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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Indonesian Air Crash; Bangkok Bombing; Jury Duty for Trump; Trump Immigration Policy; Hillary Clinton's E-mails. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 17, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

And we begin with breaking news out of Bangkok. A deadly explosion near a popular tourist area appearing to target a Hindu shrine and all those who visit it. This is surveillance video of the moment that bomb went off and you can see not only the explosion but people running for their lives down that sidewalk. Bangkok police are saying that 16 people are confirmed dead at this time and Chinese tourists are among them. Another 67 people were apparently injured. These are the early counts in this incident.

"The Bangkok Post" is reporting that the bomb was fastened to a utility pole in front of the shrine and, as you can see, it destroyed just about everything in its wake. A number of motorcycles, as well as detritus that can be seen all the way down that street. We're going to continuing our reporting on this with our worldwide resources here at CNN.

And we're also following another major breaking story, that of an Indonesian air crash. Searchers in Indonesia think that they have spotted the debris of that airliner that crashed on Sunday, but bad weather is now setting in and it's forcing to suspensions of the search and rescue operations until at least tomorrow. The government is release pictures of where it thinks that plane went down. Fifty- four people were on board that flight when it crashed.

I want to bring in Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst.

The Trigana Air flight lost contact with air traffic control on Sunday. You look at those pictures and it just seems like an extraordinary task to try to find not only where the plane eventually made contact when it crashed, but where those people might be. I know terrain is never easy, but when you saw those pictures, what was first in your mind, Mary?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it's very, very difficult for the rescuers and, of course, for the families. But it's important for them to get in there. On several crashes that I've worked in the past, people have been able to survive even a (INAUDIBLE) accident like this, a controlled flight into a terrain. I'm remembering Japan Airlines 123. It went into Mount Osutaka and four people lived. More would have lived had they gotten their sooner. So it's vitally important that they get there any way that they can.

BANFIELD: A lot of times, Mary, when you hear about these air crash, and this is an - you know, an airline that maybe not a lot of people had heard of before. They worry about whether they may end up unknowingly on an airline like this. I say that because there's so many code sharing arrangements these days. You might buy a ticket on an American carrier or say a European carrier, well-known, and ultimately might transfer on to one of these other carriers. If I want to be an empowered traveler, what do I have in my arsenal to make sure I don't end up on airlines that are banned by the FAA from operating in this country?

SCHIAVO: Well, you have a couple things in your arsenal. I have to say the most important thing is the Internet because the list of carriers banned by the Federal Aviation Administration from operating in this country means you shouldn't fly on them anywhere in the world. That's a really low standard to be banned from flying in here. We give - we give permission to land to just about any aviation nation. So stay off of them anywhere in in the world. And then if you book your tickets around the world through a U.S. carrier, they have to disclose. It is federal law. U.S. law. They have to tell you what you're going to be on.

The hardest thing is when you're in another country and you have to get somewhere else. I worked air crashes all over the world and you have to get somewhere and it's very difficult to pick and choose because some places, like Indonesia, you just don't have a choice. And there have been cases where I've said, no, thanks, I'm going to drive. But resort to the Internet and research and look at the European Union list of banned carriers. They have the best list going, the E.U.

BANFIELD: Well, and, you know, it's critical. I'm seeing a list here that, you know, might have actually been surprising to a lot of people that Honduras, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines, a very highly traveled area, Ukraine, Uruguay, Zimbabwe, these are all countries that the FAA has a lot of concerns about. So, like you said, get on the Internet and do your research and make sure you know where you're traveling and on whose carrier you're on.

Mary Schiavo, thank you. Appreciate that.

I want to take you back to our top story now, the breaking news that's coming out of Bangkok. We've been watching the death toll rising pretty much all morning since this deadly explosion went off near a popular tourist area. This appeared to be targeting a Hindu shrine in Bangkok in the city, but a very busy tourist attraction. Not just a shrine, a lot of hotels where tourists stay. Chinese tourists apparently being confirmed among those dead and another 67 people injured in this explosion. CNN has a senior photojournalist on the scene. It's Mark Phillips, and he joins me now live on the phone.

