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Fallout from CIA Torture Report; Officials: Khorasan Bomb Maker Still Alive; Security Tightened as Palestinian Official Laid to Rest; California Bracing for Powerful Storm; Bill Cosby Sued for Defamation

Aired December 11, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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


CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: CIA under fire -- the Senate scathing torture report fueling calls for the CIA director to resign. Anger from world leaders demanding accountability. The question, will Americans involved in the brutal Bush-era tactics face prosecutor abroad?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A powerful storm slamming Northern California this morning, heavy rain and hurricane force winds forcing bay area schools to close for the first time since 9/11. The massive rain-maker could be the strongest in a decade. What you need to know.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Miracle at sea, an incredible story of survival. A man survived two weeks lost at sea. We're going to tell you how rescuers found him and the bizarre twist when his family was told he was found alive.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY starts right now.

Good morning to you. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Thursday, December 11th, just about 6:00 in the east. Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here.

A big development, calls for the head of the CIA to step down. One lawmaker calling Director John Brennan and his agency liars, accusing him of obstructing the Senate and making a mockery of congressional oversight, this of course in the wake of the scathing Senate report on CIA torture tactics.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, the Justice Department ruling out any new investigations or prosecutions, they say, involving the spy agency. As former Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush-era officials vehemently defend the controversial interrogation tactics.

Let's bring in senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta for the latest from the White House. Hi, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn and Chris.

The White House is steering clear of the two big questions coming out of the torture report: should CIA officials be prosecuted for those harsh interrogations, and did that interrogation program even save lives? The White House just won't say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): With the debate raging over the fallout of the torture report, the White House is staying on the sidelines. Press secretary Josh Earnest refused to weigh in on whether CIA officials should be tried for interrogation tactics the president himself has described as torture.

(on camera): Do those details warrant going back and re-examining whether people should be prosecuted?

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Decisions about prosecution are made by career federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice.

ACOSTA: The Justice Department says the federal prosecutors who looked into the program won't be launching a new investigation based on the report from the Senate intelligence committee's Democratic chair, Dianne Feinstein.

Trial or no trial, the CIA has some big names coming to its defense, from former Vice President Dick Cheney, who blasted the report on FOX News...

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's a terrible piece of work. We did exactly what needed to be done in order to catch those who were guilty on 9/11 and to prevent a further attack; and we were successful on both parts.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: This report says it was not successful.

CHENEY: The report is full of crap.

ACOSTA: ... to the agency's former director, Michael Hayden.

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE CIA: What stunned me about the report most was the fact that it was written in the way it was written. It is an unrelenting prosecutorial document.

ACOSTA: Both men say the CIA is right in asserting that harsh interrogation techniques like those shown in the film "Zero Dark 30" actually prevented attacks and saved lives. But on that crucial question, the White House takes no position.

EARNEST: It is impossible to know the counterfactual, right? It's impossible to know whether or not this information could have been obtained using tactics that are consistent with the Army Field Manual or other law enforcement techniques.

SEN. MARK UDALL (D), COLORADO: The CIA is lying.

ACOSTA: Colorado Democratic Senator Mark Udall called on the president to clean house at the CIA. Udall said an internal review of the interrogation program conducted by former CIA director Leon Panetta found the agency repeatedly misled Congress about the brutal tactics. UDALL: The president needs to purge his administration of high-level

officials who were instrumental to the development and running of this program. For Director Brennan, that means resigning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: But the White House is saying that is not happening. White House press secretary Josh Earnest described Brennan yesterday at the White House briefing as a decorated professional and a patriot. And John Brennan will have a chance to defend himself when he holds a news conference over at the CIA later on this afternoon -- Alisyn and Chris.

CAMEROTA: That will be interesting. Thanks so much for previewing all that, Jim.

Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: There seems to be lot of moving in circles around this. So let's try to kind of zero in on what the allegations are and how they stand up under scrutiny. Let's bring in Bill Harlow, OK. He's a former CIA director of public affairs. He was with the department during the early years of the Bush administration. He is responsible for the new website, CIASavedLives.com.

