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CNN NEWSROOM

Man Arrested After Jumping Fence at White House; Manhunt Underway for Alleged Cop Killer in Pennsylvania; Search Continues for Missing University of Virginia Student; Former Governor Convicted for Corruption Running for Congress; NFL Domestic Abuse Scandal Continues

Aired September 20, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, everyone. I'm Fredericka Whitfield. We start this hour in northeast Pennsylvania where as many as 400 law enforcement personnel are helping in the search for suspected cop killer Eric Frein. Overnight against a backdrops of shots fired and residents on lockdown, there was a report that police had surrounded an area where they thought Frein was hiding. But the man authorities say shot and killed one state trooper and wounded another last week is still free. Jason Carroll has more on the suspect police describe as a survivalist who wants to kill again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Pennsylvania state police are piecing together a profile of a man they're calling a killer, 31- year-old Eric Frein.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This fellow is extremely dangerous.

CARROLL: Pennsylvania police commissioner Frank Noonan describes him as a man with a mean streak who had separatist leanings, a love for guns, and a hatred of law enforcement.

COMMISSIONER FRANK NOONAN, PENNSYLVANIA STATE PATROL: His head is shaved very closely on the sides and with long hair on top. It's wider than a Mohawk. He was last seen with no facial hair and was wearing a brown and gold windbreaker, khaki shorts, and sneakers, carrying a dark green backpack.

CARROLL: They also have determined Frein belongs to a military simulation group known as an air soft gun team. This particular group reenacted the role of eastern European soldiers during the cold war and simulated combat.

LT. COL. GEORGE BIVENS, PENNSYLVANIA STATE PATROL: In his current frame of mind, Frein now appears to have assumed that role in real life.

CARROLL: Investigators also say Frein was socially withdrawn and had made angry statements about police to people he knew.

NOONAN: That's one of the real focal points of our investigation is why now, why Blooming Grove? We really don't know, but we're talking to everybody that we can find who might have any information concerning that.

CARROLL: Investigators spent much of the day not only searching for Frein but also interviewing his neighbors, his friends, and family.

Investigators continue to come in and out of the Frein home. Also right outside here, you can see there's a state patrol car keeping guard as well. The suspect lived here with his parents, the suspect's father telling investigators that two weapons are missing from the house, an AK-47 and a rifle.

Investigators found a book in his bedroom titled "Sniper Training and Employment." His father, an army veteran, told police he trained his son to shoot and that he "does not miss." These pictures from Frein's high school yearbook from his senior year show him on the school's rifle team. His quote, "I feel that we could have done a lot better in matches this year if it wasn't for the fact that in anticipation for the rifle team being canceled."

Frein's love of guns and the military continued into adulthood. He is well known for walking around the small community of Canadensis in full military uniforms.

ELAINE, FAMILY FRIEND: He was a very serious young man. He always wore green. I always thought he was in the service.

CARROLL: Elaine did not want to give her last name. She runs a gardening store in town and says she has known the family for 10 years.

ELAINE: I was devastated. And it didn't surprise me, I guess.

CARROLL: Why didn't it surprise you?

ELAINE: I guess because my children are so outgoing. You know what I mean? When my kids meet you, hello, how are you, they shake your hand. You know, they're very outgoing. This young man was not. And I do think that, you know -- but the mother's very sweet. I don't know the father.

CARROLL: When you say he wasn't outgoing, was he withdrawn?

ELAINE: I think he was very quiet, and he did not speak when he came in.

CARROLL: Now a town on edge as police continue their manhunt.

Jason Carroll, CNN, Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And the White House Secret Service detail is investigating how a man jumped the fence, ran across the north lawn, and then barged right into the White House last night. No one was injured in the incident and the president and first family had had just left the grounds on a marine helicopter. Well, today agents searched the grounds to ensure there were no explosives or other devices that may have been dropped on the grounds during that incident.

Now to a separate search for a University of Virginia student. More than 1,000 volunteers are looking for Hannah Graham today. It has been one week since she went missing. Last Friday around 11:00 p.m., Hannah left dinner with friends in the Charlottesville area. Then a few hours later she sent a text to her friends saying that she was lost. No one has heard from her since.

Let's go now to CNN's Jean Casarez in Charlottesville, Virginia. So Jean, what are police willing to say right now?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is an amazing community effort today. I mean, we're hearing 1,500 people, they got here this morning to the John Paul Jones arena. They went out group after group to search anywhere they could in this community to try to find Hannah and bring her home.

I just spoke with one of the searchers that got back. She told me that she went to a very desolate, wooded area that's right here in town. She said the grass was almost as tall as she was, and she said that they came upon wildlife, two deer, two foxes. There was a creek next to them. They were told to look for articles of clothing, any personal effects of Hannah herself.

But this missing persons investigation I think really was interesting today because they did not retrace the steps of Hannah that surveillance cameras had gotten, but they went to parts of town where there were abandoned buildings. There were manholes. They searched in dumpsters. They continue to search right now, and the focus everybody is saying, bring Hannah home to her family.

