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Comments On Texas Affirmative Action Case; California Shooter Possibly Tied To Convicted Terrorist; Police In Geneva Searching For Five Suspects; Questions Raised About Terrorist Marriages; Bergdahl Opens Up About Captivity; John Kasich To Talk About His Pledge; Bergdahl Breaks Silence; Interview with Sen. James Inhofe. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired December 10, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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


JOEY JACKSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: -- certainly is one that has been --

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And --

JACKSON: -- told to be not true.

BANFIELD: And it looks like those arguments are pointing towards affirmative action being wiped out. But you know what? We've been wrong before by listening to just the arguments.

Gentlemen, thank you so much. Appreciate it, --

JACKSON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: -- Paul and Joey.

Thanks for watching, everyone. Brianna Keilar is sitting in next for Wolf who's on assignment. They start now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar. Wolf Blitzer is on assignment. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in London and 8:00 p.m. in Jerusalem. Wherever you're watching around the world, thanks so much for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: this is CNN breaking news.

KEILAR: Up first, we have breaking news. More pieces of the puzzle surrounding the terrorists who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. The FBI is looking at a possible connection between shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook, and a convicted terrorist. Investigators now believe Farook had ties to a radicalized group that the FBI arrested in nearby Riverside, California.

And we have CNN Justice Reporter Evan Perez joining us live now to talk to -- to talk about this. So, walk us through this link here that you're seeing, Evan, between Farook and then this recruiter for this group.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, the key here, Brianna, is the fact this group was rolled up in -- they were arrested in 2012. Now that they've -- they're investigating Farook, the FBI is looking back. They're now going back and figuring out where he has ties. And one of the things that they have found is that he had ties to one of these members of this group that was arrested.

There was four men arrested, charged with attempting to travel to Afghanistan to join Al Qaeda in Riverside, California. And, in particular, one of them, his name is Sohiel Kabir. He actually was in the U.S. military, at one point. And he was a charismatic recruiter who radicalized this -- the rest of the group that was arrested back in 2012. There were actually five of them that were being investigated. Four were arrested. And Kabir was sentenced to 25 years in prison earlier this year.

And what the investigators have now found was that Kabir and Farook were in the same social circles, and they want to know more about that. They want to know whether or not there were tentacles already there, linking Farook, at that time. And who else was involved? Perhaps there are people who might be part of a wider network that might explain what happened in San Bernardino.

This is still very early in this investigation. But this is an amazing clue to find now because now they believe that this could help us explain, again, some of the links with radicalization that explains a little bit of what Farook was up to in 2012.

And, keep in mind, 2012 is also around the time Farook and his friend, Enrique Marquez, were allegedly coming up, dreaming up this plot that they --

KEILAR: Well, so, yes -- so, they were dreaming up that plot and they abandoned it. Is there some link between that and what happened in San Bernadino?

PEREZ: Yes, they believe --

KEILAR: Wow.

PEREZ: -- according to Marquez, this is what he's told FBI investigators, that the reason why they didn't go through with it was because of the arrest of these four men. And now, that explains it a little bit more, right, because they knew each other. At least Farook knew some of these people that were arrested.

KEILAR: Wow. And you know this is a story where it feels like you're pulling back the layers and there's going to be much more in the days and weeks ahead.

PEREZ: Exactly.

KEILAR: All right, Even Perez, thank you so much.

There is a manhunt that is underway in Geneva, Switzerland for five suspects related to the terror attacks in Paris. That is coming to us from a source that is close to the investigation.

CNN Terrorism Analyst Paul Cruickshank is tracking these developments from London for us. So, Paul, tell us what about these suspects that police are searching for? What do we know, at this point?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Brianna, we know a number. They are looking for five people in the Geneva area. We know there's a specific concern that they pose a specific threat in Geneva.

And we know that there's a suspected link to one of the recruiters from one of the attackers in Paris. One of those who blew himself up at the Bataclan. He was recruited by an individual called Murad Faraz. And this very same Murad Faraz, who's formally from the Lake Geneva area believed to be linked to these five people they're looking for in Geneva. So, one step removed from the Paris attacks. Not a direct link but one step removed.

They're, clearly, very concerned about this. They're ramping up security at the airports, at the U.N. and international organizations there. There was a key meeting on Syria between the Russians and the Americans that was going to take place in Geneva tomorrow. Local media now saying that is being moved now to another location and they're not revealing where that location is going to be.

They clearly don't have that much of a handle over where these people are otherwise they wouldn't be releasing this information to the public. They'd just go and arrest them. And that, of course, is quite alarming, given what we saw play out in Paris just a few weeks ago.

[13:05:02] KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is. All right, Paul Cruickshank for us from London. We know you'll keep following this story.