Sir, thank you for joining us this morning. The headline for you would be based on what you named your website. If the CIA saved lives, it did it despite the tactics you were using rather than because of them. Do you accept that?

BILL HARLOW, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Not a bit, no. No, that's totally wrong. The reason those lives were saved was because the CIA was able to get valuable intelligence out of a handful of very senior terrorists and get it out in a timely fashion, which allowed us to take down the senior leadership of al Qaeda and rip it root and branch out of places where it had been festering; and we were able to stop numerous potential attacks that would have harmed the homeland and our allies abroad.

CUOMO: Understood, but the question of how you did it comes into play, using what is now regarded as a set of torture tactics that may not have helped forward your cause. Is that fair criticism?

HARLOW: No. No, it's factually incorrect. The tactics that were used on a handful of detainees proved enormously useful. The amount of information that came from these same detainees before they were subjected to enhanced interrogation and the amount that came out of them afterwards, complete difference. Enormously much more productive after the EITs for the hardest of the bad guys that we had in our custody.

These people weren't the type who would -- who would easily succumb to a good cop kind of situation where they -- you buddy up to them. And we didn't have the time to wait. We didn't have the time to sit around and see if they would eventually come around.

CUOMO: Right.

HARLOW: Remember what was going on at the time. This was at a time when we had word that bin Laden had met...

CUOMO: Sure.

HARLOW: ... with Pakistani nuclear scientists. We had Richard Reid lighting his shoes on fire on airlines. We had anthrax attacks in the United States while we were finding anthrax labs in Afghanistan. There was a ticking time bomb.

We had a handful of people we knew were involved in 9/11, and we felt with great -- excuse me -- confidence, might be involved in the next attack. And we didn't have time to wait around and see what we could learn from them, and we learned an enormous amount.

CUOMO: But it was exactly that motivation of desperation and perhaps haste that is the basis of criticism of the tactics now, that you were acting more quickly than intelligently.

Listen to John McCain and what he has to say about whether or not the extreme tactics produce good information, please.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I do know that, from any experience with this kind of treatment, that if someone is subjected to enough physical pain, that person will say whatever is necessary in order to make that pain stop. And that's why there's also a wealth of misinformation that comes out of people who are being subjected to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Truth?

HARLOW: The situation with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, KSM, the man who cut Danny Pearl's head off before he was captured and put into our custody. He was subjected to EITs, harsh interrogation, for a matter of a couple weeks, tough couple of weeks, but then he was in our custody for three or four years after that and provided a wealth of information. Much of it, almost all of it was accurate information, which was verifiable, which helped us take down al Qaeda cells across South Asia and elsewhere.

So it's a different situation, rather than somebody just stopping one second while their arm is being twisted to get you to stop. They were providing actual intelligence for years to come, information we could verify and check out, so we knew the value of it.

So it's not a fair comparison to say it's just like "Stop, I'll tell you anything to get you to stop the pain." It's not the way it worked.

CUOMO: Well, so basically, what I'm taking from you is that you condone the use of torture. You think it's effective, and you think that there was a good reason that it was on the table and used? HARLOW: Not at all, no. You're -- that's not my position at all. I

condone the use of harsh intelligence interrogations.

CUOMO: Is that another word for torture?

HARLOW: No, it's not, because these techniques were approved by the U.S. government.

CUOMO: But does there being approved make them not torture? The stuff you were doing with the hose and the guy who died of hypothermia and these other tactics?

HARLOW: Yes, the tactics that were approved were approved by the Department of Justice, specifically to be not torture. The CIA went back to them time and again and said, "Are you sure that this falls below the level of what would be torture?" And the highest levels of the U.S. government Department of Justice, who could make those decisions, said yes.

CUOMO: But don't you think one of the reasons you kept going back to the DOJ is because it didn't seem right to you, that they would be validating these types of procedures?

HARLOW: No. No, we went back to them, because sometimes public officials in the U.S. government would say things that sounded like they were backing away from it. And the CIA wanted to be absolutely sure that what we were doing was on solid legal ground.

