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THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER

Secretary Hagel Resigns; Interview With Rear Admiral John Kirby; Ferguson Grand Jury Decision Is In; Protesters Prepare For Grand Jury Announcement

Aired November 24, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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


JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: So, Jeff, the American people have heard many examples of eyewitness testimony like the ones we just played. That's probably one of the reasons why the majority of people polled feel like Wilson should be indicted or should be a trial. What else is the grand jury taking into account beyond these witnesses that we've heard from?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, certainly, I don't want to minimize the importance of the eyewitnesses. Those are critical witnesses in this or any other case. So, certainly, they will have been heard by the grand jury. But there's also a lot of scientific evidence that could be enormously important here.

First of all, relating to the gunshots, where was Michael Brown hit? We've seen some of the autopsy evidence but not all of it. Also, how far away was Michael Brown when he was hit? That's a critical, critical issue. And there are ways that that could be identified through scientific tests. We don't know that.

Where were there bloodstains, if there were any bloodstains on the ground? Did it indicate where and when Michael Brown was shot? Also the nature of the confrontation at the car between Michael Brown and Officer Wilson, where apparently one or two shots were fired from his service revolver before he left the car. Is there any evidence about Michael Brown's DNA on the gun, for example? That's something that you will want to know if you're doing an investigation here.

The one thing I know for sure is that the grand jury knows a great deal more about this case than I do or any outsider does at this point. And we're going to learn more about what the evidence was in this case.

TAPPER: Mark, what about the way both sides, the Brown family and the representatives for Officer Wilson, what about the way they were notified? Can we read anything into Wilson's attorneys learning that a decision has been made before the Brown family's attorneys were notified?

O'MARA: We don't even know if the Wilson attorneys have been notified of anything in particular. The thought is they may have been notified if he has to surrender himself. For all we know, they have been notified and he has to surrender himself. I know there was some consternation or concern about the way the Brown family was notified. My understanding of the agreement from the prosecutor was that they would find out ahead of the general announcement of the indictment or lack of indictment, that they would let the Brown family, as the victim's family of the shooting, that they would let them know. So I don't know that that's been breached at this point. I know there was some concern that they didn't get told that there's going to be an announcement that you're going to be told. But I think my understanding is they were going to be told about the event and the decision before the rest of us find out about it. And that's appropriate.

TAPPER: Jeffrey, what about the fact that the evidence being kept secret so far in the grand jury proceedings, whether or not that evidence should come out for the public to see? What do you think the decision should be?

TOOBIN: Well, this is a really complicated question, because grand juries are usually secret. But the prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, has said if there's no indictment, he wants it all released, and he will ask a judge to release it. But it's not a simple process to release grand jury testimony. The witnesses all testified with the understanding that their testimony would be secret. Do they have a right to be heard from the judge before that judge makes up his or her mind?

Also remember, there's another investigation going on now. The federal government, the Justice Department is looking into this matter. Does the Justice Department want to say, look, don't release this before we complete our investigation? So it is not as simple as it might seem for a judge simply to snap his or her fingers and release all this testimony. You might want to hear from the witnesses and you might want to hear from the additional investigation going on whether all of them want the testimony public.

TAPPER: Jeffrey Toobin and Mark O'Mara, thank you so much for both of you for joining me. We have to take a very quick break. Much more from Missouri ahead. We're expecting to hear from Governor Jay Nixon in the coming moments as residents and police here are planning for the release of the grand jury decision in the case involving Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown.

Plus, the big questions today in Washington, was he fired? Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel resigning after fewer than two years on the job. Was it because of a disagreement with the president?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to "The Lead." I'm Jake Tapper, here in St. Louis County, Missouri, where the grand jury has reached a decision on whether or not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. More on that in just a moment.

But it has been a busy news day. We want to cover another important story in our politics lead. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has resigned, we're told, after fewer than two years on the job. The White House described the decision as mutual, but sources tell CNN that Hagel was essentially pushed out over ongoing disagreements and frustration he had with the exceeding level of micromanagement by White House officials, specifically the National Security Council when it came to the military strategy in Syria and Iraq. Republican Senator John McCain, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a radio station today that Hagel was cut out of the White House inner circle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZONA: They're going to say, well, it was time for a change and all that. But I can tell you, he was in my office last week, he was very frustrated. Already the White House people are leaking, well, he wasn't up to the job. Believe me, he was up to the job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Rear Admiral John Kirby is the Pentagon spokesman. Admiral Kirby, I am going to ask you as plainly as possible, was Secretary Hagel pushed out? Was he fired?

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: No, he was not, Jake. This was a mutual agreement that he and the president came to after a series of discussions that began as far back as late October about the future here for the administration, the last two years of the president's term. And both men agreed that a change in leadership at the Pentagon was probably appropriate right now.

