Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Manhunt Continues for Escaped Prisoner in New York; New Report Indicates Thousands of Emails Erased in IRS Scandal; Bobbi Kristina Brown in Hospice; Business Focuses on Creating Online Resumes and Profiles. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 27, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:04] SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: You've got to take a look at these pictures, amazing -- has injured now more than 200 people, some of them seriously. If you take a good look at this video, you're going to see people fleeing, running, panicking. Investigators, they have not pinpointed the exact cause, but apparently the explosion was set off by some kind of flammable powder. You can hear them in the background. This was over a stage area. You see the big lights there. Rescuers used large swimming tubes as stretchers to carry some of those injured to ambulances. We are following that developing story.

And new details now on other breaking news, on the breaking news surrounding that massive hunt for the fugitive David Sweat that is in upstate New York. We are now getting a closer look at the images. These were taken inside the first cabin. This is where police believe that David Sweat and Richard Matt were holed up in the woods.

Now, these are pictures from NBC News. You've got a lot of amenities, including a TV. We don't know if they had access to cable, but if they did, they would have been able to track news about their own manhunt. More than 1,000 of those involved in that manhunt, officers searching for Sweat. Now police say that blood hounds have not yet picked up the scent, but fellow escapee Richard Matt, he was shot and killed by border patrol agents. That happened on Friday. The two broke out of the Clinton correctional maximum security prison three weeks ago.

Our Jean Casarez, she is monitoring this search in Malone, New York. And she's joining us. Jean, you have been out there hours and days at a time really monitoring what is happening right behind you there. Tell us first of all more about this new picture that we see from inside the cabin. What have we learned?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That new picture is very, very important because that is the cabin a week ago today that was broken into about 14 miles from where we are right now. But that's the cabin that really led authorities to realize that, number one, the pair remained together because they did forensic testing inside, and number two, the fact that they were in the woods and they were going into cabins, breaking into cabins.

And I had spoken at the time with a forensic psychologist who was with the department of prisons for many years, and she said that because of the narcissistic personalities that these two she believed had that priority -- television would be a priority for them, because they would want to see exactly what is being said about them on the television. So it culminated from there. The search efforts continued in that area.

And it was really just yesterday morning that they focused on this area where we are, the village of Malone. I mean, these are the most desolate parts of up New York state, the Adirondacks, not too far from Canada. But what we're learning is that 1,100 law enforcement, from federal, state, local, tribal police, they are all behind me in those mountains, in those woods.

But it is so eerily silent. You don't hear a thing. You don't hear vehicles. You don't hear ATVs. You don't hear helicopters above you. But we can't imagine the emotions that they must have at this point. This is a manhunt. They know that they got one, and they've got to find the other, because he is a convicted murderer, David Sweat, who shot and killed the 22 bullets into a law enforcement officer some years back. And that has to produce emotions besides the safety and welfare of this community. There are people that live in these hills and these mountains behind me where law enforcement is actively searching, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: I was going to ask you about that. It looks like there's lots and lots of woods there. Are they protecting those little cabins and perhaps those little places, isolated pockets where people actually live?

CASAREZ: What we've heard -- I mean, their focus is the manhunt. But they're telling people if you don't have a security system, then you need to do something. They want people to protect themselves as much as possible, because you don't know where these two will be. The track record is they break into areas, and so they're really concerned for the community, and finding this last person, David Sweat, will protect the community. So that is the all-out effort.

Right behind me you see the roadblock, and all day we've seen residents periodically going back into their homes. You see the home. I mean, look at the home right behind me. People live right there. So close, so close to a convicted murderer, an inmate that escaped three weeks ago today still on the run. And what we're learning today, no actual sightings of David Sweat.

MALVEAUX: All right, Jean, thank you so much for your excellent work out there in the field.

Could this trail be getting dry in the hunt for David Sweat? Joining us now to talk about that is retired NYPD detective Sergeant Joe Giacalone who trains law enforcement officers. And Joe, I have so many questions for you, because, first of all, if the dogs aren't picking up the scent, the bloodhounds are not picking him up, and they haven't spotted him, and there are all these people out there, what does that mean about where we are in this search?

[14:05:11] JOE GIACALONE, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: It means that Sweat might not even be there. They have no DNA. There's no dogs. There's no air support today. This means to tell me that I think they closed that net, they closed that perimeter, and they're not finding what they wanted.

MALVEAUX: So where do they go from here?

GIACALONE: Well, just like everything else, it's going to be thrown back on to the public, hopefully that they see something and see how desperate Sweat gets. I mean, if he gets as desperate as Matt did, it looks like they might have split up at that point, and maybe Sweat just didn't want to deal with him anymore, and they're on their own. Or maybe they had an argument. We'd like to get him alive because he has a lot of information that we want to know.

MALVEAUX: So is he at an advantage or disadvantage by being on his own now that his partner has been killed?

GIACALONE: I mean, listen, they always say safety in numbers, but you know what, you can travel faster when you're by yourself. And since he's the younger of the two, he might have been in better shape. And he's -- you know, he's going to be on his own right now and he knows it and he's going to be running for his life. He doesn't want to go back to prison, I'm sure of it.

