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CNN NEWSROOM

Questions Over Eyewitness; Hagel: ISIS Threat "Unlike Anything We've Ever Seen"; How to Track Down ISIS

Aired August 22, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much. Have a great weekend. NEWSROOM starts now.

(START VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Home and the calamity, a quiet night in Ferguson as new questions emerge about one of the key witnesses to the shooting. Will someone's past throw the Missouri town back into chaos?

Plus, sleeping in America. The terrorist group ISIS and new details on their threats. Do they have cells right here in the United States? New questions and new concerns. There are fighters with western passports coming into our way. Let's talk, live in CNN NEWSROOM.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We do begin in Ferguson, Missouri, where Dorian Johnson, the young man who was with Michael Brown when he was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson, finds himself under knew scrutiny this morning. The 2011 mug shot is surfacing, along with revelations that Johnson was busted in 2011 for theft and for making a false police report. A warrant is currently out for his arrest in Jefferson City, Missouri. Johnson's attorneys are slamming the news saying any questions about his client's past are irrelevant and what he saw on the day Michael Brown died matters. My colleague, Chris Cuomo, talked with Dorian Johnson's attorney. He joins me now from Ferguson.

Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Good morning, Carol.

Irrelevant to what is the real question here. Remember, you know, this is attorney talk that's really going on. Is what happened that day, and the shooting, is a criminal past relevant to that. In the case of Dorian Johnson, of course not. He was a witness and then he was a potential victim in the shooting. Of course he was never shot at.

However, his testimony and whether he's believable, OK, now his credibility is highly relevant. So these questions about his criminal record and what that record is specifically, because it involves lying, could be highly relevant to his credibility, especially if there's a trial. And that's why we talked to his lawyers about it and here's what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Did you know anything about your client's criminal background before today?

JAMES WILLIAMS, ATTORNEY FOR DORIAN JOHNSON: You know, the client's criminal background is really a red herring here. This is a case where you have two innocent, unarmed citizens walking down the street who eventually had to flee for their lives unarmed with their hands in the air. Criminal background or not, everyone is entitled to constitutional protection. This police officer can't be judge, jury and executioner. Criminal record, history, A student, honor roll, whatever it is, the point here is that you can't gun down innocent people.

CUOMO: Understood. Credibility, however, key, especially in assessing testimony. When they hear about the criminal background and the types of crimes involved, do you think it hurts your client's credibility?

FREEMAN BOSLEY, JR., ATTORNEY FOR DORIAN JOHNSON: I think it's something that they may take into consideration. But, remember, he met with the FBI, the Justice Department, the prosecutor's representative, detective, and at that time, over a week ago, he laid out his whole life to them. They asked him about his criminal background. They asked him about the matter that he had a warrant out against him. He talked to them about it at length and in detail.

CUOMO: If you are counsel, if this goes to trial, OK, and your client comes up and takes the stand and says what his testimony is about -- let's start with the robbery. He had no idea what was going on. He doesn't know why Mike Brown did what he did. And an opposing counsel says, you had no idea? Haven't you been charged with a larceny before? Haven't you been charged with making false statements to the police before? Isn't that very damaging?

WILLIAMS: Not at all. His credibility in this case has nothing to do with what he's been charged with in the past. It has to do with what he saw here, seeing his friend get murdered in cold blood by a police officer.

CUOMO: You would have to be naive, though, council, to think that this won't try to be used against your client out here but also in a court of law.

BOSLEY: Oh, you - and since you opened that door, let's go on in the room, OK?

CUOMO: And that's the right phrase. That's a legal expression people won't know -

BOSLEY: Yes, that's right. You opened that door -

CUOMO: But when character happens, if you open the door to saying you have good character, then they attack you and say you have bad character with exactly something like this. BOSLEY: OK, and let's open that door and come in the room.

CUOMO: Please.

BOSLEY: And let's talk about the issues. What did he do? What is it that he was charged with? He was with a group of guys that went into an apartment building. While they were there, somebody grabbed up a few pieces of mail. They went to the YMCA to work out a little bit. Somebody reported that they took some mail. The officer comes to the place where they are. He says, what's going on here? They wind up charging him with taking some -- a piece of mail. Then they ask him, well, who are you? They've got already two pieces of his I.D. They say, are you Dorian Johnson? He said, no. And then they charged him with making a false statement. Now, see, all that's going to come out, too, and we'll see what the jury thinks about that.