TAPPER: I have to say if my boss, Jeffrey Zucker, were to call me into his office and say he thought that maybe it's time for a change of leadership on "The Lead," that would essentially, even at the end of the day it was announced as a mutual decision, it would seem like a firing.

KIRBY: Well, but it's not if -- not if both men agree that this is the right course of action. And the secretary said it very clearly today, he not only supports it, but he's the one who initiated the conversation with the president. The secretary was brought in to do a couple of things. But the main thing was to help the military transition after 13 years of war, get it on a firmer footing going forward, or at least as firm as it can be given all the budget uncertainty that we have right now, and he's done that. He's helped effect tangible changes to the rebalance in the Asia-Pacific, he's brought together a coalition of Middle Eastern nations to combat ISIL inside Iraq and also in Syria, and of course he instituted about a dozen reforms in the Pentagon -- nuclear enterprise, sexual assault, the medical health system. He's effected a lot of change here. I think the president said as much today at the White House. It's time now for a new leader to take those changes and move that transition forward.

TAPPER: What do you say to those allies of the president who say the president's foreign policy seems to be somewhat in shambles. Maybe Hagel's leaving because somebody had to go and it's not going to be Secretary Kerry, who's in the middle of the negotiations with Iran. It's not going to be the national security adviser, Dr. Susan Rice, she's a very close friend of the president. Hagel's just the next guy on the list, and there but for the grace of God?

KIRBY: No, I don't think that's exactly the case. Again, I think this was a series of discussions that the secretary had with the president. They both agreed that this was the right way forward for the Defense Department. And, again, the secretary fully supports this.

This isn't really about how we're going to finish the last two years of this term, the second half of this particular term, and the leadership focus that is required to take that forward. Again, there's been a lot of changes here at the Pentagon that Secretary Hagel has not only shepherded but led, changes that will need to now come into effect and be executed.

And I think both men agreed that a new leader here is probably the right answer to get those changes fully implemented and the Pentagon going forward.

TAPPER: Hagel's two predecessors, the secretary of defense, Leon Panetta and the secretary of defense, Bob Gates, have both in open in criticizing the White House for micromanaging, for having a very insular circle of advisers at the White House that don't let the secretary of defense in. Is it possible that Secretary Hagel just experienced the same problem that those two did?

KIRBY: The secretary has a close relationship with the president, and he considers himself a real partner and team member on the national security team. He's present at all the meetings. He effects and influences all the decisions. He knows he has a voice, and that voice gets heard at the White House and in the inter (ph) agencies. He's very confident about that. This isn't about policy disagreements or disputes. It's not about who had what seat in the room. Again, both the president and the secretary believe that this is simply the right time for him to go, and it's the appropriate decision to make for the Pentagon.

TAPPER: Rear Admiral Kirby, we always appreciate your coming on to answer our questions. Please send the secretary our best.

KIRBY: I will. Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: Coming up, live from Missouri, issues of race and justice magnified in the community after the death of Michael Brown. What is being done to fix this racial divide? That's next.

Plus, police are bracing for the possible violence to come. So what exactly are protesters planning to keep the peace once the decision is made public? I'll ask one activist coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Continuing with our national lead, we are live from outside the Justice Center in St. Louis County, Missouri, the county seat of Clayton. Any moment, we could learn the grand jury's decision on whether or not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. There are some, of course, very real fears here that if Officer Wilson is not indicted, that the tensions that have been simmering for months and months are bound to boil over.

Joining me now is CNN political commentators, Marc Lamont Hill and Van Jones. Marc, I want to start with you. There's been a big push to keep things peaceful, no matter what. Michael Brown's father is putting out a public service announcement. What do you think the reaction will be if there's not an indictment?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: My sense is that there will be peaceful protests. There will be a response. People say, will there be peace, I think peace is a reasonable expectation.

But I think that unrest and resistance is also a reasonable expectation. I've been talking to protesters for the last few days and what they've saying is they're organized and much more disciplined than they were in August. They're prepared for disappointment. They don't expect much and so their voices will be heard, but there won't be any violence.

TAPPER: Van, I want to ask you about some of the new polling we have from CNN that shows a significant disparity and opinions along racial lines on whether Officer Wilson should be charged, specifically with murder.

There are other numbers for manslaughter, but on murder, 23 percent of white Americans say he should be charged with murder, 54 percent of nonwhites. What do you make of that, Van?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think that people have very different experiences with the police. If your daily experience with police is they're basically respectful, they don't give you a hard time and treat you with respect then you would assume that maybe if somebody gets in trouble with the cops, maybe they had it coming.

African-Americans, Latinos and others unfortunately have a different experience all too often with the police. Why does this matter? It matters because you have a grand jury in this case that is majority white.