Mark, just get me up to speed on how this story has been developing. [12:05:00] MARK PHILLIPS, CNN SENIOR PHOTOJOURNALIST (via telephone):

Well, there's been actually a big jump in the number of casualties here. There's actually over 110 people now confirmed injured and 18 confirmed dead. So that's just been at least in the last couple of minutes. Police are still on the scene down here and they're still combing over the debris that's been left by the blast. When we were down there earlier, we could see one body and a couple of motorcycles, there are a lot of motorcycles around, it knocked to the ground. The gates to the shrine had been blown in or bent out of shape. And at the moment, the police are actually still picking over what is left on the ground and trying to ascertain what's actually happened down here.

BANFIELD: Some people have referred to this area where this shrine is as the Times Square of Bangkok. Other people saying, no, it's a heavily trafficked tourist area with some very expensive hotels and significant shopping malls. But how would you classify this area? And how heavily touristic is it, especially with western tourists?

PHILLIPS: Well, you've got to remember, at the moment it's the end of the school holiday, it's the western school holiday, so there were a lot of tourists down here. This is the main shopping center of Bangkok. This intersection where the shrine is, you have one of the largest shopping malls in Bangkok here. And then you - it's surrounded by western hotels. You have the Intercontinental, the Holiday Inn, the Grand Hyatt, all within walking distance of this shrine. In fact, the shrine backs on to the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

And so people would go shopping and when they left shopping they'd go walk past the shrine and they'd go in and have a look at the shrine, which was open to the public. And you could buy incense. You could buy flowers. The Thais are very welcoming. You can come in, you could, you know, put down your flowers, you could have a little prayer if you wanted to.

Also, you know, it was also very busy traffic area. There was always cars going through. There's a train line that runs above it. So it was like the main epicenter of shopping in Thailand. So this bomb looks like it's been designed for maximum damage and maximum casualties and that seems - it has achieved that.

BANFIELD: All right, Mark Phillips, thank you for that.

And we're just going to continue to watch this story as the numbers change. The Thai media has a much higher death count than right now the police are saying, but here we are at 18 for now and, you know, as we went live on this program, they were still diffusing a second incendiary device. So we'll continue to watch this on CNN throughout the day.

In the meantime, we do have other big stories that are developing. Look, we all - just about all - get one of these things, the jury summons. It is our civic duty. It's why we get to live in a free country. And guess who got called today. You recognize it. Even though it's across the street, you can see the shock of hair. It's Donald Trump. And just like almost everything else Trump-related, there is controversy. And we'll tell you about it, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:11:13] BANFIELD: Donald Trump had to take a big detour off the campaign trail this morning, believe it or not, to do what all of us mere mortals have to do, and that's report for jury duty. Jury duty. But he showed up in this limo. It's just an amazing scene. A crush of waiting reporters there, of course.

Now, what's strange, though, and the controversy that kicks in, is that he has missed several previous appearances. Apparently just ignoring those summons, five of them. His spokesman says it's because those notices were sent to an address of a building that he owned but didn't live in.

But he keeps on showing up at the top of the polls nonetheless. The latest poll from Fox - it doesn't include this jury situation - has him leading among Republicans sizably with 25 percent of the vote now. And the next guy down is less than half of that, Ben Carson's coming in with 12 percent. Ted Cruz at third and Jeb Bush falling to fourth place and just coming in with single digits.

And before we dig deeper into the poll numbers and the significance and the policy that came out this weekend, I want to get back to the Trump reporting for jury duty story. The appearance, the limo and all, turned into this major media event making a big deal out of a man simply doing his civic duty. We all have to do it, right?

But this is such a contrast, perhaps, to the former president, George W. Bush, who didn't make much of a big deal at all out of his recent jury duty. He not only showed up quietly, but he posed with some of the other folks that were there for a series of smiling selfies with other perspective jurors.

Our Alexandra Field is in New York. She's covering the big Trump show.