CUOMO: But to do devil's advocate, you know why I'm asking you.

BOSLEY: Oh, absolutely.

CUOMO: I hear all of it. I accept all of it. and as opposing counsel, they will say, yes, he's a liar, the kid's a liar. I can't believe what he's saying here. He's just saying what's convenient. What does that mean?

WILLIAMS: What it means is this, in the jury system - and, unfortunately, that's what's happened in this process. If we have two -- we have two young men chased after, to be hunted down by a police officer, one of them murdered in the street, and this becomes about their past or this becomes about what happened at a store? That -- none of this is what it should be about. And that's exactly what I would tell any opposing counsel who wanted to bring up these things. I would say, of course you want to distract from the truth because the truth is two innocent young men were fleeing for their lives when one of them got gunned down right there in the street for no reason at all.

Now, his past certainly doesn't justify that. Being in the store picking up a few cigars, if that even happened, doesn't justify that. Nothing justifies that. And that is what I would say to anyone who tries to make this about a past or character or reputation, let's make it about justice. Let's make it about the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: And that's going to be the big tension here, Carol. And it's not uncommon. This is how the system works. Testimony is a function of credibility. However, you want to distinguish whether or not someone's believable from whether or not they were at fault in a situation. You know, what happened to Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson, because he was there and he was in a position of potential danger there, at least at one part of the pursuit, that has nothing to do with who they are. But the credibility is ultimately going to be relevant to judging his testimony and that's why we wanted to put these questions to council to give them the chance to put the best foot forward.

COSTELLO: All right, Chris Cuomo reporting live from Ferguson. Thank you so much.

So let's talk a little bit more about this. If the case goes to trial, Dorian Johnson will be the star witness, much like Rachel Gentile was in the Zimmerman trial. You remember Gentile, she was the last person to talk with Trayvon Martin before he was killed. It wasn't long before Gentile and her alleged shortcomings became the story and some say damaged the prosecution's case.

In Ferguson, Dorian Johnson has now become the story. The question is, if this case goes to trial, will Johnson's criminal past hurt the case? With me now CNN legal analyst and former New York City homicide prosecutor Paul Callan and CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor and Sunny Hostin.

Welcome to both of you.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

So, Paul, this kid, what, stole some mail and lied about his identity to police. How damaging is this really?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, in the grander scheme of things you would say it's a pretty minor thing. This is a murder -- this maybe is a murder case. We don't know if there's going to be an indictment. But the way it plays out in a courtroom is very, very different.

A very good cross-examiner will break this down into a lot of small questions, saying that you lied to the police, you lied when you knew it was going to affect a court proceeding, you lied to help yourself, and now you're lying to help your friend. And I think, in the end, the way it would affect a jury - and, by the way, people should understand the grand jury will probably hear nothing about this. This is only if it goes to a jury trial because the prosecutor probably won't bring this out in front of the grand jury. But people sometimes judge you by who you hang out with and one of the things that they're be looking at, in addition to whether he stole the mail and lied to the cops and he lied about his name and he lied about his age. He tried to make himself look younger so maybe he would be handled more leniently, maybe as a juvenile in this proceeding.

But they're going to look then at Michael Brown and say, well, this is who - you know, he just allegedly committed this robbery and this is the guy he's hanging out with. It kind of harms them from a character standpoint in the eyes of a jury.

COSTELLO: Sunny really wants to jump in.

HOSTIN: You know what's troubling to me actually is that we're having so much coverage showing mug shots of Dorian Johnson and talking about his credibility when we haven't seen anything about this police officer, Darren Wilson. We haven't heard his account. We haven't seen any incident reports being released. And now the narrative is Dorian Johnson isn't credible. And I think what we need to be talking about is the fact that Dorian Johnson wasn't charged with the robbery in this case. The fact --

COSTELLO: Well, let's go back to the surveillance tape.

HOSTIN: But one second -

COSTELLO: I'm glad you brought that up.