So we would go back and get them in writing. On our website, CIASavedLives.com, you can see some of the actual documents where the CIA goes to the National Security Council and asks for the Department of Justice to verify, yet again, that we are within the rights, that we are not violating international law, U.S. law. And time and again, they would come back to us with those verifications. When they were slow to come back once or twice, we stopped the program, said we're not going forward until you assure us in writing that this is indeed the policy of the U.S. government, and it's legal.

CUOMO: If you could go back again, would you do it the same way?

HARLOW: Given the same set of circumstances in the same thrust that we had at the time, it would be entirely logical to do the same kind of things. I think -- there sure were some mistakes made, you know, some problems in the program, and we should have done a better job of writing down what members of Congress said back to us when we were briefing on it.

CUOMO: Do you think U.S. -- the U.S. should be engaged in the kind of tactics that are in this report going forward?

HARLOW: These kind of tactics should only be used in the most extreme circumstances. If you don't think sitting around after 9/11, hearing that there may be a nuclear attack on the United States, is an extreme circumstance, then you have a different definition than I do.

CUOMO: Mr. Harlow, I appreciate you presenting the other side of perspective on this. The conversation will continue. Thanks for being with us on NEW DAY.

HARLOW: Thank you.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. One of the most dangerous Khorasan operatives may still be alive after all. U.S. officials tell CNN that a French jihadist considered a master bomb-maker was likely not killed in a U.S. air strike. It's believed he was hurt, but that he received medical attention.

Let's get right to Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with more on these new developments. What do we know, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

You will recall the Khorasan group is that group of hard-core al Qaeda operatives in Syria. The U.S. has conducted several airstrikes against the group.

But now, two U.S. officials are telling us that they now believe one of the key operatives, David Drugeon, a French bomb maker with the group, did not die in an airstrike several weeks ago. They believe he is now still alive. This based on intelligence that they have been gathering.

Drugeon is a very serious concern as a bomb maker. He knows, they say, how to make weapons, explosives that can potentially get past airport screenings, so that is a major concern. Where is he? Is he still capable of functioning and making those types of bombs?

In addition, they now believe the leader of the Khorasan group, a man named Muhsin al-Fadhli, he too still alive, has not perished in any of the months of airstrikes against the Khorasan group.

So even as the war against ISIS inside Syria goes on, this unique, very dangerous group of al Qaeda operatives in Syria still being targeted by the U.S., but it looks like they haven't gotten any of the top leadership -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: It sure sounds like that this morning. Thanks so much for keeping us updated, Barbara.

There's more headlines. Let's get over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right. Good morning, guys.

And good morning to you at home. Security is amped up even higher in the West Bank as a senior Palestinian official who died during a clash with Israeli troops is laid to rest. In response, President Mahmoud Abbas has suspended all security coordination with Israel.

Senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is following the latest tensions for us, and he joins us live from Ramallah -- Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Michaela, the funeral for this minister in the Palestinian Authority has come to an end, but we've been hearing in the distance what sounds like stun grenades. There's an Israeli settlement not far from here, so it appears that clashes are already underway. We saw them yesterday, also, in the aftermath of the death of Zaid Abu Ein.

Now, this autopsy has come out for his death. Now the autopsy was, interestingly, conducted by Jordanian pathologists, who the Palestinian authority requested take part, as well as an Israeli team and Palestinians. But there seems to be disagreement over the cause of death.

The Palestinians are saying that it was the result of asphyxiation caused by the fact that he inhaled too much teargas. He was pushed and shoved and grabbed by the neck by Israeli soldiers, and as a result, he vomited and choked on his vomit.

The Israeli pathologists, who aren't signing the autopsy, are saying that it was caused by the fact that he has a weak heart and a heart -- he had a heart attack caused -- brought on by the stress of the physical altercation he had with the Israeli troops -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Ben Wedeman reporting from Ramallah. Thank you.

Back here at home will government lawmakers avert a government shutdown? That's a burning question today as the House gears up to vote on a $1.1 trillion spending bill. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle tucked in dozens of items into that legislation. But in an odd twist, Senator Elizabeth Warren is now urging progressives to not back the bill unless one provision is removed.