Look, I am the most pious among us. As a new citizen, as an immigrant myself, I say there's very little that you have to do to enjoy all the benefits of being an American. But this system relies on us doing our part and it is jury duty. And for all the people who make fun of it and say "I hate it, I want out," we have to do it. It is the only thing we have to do. So there's a checkered past when it comes to Trump's jury duty over the years. Can you explain what this is all about?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, and he certainly wants to let people know that he is doing that duty today, Ashleigh. This isn't a man who quietly slipped into this courthouse. He arrived in his limousine, which has been parked outside of the courthouse all morning. A little bit of special dispensation for the candidate here. He really took his time moving through the crush of cameras, walking up the stairs, stopping, turning around, waving, giving a thumbs up, almost making it look like a campaign stop.

And he even said on Friday evening that he was looking forward to doing his civic duty, even, Ashleigh, if the record doesn't exactly seem to reflect that because we know that there were these five previous summons over the course of the last nine years, all of which were ignored. His attorney has publicly defended him, even on our program "New Day" this morning, saying that there was really just a mix-up here, that Trump never received the notices, that they were sent to a building on Central Park South, which he owns, not the building in which he resides.

However, he got the summons this time and with it there is a $250 fine which Trump would have to pay. However, we're told that once he completes his duty here today, that fine would be voided. So he is here, along with everyone else who had to respond to the call of jury duty today. This is the first morning he's had to present himself. If he isn't picked for a case today, he could have to come again tomorrow to see whether or not he would be selected to serve, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: What are the odds that he might actually be selected?

FIELD: Well, in this case, there are about 700 jurors that have been called down here today. Some of them going to the civil sector, others to criminal. We know that his appearance is for civil. Out of that pool of 700 who are called, we're told by court officials that typically 400 or 500 may show up. But then when it comes down to actually selecting jurors, it really will depend on the caseload at the court, which we're told is notoriously slower in August. I think that a lot of people feel it would be unlikely for Donald Trump to be selected, but his campaign does say that there are no public event this week, that he is available to serve and to fulfill his duty as he's trying to show everyone that he is doing today.

[12:15:20] BANFIELD: OK. Well, thank you for that, Alexandra Field. Keep us posted. Because if that limo takes off without him, maybe he got cleared and he's allowed to go. And that is your duty, by the way. It can be a matter of minutes. I've done it twice and I even volunteered because I am a nerd, but I do think it's important. Thank you for that.

Once Trump is back up and campaigning, you can bet your bottom dollar he's going to get questions about his immigration plans. Specifics that were just released over the weekend. Under the plan, he doubles down on his promise that Mexico will pay for the wall that he says he'll build along the border. Trump says he'll deport all criminal aliens, defund sanctuary cities and stop the practice of granting automatic citizenship to children born in America if their parents were here illegally. That's a tricky one. We'll get into that in a moment.

Trump is also talking about women in the workplace and how much he pays the ones who work for him. And we learned that he gets much of his military advice - OK, you've got to be seated for this one - by watching television. Specifically generals and experts on television. I am not kidding. These were his words.

Plenty to talk about with our panel. CNN political director David Chalian and senior political correspondent Nia-Malika Henderson. And for that whole constitutional thing about revoking citizenship for people born here, I brought in CNN's legal analyst Danny Cevallos. So, first, David Chalian, if I can start with you on the immigration

position, it's almost too numerous to note all in one question, but generally speaking, this is really, really tough talk even for the other Republicans in the field who are coming at him with a quiver of arrows. Run me through the most significant statements that he made about his policy.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: That's right, Ashleigh, I mean he is taking a very hard line approach to this issue, which should surprise no one. It's the issue he used to sort of fuel his ride to the front of the pack in his presidential run this summer. He also sat down with Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to help craft this policy, who's also known as a real hardliner on illegal immigration up on Capitol Hill.

I think the two points in the plan that I think will get the most attention, one, as you were just say, ending birth right citizenship. This is a big divide in the Republican field right now. John Kasich, the Ohio governor, used to be for ending birth right citizenship. In recent interviews with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, he has stepped away of it saying he's evolved on that issue. Chris Christie this morning on "New Day" was saying, hey, it's something we should look at but not the highest priority. And Donald Trump is doubling down on it saying we should get rid of it. So that's going to be a real debate within Republican ranks about ending birth right citizenship.