HOSTIN: Yes. But also that Dorian Johnson is not the only one saying the same thing. By my count, and I read a lot of accounts yesterday and saw a lot of these witnesses to this incident, all of them are saying the same exact thing that Dorian Johnson is saying. Very few inconsistencies with all five eyewitness, you know, accounts. And so to suggest --

CALLAN: And that depends on which television show you see them on though, Sunny.

HOSTIN: But it's true. But to - but to suggest somehow that Dorian Johnson isn't credible when there are four other people that are saying the same thing is just ludicrous.

CALLAN: They're all - they're all on television (INAUDIBLE) story.

COSTELLO: Well - well, let's - let's pause for just a minute -

CALLAN: Right.

COSTELLO: Because I do find it interesting that in that convenience store surveillance video with Michael Brown, and let's show it, let's put it -- there it is. OK, you can see Johnson clearly refusing to steal the cigars. There's Michael Brown. He's picking up the cigars.

HOSTIN: But we don't know what's going on.

COSTELLO: Well, but, remember, police did not charge Dorian Johnson with any crime in this incident. They said he was not doing anything wrong.

CALLAN: He's not going to get the Congressional -

COSTELLO: So does that matter?

CALLAN: He's not going to get the Congressional Medal of Honor because he wasn't helping in the convenience store robbery. But my point -

HOSTIN: But we don't know, Paul, what was going on.

CALLAN: Well, I -

HOSTIN: We don't know if there was a robbery there. We don't know anything. All we have is a little bit of video. We have nothing.

CALLAN: Listen, I've looked at this film. I've looked at this film many times.

HOSTIN: So have I. CALLAN: And he - he -- Michael Brown reaches out -

HOSTIN: There's no audio.

CALLAN: Grabs -- he grabs with his hand, throws the owner back into the wall.

HOSTIN: What if he paid for it? What if he had paid for it and the owner is accusing him of stealing it? What about that?

CALLAN: Are you really going to say that to a jury?

HOSTIN: Well, what about that?

CALLAN: Are you going to say that to a jury?

HOSTIN: What if that's what happened? Do you know that that's what - that isn't what happened?

CALLAN: I'm just relying on common sense, Sunny.

HOSTIN: You don't. You don't.

CALLAN: And I know how - you know, I know who juries react to fact patterns. And it's certainly, if you look at that film, it kind of looks like he's using force to retain property. That's robbery in the second degree, punishable by five to 15 years in prison.

HOSTIN: We - we don't know that. We don't know that. Because if it was really a robbery then Dorian Johnson would be charged as an accessory.

CALLAN: Well, not necessarily because -

HOSTIN: Yes, he would.

CALLAN: No, you know, he - you would have to prove that he co- conspired.

COSTELLO: And there's - so we kind of are getting a sense of what might take place in court if this case goes to court.

CALLAN: In court. It's going to look exactly like this, yes.

COSTELLO: None of this, as you said, will likely be brought up before the grand jury.

CALLAN: Not before the grand jury, no.

HOSTIN: No. No.

COSTELLO: But Dorian Johnson will testify before the grand jury, right?

HOSTIN: He should and I suspect that all of the other witnesses that have very consistent accounts will also testify. And I actually suspect that Officer Darren Wilson will also testify, although it's not his right to testify, I suspect he will.

COSTELLO: I suspect he will, too. Sunny Hostin and Paul Callan, it was very interesting. Thank you so much

CALLAN: My pleasure. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the parents of murdered journalist James Foley say they underestimated the brutality of ISIS, as chilling details are revealed of the last e-mail from the terror group. We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel laid out the threat from ISIS saying in no uncertain terms that the terror group poses a real threat to America, quote, "unlike anything we've ever seen." That leaves the U.S. in a quandary, trying to obliterate the threat, while at the same time trying to free American hostages still held captive. In the meantime, the parents of James Foley are speaking out this morning about the e-mails they received from ISIS. You know, ISIS was trying to bargain for their son's life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN FOLEY, FATHER OF JAMES FOLEY: Well, we hadn't heard from Jim's captors since December. And, you know, I actually was excited to see an e-mail, despite the conclusion that they would execute Jim. We -- I underestimated that point. I did not realize how brutal they were and I actually hoped we could engage in negotiations with them, if they were willing to send us any sort of communication, because we'd had none prior.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know that -

DIANE FOLEY, MOTHER OF JAMES FOLEY: The last time we had heard from them was in December, actually. In December we had received several e- mails, but then they stopped communicating. And so we were just anxiously waiting. We had established a special e-mail just, you know, and sent multiple messages hoping to engage them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: We're also learning new details about the contents of those e-mails, including the final threatening message sent to Foley's family just ten days ago.