WHITFIELD: And then, Jean, what is this about other women who have gone missing in the area? How recently are we talking?

CASAREZ: You know, that's one thing that's really propelling a lot of the people come and search today. Yes, they want to bring Hannah Graham back home, but also others, too. Morgan Hannity is a young woman that went missing in 2009 from right here where I'm standing at the John Paul Jones arena. They went to a Metallica concert, and she left at the intermission. They didn't allow her to come back into the arena. It was believed that maybe she tried to hitchhike to get back home because this is sort of out in the middle of nowhere. And her body was found several months later on a very desolate farm. But people are telling me too many young women, and others beyond her from gone missing from this area. Route 29 corridor is what they call it, this area. They say it has to stop and it must stop now.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jean Casarez, thank you so much. Keep us posted.

CASAREZ: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: A former biker and boxer turned double agent for the CIA. Next, we'll give you a glimpse of his life inside the world of Al Qaeda.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: It's a spy story like none other. He went from radical Islam to top-secret agent, helping to fight Al Qaeda from the inside. Here's Nic Robertson with a sneak peek of his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: When we look at the rise of the Islamic state, ISIS in Syria and Iraq, one of the ways of tackle them is through agents, agents who can penetrate the organizations, who know where the leaders might be to allow the leaders to be targeted.

Morten Storm was one of those people, who had been a boxer, who had become a biker, had been in and out of jail, then converted to Islam, then became radical. And while he was radical, he was preaching jihad. He was getting to know senior figures within Al Qaeda. And that was making him incredibly valuable to the intelligence services. They tried to recruit him at one point. He rejected them.

But then he goes through this sort of fundamental change where he realizes that Islam that has been taught, this violent type of Islam, is wrong, and he loses his faith in Islam and he literally goes to Danish intelligence agents and says I want to help you. I want to do something to defeat this terrorism. And really that made him so valuable not just to Danish intelligence, the CIA, to MI-5 and MI-6 in Britain as well. They were both using him, using his contacts, he said, because of all the senior figures in Al Qaeda that he knew, and that allowed him, he said, to play a significant role in killing as many as 30 of these terrorist leaders within Al Qaeda and other groups.

And for the CIA and for MI-5 and MI-6, he was for a period of time, a significant player. He says that he played a significant role in bringing down the American-born cleric Anwar al Awlaki who is inspiring terror attacks not only in the United States, not only in Yemen, but also in Great Britain as well. Although that was contested in the end, he says that he played that role, and really, it was the argument over what role he played there that caused him to give up his work as a spy.

But it is agents like him who have the contacts, who come in and tell intelligence services that they want to work for them that present the possibility in tackling groups like ISIS at the moment.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Glasgow, Scotland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: To learn more about the Al Qaeda terrorist who switched sides and became a spy to help the west win the war on terror, tune into a CNN exclusive special report, "Double Agent, Inside Al Qaeda for the CIA." That's tonight, 8:00 eastern on CNN.

Still ahead in the Newsroom, in the bayou state they call him the silver fox. Edwin Edwards served four terms as Louisiana governor, then he did time for corruption, but that's not stopping him from running for U.S. Congress.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, Louisiana is known for, say, its colorful politics and politicians, including 87-year-old former governor Edwin Edwards. Despite serving time in prison for corruption he wants to go back to U.S. Congress where he once served. CNN's chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, talked with Edwards about his plans and his chances.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It's Sunday morning at the New Life Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But the man preaching to the choir is no minister.

EDWIN EDWARDS, (D) LOUISIANA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: My god is not finished with me.

BORGER: He's Edwin W. Edwards, ex-four-term governor, ex-four-term congressman, and ex-con.

EDWARDS: I may be old and rancid butter, but I'm on your side of the bread.

(APPLAUSE)

BORGER: Unrepentant and unapologetic, Edwards is in church not looking for forgiveness but for votes, because at 87, after almost nine years in prison, the flamboyant showman of Louisiana politics has a fresh act, running for Congress.

EDWARDS: Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

BORGER: Co-starring his new 35-year-old wife and their one-year-old baby.

Can you tell the story of how you two met?

TRINA EDWARDS, WIFE OF EDWIN EDWARDS: You want his story or do you want my story?

BORGER: Trina Grimes began at Edwards' prison pen-pal which led to love at first visit.

TRINA EDWARDS: I was expecting him to be angry or bitter, and he just wasn't.

EDWARDS: She said, "If you don't mind, I only live 30 minutes from here. I'd like to come back and visit you." That's like throwing a rubber raft to a drowning man.

TRINA EDWARDS: He was so full of life and he had such a good time, even in the situation that he was in. It was really an amazing thing. I've never known anybody like that before.

EDWARDS: We agreed to stay together when I got out. And when the gates opened for me to leave, she was there with open arms. And we haven't spent a night apart since.

