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Investigation Continues Regarding Muslim Marine Recruit Forced into Dryer at Parris Island; Melania Trump Takes to Twitter With What She Says is Proof She Immigrated to United States Legally. UNC Football Player Accused of Rape Turns Himself into Police. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired September 14, 2016 - 10:30   ET

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


[10:30:00]

CNN HOST, CAROL COSTELLO: This was such a disturbing read. It's just - I can't even believe that this sort of stuff happens. So what was this? Was this a hazing ritual? What happened?

NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST, DAN LAMOTHE: So there's actually been several investigations underway at Parris Island over the last year or so. This was the first one that emerged. There's been two since then. And yes it looks at a culture of hazing and abuse at Parris Island; certainly not all drill instructors, certainly not all Marines on staff there, but more than I think even Marine Corp. leadership and Marine Corp. veterans would be comfortable with.

COSTELLO: So this recruit that was put into the dryer; what more can you tell us about him and who put him in the dryer?

LAMOTHE: An unnamed sergeant, one of his drill instructors, ordered him into the dryer, turned it on for about 30 seconds at a time multiple times, according to the documents I was able to get a look at this week. That came up by way of this recruit, who eventually graduated and became a Marine - he moved on to aviation training in Florida and him and two of his colleagues that he graduated boot camp with all kind of came forward and started speaking about what they had gone through. It focused on this one recruit. That seemed to be the most egregious example that I saw in these documents, but, I mean, there's been a number of problems there going back several years.

COSTELLO: And this recruit that was put into the dryer, he just - he happened to be Muslim, right? And he was maligned for that as well?

LAMOTHE: In this case, and I think this goes well beyond religion, I think there are other examples of other Marines that are not Muslim that have experienced some forms of similar behavior, but, yes, this particular recruit was called a terrorist, was accused of being involved in 9/11 - which, you know, he was probably 4 or 5 years old at the time, in addition to everything else - it's just nonsensical - and then forced into the dryer.

COSTELLO: So, how often does this happen and what's the Marine Corp. doing about it? LAMOTHE: The Marnie Corp. is looking at what they need to change culturally and otherwise, and it appears this is mostly focused at Parris Island. The Marine Corp. also trains recruits in San Diego, and there have been no examples like this that have popped up there. So it appears it may very well be this one base. But they're looking at what they need to change culturally. We're looking at a potential courts-martial for individuals that were involved in this sort of behavior over the last couple years, and they really are starting to look deep at what they've been missing and what they need to do to address this.

COSTELLO: And your whole investigation started because of a suicide within the Marines. Can you tell us about that?

LAMOTHE: Sure. The case that we've been talking about actually happened last year. It didn't come to light until another investigation was launched this spring after a different Muslim recruit committed suicide, or at least he died in some form at Parris Island. The report there is that he jumped over a railing while running away from actually the same drill instructor that we were referring to in this other case. He fell about 40 feet to his death back in March.

COSTELLO: And a final question to you, because I know you've been getting a lot of reaction to your story because in reading it - I mean, to me it was just horrific - but you've been getting some pretty ugly tweets about your article. Can you give us an example?

LAMOTHE: Sure, I mean, they're - I think one of the reasons I'm re- tweeting, sort of the ugly reactions, is to show kind of the underbelly here of American society. But yes, there's people that are looking at this as - it's a combination of things. Some of it's just straight racism, and then there are also those that say, "Well, he signed up to be an Marine. This is a part of it." And Marine Corp. leadership wouldn't agree with that at all. So I think there's a disconnect here that needs to be addressed in terms of what the - some of the average individuals involved in the culture think versus what the leadership thinks.

COSTELLO: All right. Dan Lamothe from the Washington Post, thanks so much for coming in this morning. Coming up in the NEWSROOM (--)

LAMOTHE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. Donald Trump and the charity that bears his name. One state attorney general opens an investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I want to take you back to the Upper West Side. Donald Trump just arriving at the Dr. Oz studios. He's going to sit down with Dr. Oz, along with his daughter, Ivanka, and talk about his general health, his dietary habits, how much he exercises, and I'm sure Ivanka Trump will bring up the childcare issue, because she is - she has come up with a plan to help working mothers, right? So we'll keep you posted, but again, as we told you at the top of the show, Donald Trump will not be releasing the results of his physical as we had expected. He'll be releasing the result of his physical in the coming days. At least, that's what he says.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Just minutes ago, Melania Trump took to Twitter with what she says is proof that she immigrated to the United States legally. You might remember there were questions the Solvenia native may have worked as a nude model without a proper visa. Those questions echoed loudly in a campaign built largely on fighting illegal immigration. CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent, Drew Griffin, joins us now. You've been reading the letter. What does it say?

CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, DREW GRIFFIN: Well it says Melania Trump was not in the United States until 1996 and that in a nutshell, if you go back through all this reporting, is what's at issue here. Because if she were in the United States working in New York as a model in 1995, she would have been here without the proper visa and that has raised some immigration issues.