A desperate search is underway this morning for a California father and his four young children after a woman's body was found in the trunk of the family car. Police believe the body belongs to the boy's mother, Erica Perez. Her husband, Daniel Perez, is now considered a person of interest in this case. The boy's aunt gave a tearful plea, begging Daniel to bring them home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICIA VALDEZ, AUNT OF MISSING CHILDREN: Don't hurt them, please; they're innocent. Don't do this. Please, Danny, just drop the kids off. Please, you're breaking our hearts. We don't know where the kids are. They need us. Please, they need us right now. Please bring the kids back, Danny, please.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: The Perez family was reported missing Tuesday except for a fifth son who was with his grandmother. The family's Honda was found last night close to their home in Montevallo.

The NFL has a new personal conduct policy for its players. The league's owners unanimously endorsed the new policy. It takes effect immediately. The plan includes a more extensive list of prohibited conduct and calls for independent investigations. But reps for the players' union, they're not happy about it, saying they had no input on the revamped policy.

So obviously, we'll be hearing more about that as the players' union saying, "No, we didn't sign off on this. We had no input. We wanted to be at the table." So...

CAMEROTA: It's interesting. I mean, are the players supposed to have input into the laws that bind them?

PEREIRA: Right.

CAMEROTA: I don't know about that argument.

CUOMO: Well, it is just one side of it. It does seem that this once again is raising a lot of problems. We'll take them on later in the show, see what the league did and why and what the pushback is.

Another thing we've got to talk about this morning, but there's a storm that's set to slam into Northern California that, by any definition, is a monster. Heavy rain, hurricane-force winds. There are frantic emergency preparations going on across the area.

Let's bring in Chad Myers, meteorologist. Fair to say that this is a classic case of too much of a good thing? Because the place is parched by drought.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. No question about it. You want to get the drought fixed one inch of rain at a time, not six or ten inches at a time. And certainly they will have wind gusts on the top of the ridges, near Incline (ph) Village, Reno and Lake Tahoe, 120 miles per hour. But the storms in the northeast still isn't done yet, either.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS (voice-over): The fierce nor'easter still packing a wallop. The deadly storm claiming at least two lives. More than 30,000 people still without power Wednesday night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We expect to be continuing to work restoring power into Saturday.

MYERS: Residents digging out from nearly two feet of snow. On the roads, heavy snow and gusty winds made driving treacherous, causing multiple accidents, many cars stuck as police tried to help.

Traffic at a standstill, some 15 miles of Interstate 81 shut down for several hours.

This, as the West Coast braces for what could be the biggest storm in five years. Heavy rains already triggering flooding in Washington state. Some residents along the coast forced to evacuate As surging waves crashing into the eroding shore, leaving home after home destroyed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is incredible. This was wind-driven waves over the top of my deck. Wiped everything out. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS: And those waves continue. Some of those waves out in the ocean up to 16 feet high crashing onshore.

Back to the northeast here, we are still seeing snow in Buffalo, Toronto, all the way back into New York City. Kind of New York City for effect. But it could be a couple slick spots out there.

We did see some snow totals up to about 20 inches across parts of upstate New York and Vermont. And still, a couple of feet of snow possible in the town south of the Niagara frontier and Buffalo, New York, south of Buffalo all the way: Cattaraugus, Chautauqua County.

There's the storm in San Francisco. If you're flying to Sacramento or San Francisco today, expect major delays as winds are going to gust to 50 miles per hour. Planes don't like to land very quickly at 50 miles per hour. They want to space those planes out, which means your arrival rate and your departure rate will be going down. It means, you're not going to get as many planes on the ground as you would like.

Flash flood watches for the coast. Blizzard warnings for the higher elevations. High wind warnings. San Francisco could see winds to 60 or 70; that will bring trees down, that will bring power lines down. You're talking about 30,000 people in the northeast still without power. I expect that number to go up higher than that in California.

Guys, back to you.

CAMEROTA: A lot going on out there. Chad Myers, thanks so much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: Well, there's more fallout for Bill Cosby. A woman who says he drugged and raped her in the 1970s is trying a new strategy to hold the comedian responsible. We'll explain.

CUOMO: It's actually a pretty interesting theory. And you'll be surprised by it.