BANFIELD: And I think that other real stunner for a lot of people was, you know, get rid of them.

CHALIAN: That's right.

BANFIELD: And if you're worried about separating families, oh, no, no, no, keep them together and get rid of all of them. I think that's going to be painful for some people to hear.

But let's talk a little bit about that whole birth right and this little, I don't know, tricky thing called the 14th Amendment.

Danny Cevallos, it would require a constitutional amendment to do that, right?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Not necessarily. If - if you listen to the critics' argument, when you first look at the 14th Amendment, it appears it couldn't be clearer, all people born in the U.S. But there's an additional part that says something about being subject to the jurisdiction. So what does that part mean? Does it mean that there's automatic citizenship for those born in the United States? And critics of birth right citizenship point to a federal law that excludes children of diplomats, heads of state and foreign prisoners as having automatic citizenship. And if birth right citizenship was constitutional, that federal law itself would be per say unconstitutional.

They also point to the fact that the 14th Amendment was enacted in a response to the infamous Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court and that citizenship birth right was really only intended for children of free slaves so that they would not be denied citizenship. And, again, critics of birth right citizenship say that there is no automatic citizenship even though we've been granting it for many, many, many years.

BANFIELD: All right, let's go - move on to a little bit more of what developed this weekend.

Nia-Malika Henderson, if I can ask you to weigh in on this question on "Meet the Press" about who Donald Trump has been seeking military advice from. I found this very troubling that he said quite openly he resorts to TV shows and particularly those generals. But then he went on to name Ambassador John Bolton, who is not a general. I just found that to be difficult. But like everything that seems difficult, it doesn't seem to matter. Is this one mattering at all?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It seems like it would be hard to imagine that this would matter to the average voters. And I think all along we've been saying it would probably matter to voters, this whole idea of him releasing policy. He's got to put some meat on the bones. I'm not even sure that necessarily has mattered to voters at this point who like the - who very much like the way that Donald Trump presents himself. He is bold. He is brash.

[12:20:16] You've had Republicans for years said that they wanted to run a candidate who doesn't campaign in pastels but, you know, campaigns in a bold way. And they very much have that with Donald Trump. He very much sounds sort of like the average American where they get their information looking at Sunday news shows, listening to what Josh Bolton says. I think he also named Jack Jacobs. So it's hard to imagine that the average voters is this plugged in and could be that troubled by Donald Trump.

I guess at some point he'll sort of close the gap here and instead of watching TV for advice on the military, at some point he'll get military advisors because that's typically what these candidates will have to do, somebody like Scott Walker who isn't keyed in necessarily to what's going on, on The Hill, in a Senate, you know, committee or anything. At some point they'll all get their advisors. I'm sure Donald Trump will roll out, you know, sort of a panel of advisors he's been listening to.

BANFIELD: Sure. No disrespect. I like Jack Jacobs. That's a colonel I've worked with in the past. He's a smart man. But, you know, this is television and we speak in soundbites and an hour-long show with one segment about, you know, Iraqi oil fields, et cetera, and a general who's paired up with others might have three to four minutes and I always say, I wish I were a fly on the wall in the real meetings because we don't get enough covered on TV. As much as we try.

Danny Cevallos, Nia-Malika Henderson and David Chalian, perfect example, I've got to cut it off there. Thanks, guys.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: But I will have you back. Coming up next, we're going to stick with the topic of Donald Trump because, hey, it seems to be every topic these days. But this is the person who he's really taking aim at, Hillary Clinton. She may have laughed it off this weekend, but Donald Trump says she has a criminal problem on her hands when it comes to her e-mails. But is that really true or is that a great headline when you're in a campaign? I'm going to sort that out for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:28] BANFIELD: According to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has a criminal problem when it comes to her e-mail scandal and he says it's going to cost her the race. Don't forget, that's him and he's campaigning. Both presidential candidates were in Iowa over the weekend and Mrs. Clinton alluded to the controversy actually with a joke at a dinner on Saturday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: By the way, you may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account. I love it. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Yes, well, it was a friendly crowd, and that's why everybody cheered. But in all seriousness, later that day, she again denied sending classified material on her personal e-mail account and also denied receiving any e-mail that was marked classified as well.