BORGER: After marriage, along came Eli, a miracle of science. So now Edwards is the father to children in their 60s, a wife half their age, and a baby.

TRINA EDWARDS: He changes diapers. He bathes him. He puts his clothes on him. He feeds him.

BORGER: What's your secret?

EDWARDS: I never smoked, never used tobacco products of any kind, never used alcohol. Now, nobody believes that. Nobody believes that, but I never used alcohol. And it all boils down to two things, genes and moderation.

BORGER: What if they say you're kind of, you know, this is ridiculous? You're in your 80s?

EDWARDS: They said that when I announced that Trina and I were going to have a baby. But you know, I have living proof that they're wrong.

Edwards went to prison after a felony conviction for extorting millions in exchange for riverboat gambling licenses. After serving his time, he's now living in a suburban chateau with reminders of himself as a younger governor. And the silver fox loves motoring around the neighborhood in a golf cart.

EDWARDS: You're only as young as the woman you feel, and brother, it's fun feeling her.

BORGER: If this seems like reality TV, it was, briefly.

TRINA EDWARDS: I'm the governor's wife.

BORGER: So tell me about doing a reality show. What was that like?

TRINA EDWARDS: It's horrible.

BORGER: Horrible?

EDWARDS: It was unbelievable.

BORGER: They admit they're a bit of an odd couple.

EDWARDS: We're having fun.

BORGER: And it's not just about age. Trina is a Republican, and Edwards is an old-time populist Democrat --

EDWARDS: If it weren't for you, I'd be the only old man here.

BORGER: -- who wants to return to Congress exactly 50 years since his first stint there.

So when the seat came up, what went through your mind?

EDWARDS: That's my chance. I got a second chance, and I'm going to take it. And I'm going to surprise everybody.

BORGER: Were you for this congressional race?

TRINA EDWARDS: Not particularly. I would naturally support him whatever he chose to do, but it's really not my thing.

BORGER: So what about people who also say he's a convicted felon, why do I want to send him to Washington D.C. to represent me?

EDWARDS: People say, they're all being crooks anyhow, you might as well send an experienced one. All this crap about how crooked I am and what I stole. Nobody's ever charged me or accused me of taking money from the taxpayers. It had nothing to do with my career as a public official, nothing.

BORGER: A local political columnist -- I'm going to read this to you -- said, "He is asking for forgiveness for making us a laughing stock for so many years."

EDWARDS: I don't pay any attention to it, and I don't think many people do.

Some things that are known about me are not too good.

JEREMY ALFORD, EDITOR, LAPOLITICS.COM: He has talked about this until he's blue in the face. And he knows if he keeps talking about it, it becomes noncontroversial.

EDWARDS: I would be much better off financially if I behaved myself and stayed home with my wife and my baby. But that's not what turns me on. It's not what I was born to do. I was born to serve people.

BORGER: If Edwards had his choice, he'd be running for governor again, but he has to settle for a federal office because felons can't run for Louisiana state office until they've been out of prison for 15 years, when Edwards would be 98.

If you live long enough, you can run for governor.

EDWARDS: You're right. It would please my friends and shock my enemies.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, that was CNN's chief political analyst Gloria Borger, a very interesting race there. Of course, we'll be watching and keeping you posted what happens come November.

All right, "CNN MONEY" is coming up next. Christine Romans is here with a preview. Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Fredericka. The NFL's financial fumble, some sponsors distancing themselves from a league that's in turmoil right now over domestic violence. Is the biggest money machine in sports at risk?

Plus, the space race is back, and you won't believe what Elon Musk says about Boeing, wow. That's at 2:30 p.m. eastern, brand-new "CNN MONEY." Fredericka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right, minutes away. We look forward to that. Thanks so much, Christine. And we will be right back, too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, let's take a look into the future right now, years from now. How will we be getting to work and back? Richard Quest has the answer in our new series "Tomorrow Transformed."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hail a cab, buy a bike, own a car -- the traditional ways of getting around town which, in the future, could look quite quaint. Today the smartphone is our vehicle from getting from a to b. Transportation has embraced new technologies, but widen our choices in ways we couldn't have imagined even a decade ago. Just touch the screen and a car arrives. Scroll through the maps and find a bicycle waiting for you.

Vehicle sharing is growing around the world. It's a reflection of a reality that we all have different transport needs at different times. Sam Acrilono is living this new life. He bought a bike, got rid of his car, and now shares vehicles of all types such as Uber. You book on the app, monitor the car's arrival, and someone like Thaddy Golan is driving the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's innovation. It's technology.

QUEST: Car-sharing companies like Zipcar wouldn't be possible without hefty technology in the background.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not easy to always know where your cars are. And our vehicles are kited with technology that allows us to understand where cars are when they're in trouble.

QUEST: This revolution is moving fast, ready to take advantage of whatever technology offers us in the future.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, cool stuff. Thanks so much to Richard Quest for that. And thanks so much for spending part of your day with us. I'm Fredericka Whitfield. "CNN MONEY" starts right now.