I do want to go back now to this fight against ISIS in the San Bernardino terrorist attack. The question that is now being asked, were lapses in intelligence a factor in this attack? Could authorities have done something more to prevent it?

I want to bring in Republican Senator Dan Coats of Indiana. He is a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence. He's joining us now from Capitol Hill. Senator, thanks so much for being with us. And perhaps you can shed some light on this. We've learned now that the FBI is looking at possible ties between the shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook, and a radicalized group. Is this something that intelligence should have picked up on? Was this a failure?

SEN. DAN COATS (R), INDIANA, MEMBER, U.S. SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: Our biggest concern has been groups that are self- radicalized, that are sleeper cells. We have a number of cases, many, many cases, where the FBI is in surveillance of individuals that we are attempting to watch to make sure they're not going to do an evil act, like what happened in San Bernardino. But we can't -- we're almost overwhelmed, in terms of providing the necessary surveillance.

We've compromised some tools, frankly, which I, and a number of us on the Intelligence Committee, opposed. But, unfortunately, we lost those tools that would give us the opportunity to better find out what these connections were, not after the attack but hopefully before, so that we could prevent that. So, I think Congress has some work to do and the administration has some work to do to beef up and provide the resources to both the FBI and our intelligence agencies to, hopefully, prevent these types of things. But they're out there and it's a reality that we have to deal with.

KEILAR: Senator, when you talk about tools that you no longer have, are you talking about the Obama administration's adjustments to, really, the degrees of information and communications that they are able to really seek from people in the U.S.?

COATS: Yes, I am. And what we're finding out here postmortem, those tools are reaching back several years, now to even 2012. We've compromised that reachback to two years under this plan that was supported not only by the president but by several members of -- enough members of Congress to pass this. Also, the possibility to get this information very, very quickly.

Think about Boston. We use that ability to track a phone number which allowed us to learn that that person was not talking to a foreign terrorist and the threat we thought was going to take place in New York we could eliminate.

So, it is a tool that can be very, very helpful in times of both quickly learning whether or not something else is going to happen and also giving us the information that -- who is talking to terrorists? What are they saying? And this is not a breach of people's privacy. If you're talking to a foreign terrorist, this tool can be very, very helpful.

KEILAR: But do you --

COATS: If you're talking to your grandmother or friend --

KEILAR: -- I'm sorry to interrupt you on this, Senator, because I want to really -- I want to pin this down. Do you have definitive evidence that because of some of those adjustments in surveillance, that is the reason why clues were missed here in this specific case?

COATS: No.

KEILAR: OK.

COATS: No, we don't. It is one of many tools that we have. The question is, how do we -- should we be compromising ourself and putting ourself at more of a disadvantage in learning these kinds of things? And I think this is something that Congress and the Executive Branch has to re-examine based on the votes and the mischaracterization of how these tools are used. They are not used to invade anybody's personal privacy. They are used to find out if they're talking to people who are known terrorists.

KEILAR: OK. And I do want to ask you about something that Senator Lindsey Graham said. He raised questions about the marriage of this husband and wife team. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Is there any evidence that this marriage was arranged by a terrorist organization or terrorist operative or was it just a meeting on the Internet?

JAMES COMEY, DIRECTOR, FBI: I don't know the answer to that yet.

GRAHAM: Do you agree with me that if it was arranged by a terrorist operative of an organization, that is a game changer?

COMEY: It will be a very, very important thing to know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, you, as a member of the Intel Committee, do you think that this was a marriage arranged by terrorist leaders? And, if so, what are the ramifications beyond this, if that?

COATS: Well, there were ifs in that statement and we don't know, for sure, whether this is the case. But I agree and I think our intelligence community would agree that if it is a provide -- arranged effort through a terrorist organization to create the situation where it looks like this is a normal couple trying to have children, raise their children as a family, be responsible citizens, that is just yet another detriment to our ability to detect something that's happening here.

[13:10:00] We're -- a lot of people watched "24" and "Homeland" and so forth. And so, we're are aware of the fact that people are -- whether they're citizens of the United States that have been self-radicalized or whether they are connecting through social media with ISIL, they pose a threat to us. And I think the more we can learn about their methods and tactics, the better chance we have of trying to prevent these things from happening.

KEILAR: Senator Dan Coats, we really appreciate your time.

COATS: Sure.

KEILAR: Thank you so much.

COATS: Thank you.

KEILAR: And coming up, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl is speaking out, for the first time publicly, about his nearly five years in Taliban captivity. We'll have his explanation for walking from his post and why he's comparing himself to the movie character, Jason Bourne.