It reads in part, quote, "You do not spare our weak, elderly, women or children, so we will not spare yours. You and your citizens will pay the price of your bombings, the first of which being the blood of an American citizen James Foley. He will be executed as a direct result of your transgressions toward us."

The e-mail also mentions ISIS' desire to get back this woman, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, known as Lady al Qaeda. She's an MIT-educated neurosurgeon who is currently serving an 86-year sentence in Texas for attempted murder and firearms charges stemming from an attack on soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan. Of course, that will never happen. The United States does not negotiate with terrorists, at least most of the time.

That means the hunt is on. The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation. And in Britain, it's an all-out manhunt.

Peter Neumann is the director of the study of radicalization and the president of security studies at King's College. Welcome, sir.

PROF. PETER NEUMANN, KING'S COLLEGE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being here. You say it is possible to determine where James Foley's execution took place. You say it's probably Racca, Syria. Why?

NEUMANN: Yes, so there's a history of terrorist and insurgent movements holding their hostages in the places most secure, the safest places from their point of view. That's Racca. Of course, in addition, we've seen the background in that gruesome video, and that background, the vegetation that we've seen, is matching the vegetation in Racca. In addition to the fact that a lot of foreign fighters, like the British guy who did the execution, are known to stay near Racca.

So I'm not 100 percent confident, but I'm fairly sure it must have been around that area.

COSTELLO: CNN has done stories on Racca, the little town in Syria. It was once known as a liberal town but ISIS fires terrorized people. They've killed dozens of people there and they essentially took it over. It's so dangerous now, reporters can no longer enter the town. Is this where you think the other hostages are still being held?

NEUMANN: I'm assuming that all the hostages, or at least several of them, are being held in the same place, and that they are being looked over by a number of foreign fighters. It is very important for them to be able to communicate with them, and I guess that only British or Australian fighters would be able to speak to them in fluent English. So yes, I presume they are also there.

COSTELLO: The terrorist who wielded the knife, we can see his eyes and his hands. Is it more likely he'll be identified by what we can see on his persons or by his presence on social media?

NEUMANN: So I think it's a combination of both. We know that a lot of foreign fighters, especially the westerners, are using social media very aggressively. They are still on Twitter. They are still on Instagram, on Facebook. They are talking to each other by WhatsApp.

They're posting a lot of pictures, and I presume the security and intelligence services are looking at these pictures now, and they're trying to narrow down the number of potential suspects down to a number that is perhaps manageable, maybe 10, 15, based on his height, on his build, on the shape of his fingernails, the fact that he probably is left-handed. We can see that from the video.

There's a lot of clues in that video that allow them, through a process of elimination, to come down to a smaller number.

COSTELLO: Back to social media for just a second, because it does seem ISIS is unafraid of being found out on social media. They tweeted CNN security analyst Fran Townsend after the air strikes began in Iraq. They posted Foley's execution on YouTube. Can you use these things to track these terrorists down?

NEUMANN: Absolutely. And at my institute, we're doing that to some extent. I would expect the intelligence services to have much greater means of analyzing the content, also hacking into accounts to be able to establish locations.

But also, importantly, it will be very interesting to security services to monitor the chatter after the publication of the video, because you can expect that this guy who did the execution was known by other foreign fighters and probably some of them are talking about this on social media right now. And it takes only one to reveal his identity in order for them to be able to identify him.

COSTELLO: All right, keep up the good work and thank you for the insight. Peter Neumann, we appreciate it.

