNN exclusive. One of Sean Diddy Combs' attorneys gives her first interview since his conviction last month, and confirms that Combs' team has indeed approached President Trump about a pardon. CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister landed this exclusive with Combs' attorney and joins us now. What did you learn, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Pam. So, there have been a lot of reports swirling that the Trump administration was considering a pardon for Sean Diddy CombsSo, I had to ask, take a look at what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: Do you know if there have been active conversations about a pardon?

NICOLE WESTMORELAND, SEAN COMBS' DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. We've -- it's my understanding that we've reached out and had conversations to a pardon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: But, and there is always a but these days, just a few days ago, President Trump was actually asked about pardoning Diddy during an interview and essentially said that a pardon is not on the table.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: When you knew someone and you were fine and then you run for office and he made some terrible statements. So, I don't know. It's more difficult. It makes it more -- I'm being honest, it makes it more difficult to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But more likely a no for Combs, it sounds like?

TRUMP: I would say so, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: So, we shall see. As we know anything could change at any moment with the Trump administration. But Diddy's attorney Nicole Westmoreland did tell me that he is a hopeful person, that he remains hopeful. And look, right now, their focus is really on his sentencing, which is set for October 3rd.

Just earlier this week, the judge denied bail. They have been relentlessly fighting to get him released from jail ahead of that October 3rd sentencing. They have also filed a motion, Pam, asking for a full acquittal and even a new trial.

BROWN: All right. Elizabeth Wagmeister with that exclusive interview, thank you so much.

And coming up right after the break, 21 people in Florida get sick from raw milk. The new warning up next.

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