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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Drone Mystery In New Jersey Prompts Security Concerns; ABC Report: NY Grand Jury To Hear Evidence In CEO Killer Case; Trump Named Time "Person Of The Year" For Second Time; Syrians Search Morgue For Missing Loved Ones; 3 More Men Accuse Sean "Diddy" Combs Of Rape, Sexual Assault. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired December 12, 2024 - 16:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Of course, the legendary actor turns 99 tomorrow. So from our friends here at CNN, happy birthday to Dick Van Dyke. He looks great for 99.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: He's doing great. Sounds great.

Can we get another picture of Bobo? Put Bobo back up here.

Boris, that's just how cats look. Bobo is happy. He's fine.

SANCHEZ: Is he happy?

KEILAR: He's just a cat.

SANCHEZ: Well --

KEILAR: THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Someone knows something about all the drones over New Jersey. But who?

THE LEAD starts right now.

A slew of questions about mysterious drone sightings flying in clusters, going dark when approached. Should Americans be worried? Should the U.S. military shoot them down? Why haven't they? Who's controlling them? The truth is out there.

Plus, President-elect Donald Trump's banner day, scoring the cover of "Time Magazine" as Person of the Year, and ringing in the trading day as he lays out his aggressive agenda, from tariffs to immigration to international affairs, bound to shake up politics and the world.

Plus, after pardoning his own son, President Biden sets a record today, granting clemency for 1,500 people. But some Democrats in Congress still say this is not enough. And some might point to hypocrisy in a possible White House standoff on the issue.

Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. What on Earth is flying in the skies above Jersey, and why do we not

have any answers by now? Well, the U.S. intelligence committee community today, in a private briefing told lawmakers that they do not currently suspect foreign involvement. This is still the subject of a federal investigation and, frankly, growing concern among the public.

Since November 13th, when night falls in New Jersey, residents have started spotting dozens of mysterious drones flying overhead. Some are described as the size of bicycles, some the size of small cars. Sometimes they're in clusters, sometimes they move in a zigzag pattern and evade police helicopters when approached.

The sightings are widespread in the New York metro area of New Jersey. Even the U.S. Coast Guard said one of its vessels encountered the drones. These drones were spotted near a U.S. military research facility and over President-elect Donald Trump's golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. That prompted the FAA to issue temporary flight restrictions.

Now, you might think this would expedite some real answers from public officials, but right now, this is pretty much all we're getting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL SPOKESMAN: We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Okay, so then what are they?

CNN's Omar Jimenez has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA ROSSETTO, WITNESSEDDRONE: What are they? Who's sending them up there? What are they doing there? Why doesn't anybody know what they are? You know? And why New Jersey?

JANET MOSNER, NEW JERSEY RESIDENT WHO WITNESSED DRONES: They actually flew in a circle around our building, both of them, and then across, and then disappeared.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The FBI is now investigating weeks of reported drones over New Jersey. That's according to a document given to state and local officials, as a growing number of people report seeing drones, some described as six feet in diameter, flying in the skies.

NICK TECCHIO, STUDENT WHO WITNESSED DRONE: You see like red and green, like flashing lights on the like the corners. It'll just change direction, like go from like 90 to like 270 degrees, just like fly in different directions, and planes obviously can't do that.

JIMENEZ: There have been questions about when these drones first started popping up. Reports seem to vary, but the Picatinny Arsenal, which is a military installation in northern New Jersey, has confirmed sightings in the area going back to November 13th, and public officials are starting to get frustrated.

MAYOR SAM MORRIS, MINE HILL TOWNSHIP, NJ: They're creating so much fear and uneasiness in the public.

MAYOR MICHAEL MELHAM, BELLEVILLE TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY: They appear to actually avoid detection by traditional methods. So when our helicopter, our state police helicopter has gotten close, lights go off and they go away.

JIMENEZ: So far, authorities have stressed there is no known threat to the public. That's not enough for some.

BRIAN BERGEN (R), NEW JERSEY STATE ASSEMBLY: It's really concerning and quite frankly, it's not acceptable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ (on camera): And he went on to say that if this was someone just a hobbyist doing it, given all the media coverage, he thinks that person would have come forward. Now, we do know from a source familiar with the briefing given to members of Congress that the us intelligence committee, community and federal law enforcement do not currently suspect foreign involvement.

But without a confirmation as to what is actually going on, you understandably have a lot of skeptical people. Now, to give you an idea where we are right now, when the sun goes down, we are told by many people in this part of New Jersey, in Denville, New Jersey, that this is where they typically see the drones, that they typically come from over that direction. They say they see them most nights.