And then, later, Republican presidential candidate, Governor John Kasich, is going to join us live. We are going to ask if he has any regrets about signing that pledge to support the Republican presidential nominee now that Donald Trump is widening his lead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:15:05] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SGT. BOWE BERGDAHL, U.S. ARMY: I'm a prisoner. I want to go home. You know, the men, Afghanistan men who were in our prisons, they want to go home too. It's - just let me go. Get me to come home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: For nearly five years, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was imprisoned by the Taliban. And the circumstances around his 2009 capture were somewhat unclear, even after his captivity ended last year with a controversial prisoner swap and the details really remained hazy of it.

Now Bergdahl is breaking his silence and he's speaking to Mark Boal. That is the screen writer behind movies like "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Hurt Locker." The interview, released in part today, on the new season of the wildly popular podcast "Serial." He told Mark Boal that he walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan with the attention of bringing awareness to bad leadership there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERGDAHL: What I was seeing from my first unit all the way up into Afghanistan, alls I was seeing was basically leadership failure to the point that the lives of the guys standing next to me were literally, from what I could see, in danger of something seriously going wrong and somebody being killed. Now, as a - as a private first class, nobody is going to listen to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.

BERGDAHL: So, nobody is going to take me serious if I say an investigation needs to be put underway, that this person needs to be psychologically evaluated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He says within 20 minutes of leaving the base, he knew that he had made a mistake but he didn't turn back. And then within 24 hours, he was captured.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERGDAHL: And a line of motorcycles, probably about five motorcycles, might have been a couple guys on the back of a couple of the motorcycles. There was probably at least six or seven guys with their AK-47s.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BERGDAHL: There I was in the open - open desert and I'm not about to outrun a bunch of motorcycles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BERGDAHL: And so there - you know, I couldn't do anything against, you know, six or seven guys with AK-47s and they just - they pulled up and that was it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But they said you fought like crazy.

BERGDAHL: No, I didn't. I'm - I'm not stupid enough to try and fight off, you know, all's I had was a knife. I'm not stupid enough to try and knife off a bunch of guys with AK-47s.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: For the first time, Bowe Bergdahl also talked about life in captivity and its psychological toll.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERGDAHL: It's like this mental, like, you're almost confused, you know? There's times when I'd wake up and it's just so dark. Like, I would wake up not even remembering, like, what I was. You know how you get that feeling when that word is on the tip of your tongue?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BERGDAHL: That happened to me, only it was like, what am I? Like, I couldn't - I couldn't see my hands. I couldn't do anything. The only thing I could do was, like, touch my face. And even that wasn't like, you know, registering right, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BERGDAHL: To the point where you just want to scream. And you can't - like, I can't scream. I can't risk that. So it's like you're standing there screaming in your mind in this room. You're standing like in this black and dirt room and it's tiny. And just on the other side of that flimsy little door - wooden door that you could probably easily rip off the hinges is the entire world out there. It is everything that you're missing. It is everybody. Everyone is out there. You know, that breath that you're trying to breathe. That release that you're trying to get. Everything is beyond that door. And, I mean, I hate doors now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I want to bring in our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto to talk about this.

This was - I listened to this podcast this morning. I know you listened to it. And I think one of the things that sort of sticks out is this idea that he thought he was going to trek 18 miles to a bigger base to try to - almost like a whistleblower kind of fashion. What really jumped out to you?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It was a fantastical explanation, or at least an idea that he had, right?

KEILAR: Yes.

SCIUTTO: There's this thing called a DUSTWUN, it's duty, status, whereabouts unknown. He thought that by going off the base this is declared, in a war zone like this, everyone's alerted up to the CIA, the government. He figured by drawing attention that way, somehow he's going to draw attention to the bad leadership that he alleged there in that first - in that first comment. Which is - it's just a remarkable thing that you would imagine might work, you know, particularly in light of the risk that you're taking in the area that you're in, in that country. I mean it just - it's almost nuts, right, as you listen to that.

[13:20:00] The other thing that struck me is just, you know, whatever the military decides about his case, this is a human story. This's a young American from Idaho who spent five years in a dark room held by the Taliban, not knowing if he was going to survive. And you heard that in some of his comments. You know, I hate doors now. Screaming in the dark. I mean this must have been -

KEILAR: In his mind, right, because he said he couldn't scream out loud.

SCIUTTO: In his mind. Scream in his mind, exactly.

KEILAR: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I mean just - it was torture, right? I mean the guy went through torture for five years. But he did have this kind - it seems - I don't want to say inflated sense of self, but he had this idea that he was going to somehow prove himself. Listen to another comment about how he was saying he wanted to prove what kind of soldier he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERGDAHL: I was trying to prove to the world, to anybody who used to know me, that I was capable of, you know, being that person.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like a super soldier you mean?