But there's an investigation and since we're a legal show, I want to dig into the issue with our top attorney, CNN legal analyst and defense attorney Danny Cevallos, and HLN legal analyst and defense attorney Joey Jackson.

All right, guys, I always like to say, when did they know and what did they know and when did they know it, that sort of thing. But when it comes to this one, this is a little trickier because she always said this was the personal account that sometimes had crossover business and she says at the time she sent or received or destroyed any e- mails, nothing was classified. Is that good enough, Danny?

CEVALLOS: Joey?

BANFIELD: Ha, ha, he defers right away!

CEVALLOS: I go right to Joey on that.

Here's the thing, who is to say what was classified and what was not? And it's not certain that something - after all, nobody is sitting next to the president with a classified stamp, stamping what he does. But, arguably, there is a presumption that anything emanating from that office is classified or can be -

BANFIELD: Well, it could be.

CEVALLOS: Can become classified.

BANFIELD: OK.

CEVALLOS: So it may be the case that the law requires someone to intuit what is illegal or what is classified or what should not be disclosed at that moment in time. And we have a lot of laws that do that. We decide later on whether or not the intent was there and whether the knowledge that something was either classified or something else that the law dictates should be something else.

BANFIELD: OK, I get you 100 percent. If you're the secretary of state, you should know that somewhere down the line the thing that is innocuous right now could end up being classified. But is that what The Donald is saying, which is criminal? That is a high standard.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: There are a couple of ways to look at this. The first, obviously, is the political way. If you are on the opposite side of Hillary Clinton, it's unimaginable, it's unfathomable, are you kidding me? It's a crime. It's outrageous. How could she? That's the politics of it.

But let's talk about the legalities of it. It's a very regulated area by executive order, by all kind of directives from the Department of Defense, by the intelligence agency. And so it comes down to the classification. Now, when you talk about classification, there are levels of classification. Top secret, would it, in fact, represent grave harm to the United States if it's disclosed. Then it goes to secret, which would just represent harm. And then, of course, it goes to the area of confidential.

Now, in the event that she certainly sent out these e-mails and she did it knowingly and she did it willfully and she disclosed this information, she's got a problem. In the event that that's not the case, she does not. And so what the law speaks to is the willful and knowing transmission of this information and that's what really needs to be examined.

BANFIELD: So if it comes out that those were not classified at the time that she had these transactions, she's 100 percent in the clear. And we just have to wait to find out if they can actually time stamp and mark when it was and when it wasn't.

JACKSON: Or maybe they weren't actually -

CEVALLOS: People are going - yes, they're going to decide later on whether it was classified or not. And the question really becomes, to what degree am I responsible for at the moment an e-mail leave my outbox for being aware of what was classified and what would be classified.

BANFIELD: All right. Well, there's so much more I want to talk about. We'll leave it for another day. The fact that one e-mail could have a subject line say "Chelsea's wedding, personal e-mail," she deleted it, but somewhere down the e-mail chain she might have been talking to someone she worked with -

CEVALLOS: We've all done that, right?

BANFIELD: We've all done it, yes.

JACKSON: Right. Right.

CEVALLOS: How many times have you looked at an e-mail -

BANFIELD: Yes.

CEVALLOS: And the subject line 20 e-mails later has no bearing on what you first sent the e-mail about.

BANFIELD: Had nothing to do with -

CEVALLOS: Joey does that to me all the time.

BANFIELD: Let's do a segment about that another day.

JACKSON: He outed me.

BANFIELD: You guys are the best. Thank you, both. Appreciate it.

JACKSON: Thank you, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Since the Supreme Court gave its blessing to same-sex marriage, it's not a problem for gay couples to get marriage licenses anymore, right? Well, apparently not everywhere. And when we say "problem," it's kind of interesting whose problem it becomes. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)