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So when the sun goes down, we're going to keep our cameras rolling, see if we can catch a few of these. But almost everyone we talked to had either seen one of these personally or know someone who has seen them. It definitely is a big phenomenon here.

TAPPER: All right. Omar Jimenez in Denville, New Jersey, thanks so much.

Let's get some expert opinion now from CNN senior national security analyst and former Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Juliette Kayyem.

Also with us, Brandon Valeriano, a professor at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. And Pramod Abichandani, a professor and head of the Advanced Air Mobility Lab at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Juliet, to you first. The Pentagon says these drones are not from a foreign entity and do not appear to be the work of an adversary.

Then the governor of the state says there's -- there's no cause for alarm. How would they know that? How would they know there's no cause for alarm? How would they know that they're not from a foreign adversary if they don't know anything else?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's right. I -- I wouldn't say that if I were the governor for mostly because they already are a public safety threat. Look, our skies are highly regulated because of the concerns about national security and public safety. You have an FAA, you have drone rules. You have all sorts of regulations and no fly zones that protect the airspace.

You now have these things and ill leave it to my esteemed other guests about their opinions, about what they could be that want to evade detection. We don't know where they're coming from. And we and they're near airports. They're near the president-elect. They're near metropolitan areas.

I would not say that they pose no threat to public safety. They pose no present threat to public safety. But their mere existence is concerning. And the fact we can't figure out, given all of our investments in protecting our airspace since September 11th, that we cannot figure out what they are is -- is curious. And let me just say one more thing about the foreign threat.

The foreign threat may be easier to detect because we would see something coming. We would have satellite other things coming over the ocean. So I would think if we don't see that, it is more likely that it is a domestic threat, but it still may be a threat.

TAPPER: Let's go a little into the theories about what these may be. Some of these reports turn out to be planes or helicopters. So obviously that is just a misunderstanding by the public. But others remain unidentified.

And, Brandon, you say there's no nefarious intent happening here. Instead, just some drone enthusiasts. Why do you think that?

BRANDO VALERIANO, PROFESSOR, SETON HALL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIPLOMACY: Well, I think this has all the signs of a hobbyist. At this point, I think it might actually be viral marketing in some sort of slam marketing where they're trying to gain attention and gain as much prominence as possible.

But the reality is, no ones going to come forward anytime soon because they're racking up a serious amount of fines with the FAA, and there will be serious consequences for this activity. So I think whoever doing this is going to lay low. And of course, its not that the DOD doesn't know who is perpetrating this, it's just that we haven't actually tried to figure out who's responsible for this.

And I don't think anyone's taking it very seriously in the national government, because its not really clear that this is a serious issue.

TAPPER: Pramod, you track advanced air mobility for a living, and you think that this is likely all tied to commercial or U.S. military operations? Tell us why. PRAMOD ABICHANDANI, PROFESSOR & HEAD OF ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY LAB, NJ

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: Yeah. For many reasons, one of them being, again, these drones seem like the electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, EV tall vehicles, just the battery life on these drones does not allow them to go long distances. I mean, they can go beyond visual line of sight, but, you know, beyond the kind of things we are reading in the news, it's -- those are long range drones, and these don't look like those.

Secondly, to fly drones, you know, there have been the individual drone sightings, which is fine. There's a lot of people who are individual drone owners, like a single one off type drone pilot. But when you're flying a group of drones, which is where my research is, it's called swarms. It requires a lot of technical wherewithal. It also requires a significant amount of funding and a team.

You know, one person cannot do everything when it comes to flying multiple drones. You need to coordinate ground operations with flight operations.

And all of this makes me believe that this is a team of smart people that know what they're doing with the drones. And as my colleague said, it almost seems like they are. They are sort of relishing the media attention that they're getting right now.

In reality, they are being very transparent. They're saying, look, here's -- here is our drone, here are where we're flying. And that's about it.

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And, you know, if there was somebody who had a pretty serious or nefarious or antisocial type agenda, I would not want to get detected or have so many eyewitness videos being taken.

TAPPER: And, Juliette, if these are just commercial drones, why wouldn't the U.S. government just come out and confirm this so that residents would be put at ease?

KAYYEM: They probably haven't been able to confirm it yet, and are probably -- are trying to do so. The FBI is lead -- also suggesting that it has a domestic nexus, as well as looking at the private sector.