BERGDAHL: Yes, I'm capable of being what I appeared to be. Like doing what I did was me saying I am -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

BERGDAHL: Like, I don't know, Jason Bourne.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

BERGDAHL: Right. So I had this -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A character in a book or whatever, a character.

BERGDAHL: Yes. So I had this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world that, you know, I was the real thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: To be Jason Bourne. I mean and he - when he says fantastic there, I don't think he's thinking a great idea. He had an idea of fantasy, right -

KEILAR: A fantasy, clearly.

SCIUTTO: Which he regretted, as you said earlier, 20 minutes after he walked off base.

KEILAR: And yet he didn't go back to the base. So this idea of the DUSTWUN, he acknowledges that he knew he would be pulling troops away from other things, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: So this is sort of an acknowledgement that he knew there would be an all hands on deck to come after him, that it would be somewhat disruptive to the mission of U.S. forces there.

SCIUTTO: Well that wasn't - his intention was to be disruptive. In effect, he was - he imagined himself sort of a whistleblower, right?

KEILAR: Yes.

SCIUTTO: And he was drawing attention to bad behavior there that, in his view, was endangering lives. So that, in his view, in his mind, that, you know, pulling all those resources in was, in his view, somehow solving a problem. And again, but think of the enormous risks, too. And, of course, he faced the consequences of that.

KEILAR: Yes, well, it's really fascinating at a time when he's facing some charges.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: So we'll continue to watch each week and I know you will, I will.

SCIUTTO: Listen - yes, to listen, yes.

KEILAR: Jim Sciutto, thanks so much.

And still ahead, we have heard Sergeant Bergdahl's reason for leaving his military post, but is anyone really buying it?

Plus, the U.S. strategy to fight ISIS, is it working? We're going to put those questions to the senator member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator James Inhofe, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Welcome back.

[13:26:46] KEILAR: Welcome back.

Before the break we heard Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in his only interview explain why he left his base in Afghanistan in 2009 and what it was like to be held by the Taliban for nearly five years. I want to bring in Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe. He is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thanks so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

SEN. JAMES INHOFE (R-OK), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Nice to be with you, Brianna.

KEILAR: And you've actually said that Bowe Bergdahl should be charged with desertion. That is one charge that he's facing. He's also facing another charge that would carry a penalty of lifetime in prison. I know you've been briefed on this podcast. In it we hear that Bergdahl is alleging that he was seeing this leadership failure in his army unit and that he was leaving his post to draw attention to that. Do you believe his explanation?

INHOFE: No, I don't. You know, he's had a lot of time to think about this and how he's going to plead his case and that's exactly what he's doing. One thing that I get upset with him about is that - that he is detracting - distracting us from the real issue, and that is turning the five terrorists loose. I mean these are the worst of the worst. And everyone's concerned about Bergdahl.

Now, that decision, Brianna, is going to be made by the Army, by the military. And I'm glad I'm not making it because I've already made up my mind. I go in as a - go in biased. But I would say, having been in the Army, I know when you're assigned to something, you have to carry through with that duty. They were pulling people off to take care of the problem of Bergdahl. And so, you know, I don't see a - I don't see that I could be unbiased.

KEILAR: OK, well, but let me ask you about this because the Army is going to make a decision. General Abram specifically will make this decision. And at this point, you hear from those officials who are presiding over this and it doesn't seem like they have a lot of interest in bringing charges or even some sort of punitive measure of discharge against Bowe Bergdahl. I -- knowing that, I mean, what do you think about that? Where it seems like if you read the tea leaves, nothing's going to happen.

INHOFE: Well, I think they ought to have General Odierno in there. Someone who knows what it's like to be on the ground, to depend on these guys when things really get tough and to know the harm that is done if there's any form of desertion. There's several forms of desertion. So my recommendation is, you bring in Odierno and you'll get justice.

KEILAR: One of the officials - or the investigator looking at this said that Bergdahl is delusional and some have said, you know, specifically Bowe Bergdahl's attorney has said that the Army bears some responsibility for this. This is a guy who flunked out of Coast Guard basic training after a month and then the Army took him in, even though he'd been judged to have an adjustment disorder with depression. Is this only Bowe Bergdahl's fault? Are there other people who bear some responsibility here?

[13:29:43] INHOFE: No, I'm sure there are, Brianna. There are people out there, there are bleeding hearts out there, that are going to want to make sure that nothing goes - but keep in mind, a lot of those people who are people who are not pro-strong military anyway. I'm talking - not talking about the Army, who's going to be passing some judgment. But they're out there and they're always for somebody who is disruptive. And I can cite a lot of cases. And disruptive is a good word to use because he was disrupting something that was very significant to - look, Kay and I have 20 kids and grandkids. I'm concerned about their safety. I'm concerned about what's happened to the military.