You could wind up with a situation where out of the 12, you have a 9-3 split and the three African-Americans went one way and all the whites went the other way.

If that gets leaked out, you have a very, very difficult time selling this to the American people. The only thing I have to say about the grand jury itself, if the prosecutor does not prosecute, it is very hard to get an indictment, period.

So this entire process really should not be the African-American community on trial. The justice system in this case should be on trial in the mind of any objective viewer. Why was the grand jury not given any direction? Does this prosecutor want first-degree murder, manslaughter? Nobody seems to know. I've never seen a grand jury handled this way. Every step that was made to make the system look more bizarre means that when the final outcome comes, it is not a vindication of the system.

It could be an indictment of the system and you're going to have a whole generation of young African-Americans and their allies who are bitterly disappointed. And that's a longer-term threat and problem than whatever happens tonight.

TAPPER: Marc, I want to get your reaction to a statement made by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on "Meet The Press" over the weekend. He was talking about Ferguson and the disproportionate number of white police officers on the force in a predominantly black community. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Ninety three percent of blacks are killed by --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me respond to that --

GIULIANI: I would like to see the attention paid to that that you are paying to this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hang on. All right, Mike, I'm going to stop it there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your response to that? We've heard that argument made by a few people over the last few weeks.

HILL: Yes. It feels like a red herring to me. I mean, it also mischaracterizes the position of people in Ferguson and around the country. People are upset when violence happens in Chicago or every place else.

But what makes Ferguson uniquely problematic is that people are being killed with impunity. That's the perception here. When black people kill black people in Chicago, they get arrested. They go to trial and go to jail.

The concern here and in Sanford and other places is that when law enforcement does it, there is no legal response that is fair and just. And so for most people here including the young activist I've spoken to, they want to deal with what's going on in Ferguson and the other issues dealing with black-on-black crime.

TAPPER: And Van, very quickly, your response?

JONES: Yes, 90 percent of blacks were killed by a black then 87 percent of whites are killed by whites. That is not the point. African-Americans have responded. Prince, the Rock Star, did a big concert in Chicago about the violence. People are concerned about violence on both sides. But we should be able to hold police to a higher standard than we hold gang members. That's not happening too often in America.

TAPPER: Van Jones, Marc Lamont Hill, both of you, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Coming up next, we've seen violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri. We know police are planning for unrest. So now that the grand jury has made a decision, what will happen tonight?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: I'm Jake Tapper live. Just a few miles away from Ferguson, Missouri, we're in the county seat, Clayton, where the grand jury was meeting and where they made their decision. We are waiting to hear what that decision is for our continuing coverage of the national lead.

As I said, the grand jury has decided whether to indict or not indict Police Officer Darren Wilson who shot and killed an unarmed 18-year- old, Michael Brown, in August. We could learn exactly what they decided any moment now.

But for now, the community here is, again, preparing for protests. Ashley Yates is an activist and a key voice that has emerged from the crowd of protesters. She joins me now live.

Ashley, you're all waiting for this decision. How are you communicating? Do you have some sort of text message? Meet at this place at this time? How are you going to decide how to protest, if it comes to that?

ASHLEY YATES, FERGUSON YOUTH ORGANIZER: We've been planning for weeks. We've known this is coming for 109 days now and we started planning very early and it's only progressed from there. We've trained hundreds of people in nonviolent civil disobedience. So we're ready and organized with an organized response whatever the outcome may be with this announcement.

TAPPER: Earlier today, I was talking to a St. Louis County police officer who said the problem was not the people of Ferguson. The problem is not even generally the people of St. Louis, although a few of them are problems, it's people from outside the area, from other cities and states coming in, using the opportunity of these protests to cause violence, to vandalize, to loot.

How are you going to stop those people or at least alert law enforcement to them so you can continue to protest peacefully?

YATES: I did not sign up to be part of the police force for a reason. That is not my job. My job is not to stop people that are going to commit criminal activity if that happens. That's the job of the police officers.

And I don't think that outside people are the problem. We had one day in which there were instances and we've had 108 days of peaceful protesting. We definitely saw at least a month of very heavy-handed police presence.

We saw a month of people being teargassed for exercising their First Amendment rights. The police are clear that they're mounting with weaponry against people who are only expecting to exercise their First Amendment rights.

So I definitely challenge the notion that the problem is people are coming outside to stand with the community and say, no more, not one more person can you kill or not be held accountable for under the system that you are supposed to be enforcing. They are not the problem. The problem is the police forces that are

mounting with this unnecessary show of violence against people who have been peaceful protesting and have proven ourselves to be peaceful.

TAPPER: All right, Ashley Yates, best of luck if you do protest, I hope it is a very peaceful one and a meaningful one. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I turn you over to Wolf Blitzer, who is in THE SITUATION ROOM.