MALVEAUX: So give us a sense of the landscape. If they come up cold and he's not in this particular wooded area, what's outside of the wooded area? What's beyond that, Canada?

GIACALONE: Yes, you got Canada, but he can be making his way, you know, any direction at this point. He might be trying to wait the cops out. I mean, he knows that as long as this thing has gone, it's cost him a lot of money, and law enforcement are going to have to scale back eventually. So his best bet is to try to wait this out and see if he can get away with that.

MALVEAUX: So, Joe, let's talk about that waiting game. What is the window here, right, before law enforcement pulls back and says it's not worth the time, it's not worth the manpower, we're done with this section, we're moving on, and he might be hiding in a tree?

GIACALONE: Exactly. We can also get a tip from another part of the state where it could send us on a wild goose chase, too, so to speak, like they ended up down in Friendship. And this is something unfortunately you have to go through every tip you get. But one spotting and we can have all the law enforcement running over to the other location, too. So we've got to be mindful of that.

MALVEAUX: All right, looks like they've got a lot of work. Their work cut out for them. There are a lot of people involved. It's costing a lot of money. The neighborhood is very concerned about their own safety. It looks like they need a break and they need it fast. Joe Giacalone, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it this morning, this afternoon.

GIACALONE: Thanks.

MALVEAUX: Still ahead, an IRS scandal over Tea Party e-mails, it's now widening. Now the agency says thousands and thousands of Lois Lerner's missing e-mails were deleted. How does that happen? That's up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:11:23] MALVEAUX: We have startling new details on the investigation of alleged wrong doing by the IRS. Earlier this year, a group investigating agency said it found more than 6,000 e-mails that had been missing from the files of Lois Lerner, the official at the center of allegations the IRS illegally targeted Tea Party groups. Well, now the watchdog group says as many as 24,000 e-mails might be missing.

Joining me from Los Angeles, CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. Good to see you, Ron. So this is incredible, right? I mean, this is a story of alleged computer crashes, erased backup tapes. Where is it heading now that we have a number like 24,000?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's 24,000 potential e-mails that the IRS watchdog says have been erased and are no longer recoverable. You can see why Republicans on the committee investigating this are so frustrated. There's no question that the erasures, according to the IRS -- the person investigating this, occurred after there was a document request in place.

On the other hand, they concluded there was no evidence that it was done deliberately to destroy evidence in the investigation, that they could not prove that it was not simply part of the routine destruction of redundant e-mail records. And so I think it's enormous frustration. You can understand why Republicans on the committee are frustrated about where they are.

MALVEAUX: And where are they? I mean, what happens next here?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think you see -- you know, you see in these congressional investigations, they have a long life. And they will continue to turn over stones. But the limits -- they face the limits of the evidentiary trail. And I think what we're going to see is what else they can produce.

This is a, you know, controversy that has been brewing for a long time. It has simmered. It has had a lot of resonance with the Republican base. But after the initial flurry, it really has not had a compelling kind of reach into the public overall. And with all the momentous events that are going on right now with the Supreme Court decisions, with the trade vote, with the president's eulogy in Charleston, with the coming possible Iran agreement, I think the process by itself is not going to be enough to force this back into the headlines. They need substantive revelations, and that is dependent on further investigation.

MALVEAUX: And Ron, I mean, Lois Lerner obviously a big fish involved in this whole investigation. Do you think that they're going to cast a wider net? Are we going see more people who might end up in trouble? BROWNSTEIN: Yes, I think even Democrats on the committee have

expressed concern about the handling of the e-mails, the process questions here. And I do think that this kind of revelation is likely to lead to challenges and problems for some of the other employees who are still there. I mean, the fact that these were erased after the evidence request was in, even if you cannot prove that it was deliberately done to avoid that request, simply is a management failure. And I think there's going to be pressure for changes.

But again, whether that allows this to reach the critical mass that truly becomes an issue that affects public perception of the administration, I think there's a long way to go on that.

MALVEAUX: OK. Ron Brownstein, thank you so much. Good to see you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: My pleasure.

Still ahead, family members of Bobbi Kristina Brown have been in and out of a hospice facility where she is now getting care. We're going to tell you what a lawsuit now accuses her boyfriend of doing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[14:19:04] LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: The traditional paper resume, is that antiquated? Is that old?

TONY CONRAD, ABOUT.ME FOUNDER AND CEO: I think it is, yes. I think it is. I don't want to say it's done, but I don't think it's relevant for a young college grad. So the question is, how am I going to make a first impression on people? So Above.me was born with that objective in mind, giving people an opportunity to kind of take a broader view of who they are as a human as opposed to this is just the professional me or the social me or whatnot. It's aggregating all of that together in one page.

SEGALL: It's harder than ever to kind of find a job. So what does Campus do? So you guys have launched this new feature.

CONRAD: So excited about Campus.

SEGALL: What specifically are you doing for college students?

CONRAD: So you go to campus. There's great articles on, you know, how should you think about leveraging Instagram, or how do you interact with people in social media in order to network? You know, there's articles on those kind of things.