[10:40:05]

She did a photo shoot in New York at 26th and 6th. I talked to the photographer. He, like a lot of people in this story, are very vague on the details. Today, we get the first actual, not documentation, but a letter from a Trump attorney who, supposedly, looked at all the records and said Melania Trump did not arrive in the United States until August 27, 1996. Our response to the Trump campaign: Prove it. Show us the paperwork. They said, "No, the letter stands on its own." They believe this attorney's word is worth taking, so that's where we are right now, but it all revolves around when Melania Trump was here, when that photoshoot took place, and when she had an (--)

COSTELLO: So to boil it down to the simplest common denominator, we have a letter from a lawyer who looked into this for the Trumps, right?

GRIFFIN: Who apparently reviewed the documents.

COSTELLO: Reviewed the documents. And said everything's kosher.

GRIFFIN: And said, "I reviewed the documents and I can assure you that she was not here in 1995, but she first arrived in the United States on August 27, 1996." Now what happens? We try to nail down exactly when that photo shoot took place in New York.

COSTELLO: And also try to acquire some documentation, right?

GRIFFIN: Right. Correct.

COSTELLO: So, Drew, stick around.

GRIFFIN: The story continues.

COSTELLO: The story continues. Another story continues as well, because the New York attorney general has opened an investigation into Donald Trump's charitable foundation, and I know you've talked a lot about this. This is after a series of reports by you and by the Washington Post; the newspaper reporting Trump has not contributed a dime to his foundation since 2008. It also claims Trump misused some of the donations by spending money on himself or using money from donors that he passed off as his own donations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL, ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN: We have been concerned that the Trump Foundation may have engaged in some impropriety from that point of view and we've inquired into it and we've had correspondents with them and didn't make a big deal out of it or hold a press conference, but we have been looking into the Trump Foundation to make sure it's compliant with the laws that govern charities in New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So Donald Trump's camp is calling this just another left- wing hit job. Is it?

GRIFFIN: Here, I looked at all the correspondence - this is it; all the letters back and forth between the New York attorney general's office and the Donald Trump campaign. All of the letters surround this $25,000.00 donation that was made to Pam Bondi the attorney general of Florida. The Trump Foundation admitted the mistake once it was revealed in the press, refunded the money, reallocated the money, paid a fine to the IRS. There is a plausible explanation for why they did this. Mr. Trump said, "Send the money to this campaign." It actually went to a charity - or they thought it was a charity, because a charity and Pam Bondi's PAC had the same name. They're in different states. It just seems like a paperwork issue. I don't understand what the big deal is; however, you know, the New York attorney general - I have worked with him on cases involving foundations and donations and charities. He's very aggressive, but still I don't (--)

COSTELLO: I'm still taking notes here(ph).

GRIFFIN: I do not see where the huge issue is.

COSTELLO: It's a huge issue because the Washington Post also cites that Donald Trump used donations from his charitable foundations for personal use. For example to buy this giant picture of himself. Is that true?

GRIFFIN: None of that is in the correspondence between the attorney general's office and the Trump Foundation. Maybe Eric Schneiderman is looking into that now, he's expanding this probe that he began, but from the paperwork I have seen, there is no correspondence relating to those items.

COSTELLO: So the Washington Post investigation is? GRIFFIN: Is based on the Washington Post reporting, which we don't have at this time. I can tell you that when - the allegation that he made donations in his name; basically people have given money to the Trump Foundation, like they do to any foundation, and the Trump Foundation has written out checks to various charity groups. That's how foundations work. So that allegation I don't get. The second allegation which the Post is reporting is that somehow a Tim Tebow football helmet was bought, I assume at a charity event, and a poster or a picture or a 6-foot stage - I don't know what it was - of Donald Trump was purchased. I'm not sure if that was at a charity event either. If it was at a charity event, who else would buy it? I don't know.

COSTELLO: OK. So final question: Is it unusual for someone not to give money to their own charitable foundation, because the Clinton's gave a million dollars to their charitable foundation in 2015. The Gates, for example, gave $38 billion to their foundation over the course of several years.

GRIFFIN: Right. And Trump gave $2.7 million to his foundation up until 2008 when he stopped giving. So the question isn't, you know, is it wrong for people not to give money to their foundation? Is it wrong for people to stop giving money to their foundation? I think the Trump Foundation is not really a serious entity. I know that's a hard charge, but I think it's one of his vanity foundations. There's not a lot of work put into it. There is no staff. I think it's probably a victim of a lot of sloppy reporting.

[10:45:04]

This is all based on my experience with charities and foundations. It's very, very small, and I think that's what gets Donald Trump into trouble, because it's just sloppiness I see.

COSTELLO: All right, Drew Griffin, thanks so much. Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: A U.N.C. student now publicly speaking out after she says she was raped and the university did nothing to help her. But first, let's check on the market. As you can see, the DOW down just about 60 points. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A U.N.C. football player accused of rape has just turned himself into police. This, less than 24 hours after his accuser publicly spoke out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO (voice over): Sophomore Delaney Robinson breaking her silence to the media yesterday about her claims that linebacker Allen Artis sexually assaulted her back in February. Robinson deciding to take her story public after months of trying to get formal charges filed.