Now, did you hear about this guy: 12 days lost at sea? Getting word that the search for him was over. What did he do to survive? And listen to this, not only is he found, but word of the ordeal winds up creating a reunion for him you will not believe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: A new lawsuit has been filed against Bill Cosby by one of his accusers. Tamara Green says she was drugged and sexually assaulted by the comedian in the early 1970s. She's suing him now, but not for assault, but rather for defamation. The suit claims that Cosby's public denials defamed her and branded her a liar.

Tara Green's attorney, Joseph Cammarata, joins us live this morning from Washington, D.C. It should be said, no relation to me. Nice to see you, Joe.

JOSEPH CAMMARATA, ATTORNEY FOR TARA GREEN: Good to see you. Thanks for having me today.

CAMEROTA: OK. Explain why your client is not suing Bill Cosby for sexual assault, but for defamation.

CAMMARATA: Well, the statute of limitations, which is the period within which can you file a claim, with respect to sexual assault has expired. And so the only available claim at this point is one for defamation.

CAMEROTA: We are obviously on morning television, and the details of your client's alleged assault are graphic, but can you gingerly outline for us what she says happened in the '70s?

CAMMARATA: Well sure. What, as outlined in the complaint, is that she was invited to lunch, and was given some pills. She, as a result of being given the pills, felt woozy, unable to control herself. She was brought home by Mr. Cosby, and then she maintains Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted her.

CAMEROTA: So what has Bill Cosby said publicly about this that has defamed Tamara Green?

CAMMARATA: Well, he has said through his spokespersons, that those allegations are absolutely false, that he doesn't know Tamara Green. That this assault never happened in any way, shape or form. And that these are, in fact, discredited allegations.

CAMEROTA: Let me read for our viewers what Tamara Green has said about Bill Cosby. She says, "He called me a wrecking ball, but he never sued me for defamation. My statements against him were actionable if they were false. He didn't open that can of worms, because my statements were true."

So Mr. Cammarata, why has she waited so long to come forward with this claim of defamation in that case?

CAMMARATA: Well, that statement -- it seems that that statement was given on December 5, which was just recently. Frankly, she didn't know that she had available to her this type of claim. And we advised her that this was an avenue that was appropriate to be followed and pursued; to have her day in court; to have a forum where truth can be tried, where both sides can be heard on the issue of whether or not there was a sexual assault.

If there was, she wins. If there wasn't, Mr. Cosby wins. Each side will be able to get their witnesses and their evidence and present it to a jury, and the jury will decide.

CAMEROTA: So in other words, he will have to testify? He will have to somehow be deposed or go public for this lawsuit?

CAMMARATA: That's -- that's what's expected. Because at its core, the issue is whether or not Miss Green was telling the truth. If she was telling the truth, then when Mr. Cosby is called, publicly branded her a liar, as the complaint maintains, then he was not telling the truth. So it needs to be squared up.

And yes, the testimony of Mr. Cosby is relevant to the issues of whether or not he was there, whether or not he knew Tamara Green, whether or not he gave her pills, whether or not he sexually assaulted her. And so those are -- those are issues that are relevant to this lawsuit.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Mr. Cosby's camp, through his attorney, have called this false. Here's the statement that they've put out. We are very confident that we will prevail in this proceeding, and we'll pursue claims against the attorney who filed this action. They're not just pursuing a claim against Tamara Green; they're going after you.

CAMMARATA: Well, let them bring it on. You know, I -- let them take his best shot. I just think it's the M.O., their tactics. But we've got a case. It's been filed appropriately in court. We have a forum, like I said, where truth can be tried in our system of justice. We don't engage in hand-to-hand combat on street corners. We have a battleground. The battleground is in a courtroom. And so, if -- if supposedly we did something wrong, well, they can tell it to the judge, and the judge will take it up.

CAMEROTA: All right. It will be very interesting to see what develops with this defamation lawsuit. Joseph Cammarata, thanks so much. Nice to see you this morning.

CAMMARATA: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: Alisyn, Alisyn, this next story is like something out of a movie. Twelve days lost at sea, no food, no water, and then no hope as word came that the search was being called off.

This is what a 67-year-old fisherman endured off the coast of Hawaii. We have the story of how he stayed alive, and a bizarre twist in the story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)