[14:20:00] It's reminding students not to lose the very things that made them special in the first place, right? Even though they don't have, like, you know, an amazing college, you know, or, like, amazing internship that they had, it doesn't mean that they're not going to be successful adults and enter into the work world, right? And you have to remind them to own that story and whatnot. So that's what Campus is doing.

SEGALL: When you're looking for a job, the first thing people do these days is you Google the person that's applying for a job.

CONRAD: Why should we allow Google to decide, you know, what shows up in who I am, right? I should take control of that. So you should be able to eliminate that step altogether by putting a link to a page that is about you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Updating breaking news on the hunt for fugitive David Sweat in upstate New York. This is a closer look inside the first cabin where police believe the convicted killers Sweat and Richard Matt were holed up in the woods. Now, these are pictures from NBC News, and a lot of amenities in that cabin, including a television. Matt was shot and killed by a border patrol agent, that happened on Friday, but Sweat is still at large. And that worries a lot of folks who are in that area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's still -- it's not -- he you still worry about it at night when you go to sleep. It was a little bit easier last night knowing they caught one guy, or killed him. But knowing that there's still another one out there and they're still out there, it's dangerous, you know?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The two broke out of a Clinton correctional maximum security prison three weeks ago. More than 1,000 officers are actively in that search.

And now, family and friends of Bobbi Kristina Brown, they are now waiting for the inevitable as her condition deteriorates. On Wednesday, Brown's family moved her into an Atlanta area hospice facility. Her aunt Pat Houston saying she's in God's hands now.

At the same time, Brown's conservator filed suit against her boyfriend Nick Gordon, accusing him of assaulting and stealing from brown. I want to bring in our CNN legal analyst Philip Holloway, who is joining us here in Atlanta. So Philip, thank you very much for explaining all of this, because I think a lot of people have not been keeping up with this, and, clearly, very sad news that she is now in a hospice. And this happens at the same time that her family is accusing her boyfriend of causing her death?

PHILIP HOLLOWAY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, of course, she has a past. As of today, as far as we know, she's in hospice, and they believe that that probably is inevitable.

This lawsuit filed by the family, it's actually filed in her name because she is still alive. So that's significant. I think it's symbolic. But it reads a lot like a criminal indictment itself. It accuses Nick Gordon of assault, battery, stealing from her, and it actually alleges that they got into this verbal, loud altercation that led to the condition that she's in now and caused her life-threatening injuries. So if she does pass, of course that's going make this a wrongful death lawsuit. It's going to put pressure on prosecutors to take a closer look at this, decide whether or not criminal charges are appropriate.

MALVEAUX: And why has it taken so long for this to come about? If they're looking at her death as possibly a criminal event that has occurred, why now?

HOLLOWAY: They're waiting, in all likelihood, to see exactly what will happen. She was recently moved to the hospice care facility, and there's really no way to know how long she may or may not live there. She could live for quite some time. Or she may pass in the next few days. We just don't know. So that's going to be something that prosecutors are going to look at and probably will be making a decision once they realize what the exact extent is of her medical condition.

MALVEAUX: All right, Philip Holloway, thank you so much, we appreciate it. And obviously, you know, our condolences. This is where we are for her family. Philip Holloway, thanks.

We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:49] MALVEAUX: Updating breaking news on the hunt for fugitive David Sweat in upstate New York. This is a closer look inside the first cabin where police believe convicted killers Sweat and Richard Matt were holed up in the woods. These are pictures from NBC News. A lot of amenities in this cabin, including a TV. Matt was shot and killed by a border patrol agent, that happened on Friday. But Sweat, he is still at large, and that worries a lot of folks in the area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's still -- you still worry about it at night when you go to sleep. It was a little bit easier last night with, you know, with knowing that they caught one guy, or killed him. But knowing that there's still another one out there and they're still out there, it's dangerous, you know?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The two broke out of the Clinton correctional maximum security prison three weeks ago. And more than 1,000 officers are actively in the search.

And now our top stories -- a sudden explosion at a waterpark in Taiwan has injured more than 200 people, some of them seriously. Look at this video. Investigators have not pinpointed the exact cause, but apparently the explosion was set off by some kind of flammable powder over a stage area. This event is called Color Play Asia. Rescuers are using large swimming tubes as stretchers to carry some of these injured to ambulances. We are also now learning new details on the multiple terror attacks

abroad, getting new information about a terror warning on this Fourth of July here at home. The Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, National Counterterrorism Center, all issues a joint intelligence bulletin to law enforcement across the United States. It doesn't detail any known active plots, but warns extremists could launch attacks tied to the Fourth 4th of July.

This as police in Kuwait continue to search for the driver whose car was used to drop off a suicide bomber in a mosque Friday. The blast killed at least 27 people, wounded 227 others.

And today, we learn the name of the gunman who massacred 38 on a beach in Tunisia. Police say Seifeddine Al-Rezgui, they say he was a normal young man who had no prior issues.

[14:30:06] More news at the top of the hour with Poppy Harlow. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. "VITAL SIGNS" with Dr. Sanjay Gupta begins right now.