[10:50:00] ALLEGED VICTIM, DELANEY ROBINSON: I did everything a raped victim is supposed to do. I reported it. I allowed the rape kit to be taken. I did a statement. I corroborated with law enforcement and with the Telenight(ph) office. But six months later, the university has done nothing. I'm taking this public stand not for me, but for the other students on campus who are not protected despite what the university says.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Brynn Gingras is following the story for this morning at Chapel Hill. Good morning.

CNN CORRESPONDENT, BRYNN GINGRAS: Hi Carol, good morning. And as you just said, Allen Artis has not turned himself in. And I want to be clear, these are on misdemeanor charges and I'm going to get into the technicality of how those were filed, but first I want to go back to what Delaney Robinson said in that statement that you just heard her say. She said she did everything she was supposed to do. On the night she was allegedly sexually assaulted, she did go to police. She did take a rape kit. She actually said she took pictures of bruising on her neck which occurred that night and she also talked to investigators. She said she had an interesting interrogation by those investigators, school investigators. They asked her, you know, has she had a one-night stand before? Had she ever been with this football player before? Questions like those, and she says the interrogations against the person she accused, Allen Artis, she said, "Well, they were very, you know, friendly-like to him." So she has been displeased with this whole process by the school. Now fast forward six months. She says she waited until charges would be filed and they never came. So that's why she and her lawyer, they went to a magistrate's office. And this is the technicality I want to explain. In the state of North Carolina, anybody can go to a magistrate's office and get misdemeanor charges filed. The threshold is much lower than getting felony charges filed, and that's what came forward. And those assault - those charges, rather, are sexual battery and assault and those are what has been filed against Allen Artis, this football player, who has turned himself in on those charges and that's what he's now facing. So that's where we're at with this case now. No felony charges yet against Artis at this point, and that's what the lawyer of Robinson wanted to discuss yesterday in this news conference. Take a listen to more of what she has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATTORNEY FOR ALLEGED VICTIM, DENISE BRANCH: Since Delaney has reported this rape, the university has done nothing. She is here to ensure that we don't send students to campus with two separate expectations for behavior. The attackers and would-be attackers are told they're not responsible for their actions when they've been drinking, but yet victims and would-be victims are told that they're responsible for what happens to them if they have been drinking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: So why have not felony charges been filed? Here's what the D.A. is telling us at this point. There's no question physical contact here in this case, but what circumstances are surrounding that contact are what investigators are trying to determine. The investigation has not been complete, and that's why the D.A. says felony charges have not been filed. As far as Artis is concerned, he has not made a statement. His lawyer says they have not comment on this as of now, Carol.

COSTELLO: So are police investigating this alleged sexual assault or is the university?

GINGRAS: So right now, Carol, we know it's title nine coordinators and public safety investigators who are with the school. That's where this case stands right now, and that's what we're digging on is how long does it take for these charges to be filed if they were to be filed? And where that stands? And we're going to get those answers for you, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Brynn Gingras reporting live from the University of North Carolina. Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: From Olympic stardom to cyber-attack victims, private medical records from some of the country's top athletes made public by hackers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: At least three U.S. Olympic stars are the targets of a cyber attack. Andy Scholes has more for you now. Hi, Andy.

CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT, ANDY SCHOLES: Hi Carol. A group known as Fancy Bear is accused of hacking into the World Anti-Doping Agency's database and then posting the confidential data online. All the athletes named had therapeutic exemptions for taking banned substances. Simone Biles, one of the athletes named, she commented on the hack on Twitter saying she has ADHD and has taken medicine for her condition since she was a kid, adding that she's always followed the rules. Tennis superstar Venus Williams also responded to the hack on Twitter, saying, "I was disappointed to learn today my private medical data has been compromised. I also followed the rules." Fancy Bear says they will release more records from other Olympic teams. The Russian government, meanwhile, denies any involvement in the hack.

The NFL announcing this morning their latest strategy to improve player health and safety in a letter posted to their new website placemarkplaceeight.com(ph). Commissioner Roger Goodell said, "When it comes to addressing head injuries in our game, I'm not satisfied and neither are the owners of the NFL's 32 clubs. We can and will do better." Now as part of the new initiative, the NFL will pledge an additional $100 million in support for independent medical research and advancements to make the game safer. Goodell spoke about the new initiative with Matt Lauer on the "Today Show".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NFL COMMISSIONER, ROGER GOODELL: I've been in this game for 35 years. I've known players, I care about our players, I respect what they do on and off the field. Some of them I've known for 30 years when I worked for the Jets as an intern, and they're still my friends. They're going to be sitting with me at the game on Sunday. So I care about these players.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Finally, Carol, you gotta check out this kid. He may be the greatest 8-year-old rugby player ever. His name is Meaalofa Te'o. Watch him just dominate these kids playing rugby in Australia. I mean, if my son was playing against him, I would tell him, "Hey, come from behind and do a sneak attack, because there is no chance you're taking him down."

COSTELLO: I'd just stay away from that kid altogether. Those little guys were brave.

SCHOLES: They were.

COSTELLO: Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

SCHOLES: All right.

COSTELLO: And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello. "AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now.

[11:00:00]