NEUMANN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Tracking down Foley's executioner could force the United States to take action not only in Iraq but Syria. We'd have to deal directly with ISIS, and ISIS is mainly in Syria. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel outlined the immediate threat seen from the terror group.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything that we've seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Beyond anything that we've seen. So let's talk about that. We're joined CNN military analyst General Spider Marks and former Secret Service agent Evy Poumpouras. Welcome to you both.

EVY POUMPOURAS, FMR. SECRET SERVICE AGENT: Good morning.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks, Carol

COSTELLO: General, it just astounded me that Chuck Hagel termed this group that way: it's beyond anything we've ever seen before?

MARKS: Well, it's beyond any terrorist organization that we've seen before. We've conventional forces obviously that have these capabilities, but this is a terrorist organization that has now migrated and has assumed, as its foundation, a lot of conventional capabilities through their ability to capture U.S. equipment that's in Iraq, to galvanize, recruit, and to train to levels of precision that we've not seen in terrorist organizations. And we've been stating this for quite some time and Secretary Hagel is absolutely spot often on; he's stating what we're seeing, which is well-trained, well- funded, very galvanized and, in the execution of their tasks, these individuals work as a group, and as organizations, and as teams.

This is exceptionally -- beyond the command and control aspects, what you see at the execution level is exceptionally well-trained folks. So we have to approach this and not put ISIS in a category that demeans them or at least allows us to feel in some way that this is a mob, a thug group, a group of ill-trained savages. This is an incredibly well trained group of savages.

COSTELLO: Scary stuff, because, as everyone knows, Americans are still being held hostage by this group. So, Evy, how does the United States go about rescuing them?

POUMPOURAS: So you're going to have to look at this from two different standpoints. One standpoint is dealing with ISIS, and the other standpoint is trying to rescue our hostages.

The best ways to do that is to try to establish better relations with Syria, with working even backdoor deals somehow, and in addition to that you want covert hostage operations. You want our special forces to go in on the ground and extract them. That way we get our people at least out of harm's way; we deal with from that angle, and then while we're trying to deal with ISIS simultaneously.

COSTELLO: OK, so, General, let's talk about Syria. It's not like Bashar al Assad is the United States' best friend at the moment. We don't like him, right? So how do you conduct air strikes over Syria, if that's what we need to do?

MARKS: You don't ask for permission. Carol, you just identify targets, ensure that your intelligence is extremely precise, and then you go after them. If that's the means by which you are going to attack ISIS, is from the air -- and, right now, that makes sense, because we can attrit them, we can reduce their capabilities, and that can give Iraq and the United States and other neighbors in the region some time and some space to go after this more strategically.

But right now we have a tactical requirement to stop what they are doing. Then with he need to galvanize and make sure we have ourselves a strategy that's clearly articulated, people can sign up for, and then we start the effort at trying to attrit them. We really have to go after them tactically, very aggressively right now, almost beyond what we're doing right now. We need to increase these air strikes if we're not going to put anything on the ground.

And I'm not just talking about U.S. boots on the ground; I'm talking about friends and neighbors in the area and very precise strikes.

COSTELLO: All right, and a last question for you, Evy, because I've wondered about this. The U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into the criminal activity by this group, namely the executioner of James Foley. What can the U.S. Justice Department do?

POUMPOURAS: They don't do it by themselves. This is not the way an investigation will work here in the U.S. They're going to work collectively with the military, with the Pentagon, with all the different forces gathering intelligence, CIA.

Also they talked about social media before. These groups -- ISIS is using social media also to get their message out and to recruit. Hit them where it hurts. That's how they're getting people to recruit. They're getting all these young people -- we have Americans and Europeans. The Brit -- Britain has a serious problem with that. They have nearly 2,000 British individuals who have been recruited by ISIS. That's the problem. So now we're not just trying to deal with ISIS itself contained in Syria; now we have to worry about Europeans and Americans who are being recruited. That's where you have to focus.

COSTELLO: Evy Poumpouras, General Spider Marks, thanks to both of you for your insight. I appreciate it.

MARKS: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, ISIS is making a larger footprint in the Middle East, but can the terror group really -- do they have sleeper cells in the United States already? Brian Todd is tracking that part of the story, next. Brian?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We've learned from intelligence sources ISIS has cells in Europe and we're looking at the possibility they could develop cells in the United States. I'll have that story just after the break.

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