And again, this may not be a national security threat. It may just be a joke or people testing stuff or, or advertisements. But we do have a regulatory system covering our air spaces because bad things can happen in the air if there's an airplane nearby, if two of the drones crash into each other and, and have debris on the ground so it can still serve as a public safety threat, even if there's not some nefarious foreign or national security threat.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks to all of you.

Later on THE LEAD, what elected leaders are being told about these drones as they try to get answers? I'm going to ask one member of Congress.

Plus, yet again, brand new sexual assault accusations against Sean "Diddy" Combs, three new lawsuits. But these are much different than many others filed before now. And we'll tell you why.

But first, the case that has captivated the country, the mounting evidence in the CEO murder. I'm going to talk about it next with a DNA expert and a former FBI profiler.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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TAPPER: In our national lead, ABC News is reporting that New York prosecutors are already presenting evidence to a grand jury in the case against the CEO killing suspect Luigi Mangione, and that evidence is mounting against him. Police say that marked shell casings from the crime scene in New York matched the gun found on the suspect in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that he was arrested with a handwritten claim of responsibility letter and that the suspect's fingerprints matched some that investigators found on key items nearby, the wrapper of a kind bar and a bottle of water, I believe.

Let's discuss with CeCe Moore, genetic genealogist and founder of the company DNA Detectives. Also with us is Mary Ellen O'Toole, a former senior FBI profiler and special agent.

CeCe, in terms of forensic evidence, do you think that fingerprint match is sufficient? How might DNA play a role in a case like this?

CECE MOORE, GENETIC GENEALOGIST: It appears they have lots of different types of forensic evidence. We haven't heard yet about DNA, but I strongly suspect they will also have DNA evidence. They might have touched DNA on the bullet casings and almost certainly they will have DNA on the water bottle and possibly be kind wrappers as well.

And so I think they're amassing many different types of forensic evidence, and it won't rely on just one -- one of the types.

TAPPER: Mary Ellen, the suspect, had gone quiet from at least a few folks who appear to have been close with him at one point, including his mom, who had not spoken with him since July 1st.

What do you make of that? And what are investigators doing, do you think, to try and make sense of those months that he fell off the grid?

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Yeah, I think those months where he disconnected with family and friends are going to be critical. So going back and looking over what we do know about him, he disconnected from his job in '22. He disconnected from friends in '23 and then his mother six months before something was going on with him during that period of time. And I'm talking something that is over and beyond his medical condition. And then you've got this behavior that were seeing where he has this

outburst that takes place in front of the jail, and then compare that to a lack of outbursts that occurs when he's shooting the person. I think now all of these behavioral clues are starting to add up to, I think, some kind of emotional issue that goes well beyond the health the -- the back situation.

TAPPER: And, CeCe Moore, the suspect's defense attorney, Thomas Dickey, yesterday dismissed the ballistics and fingerprint evidence revealed publicly. He says he wants to examine himself.

I want you to listen to what he told CNN's Erin Burnett last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS DICKEY, MANGIONE'S ATTORNEY: Those two sciences in and of themselves have come under some criticism in the past relative to their credibility, their truthfulness, their accuracy, however you want to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What do you say to that?

MOORE: I think that's his job, that he is the building a defense already in the media. But as this different forensic evidence builds up, it will be more and more difficult to do. This isn't 1995. Juries understand forensic evidence, particularly DNA. And so, even if he is able to cast doubt on some of the forensic evidence, it seems that it's going to be very difficult to be able to do that with all of it.

TAPPER: And, Mary Ellen, most people who we've heard from who know the suspect say that it's unimaginable that he would have done something violent, that this just is completely out of character.

I know its just speculation at this point, but what's your theory right now as an FBI profiler, as to what happened to spark this violent turn?

O'TOOLE: Well, and again, I think that that violent turn would have happened somewhere as he starts to break away from his friends and from his family and from his job, it's unclear to me exactly what had what would have prompted that. But it does seem that what's going on with him is this thinking process that makes him come across in a very narcissistic, very grandiose way. We see that in his manifesto. We see that in the paperwork that he left behind.

So that sort of behavior can be somewhat concerning because it doesn't happen all at once. So people don't say, that's not how you were yesterday.

[16:20:00]

It can be -- can kind of creep up on people. And most people who love somebody or care about them, they don't see the potential of violence in them when it's actually something that could be happening right before their eyes. So the investigators are going to start stitching that together to find out, was this a subtle evolution in his behavior? And at what point in his life did that happen? Somewhere in the early 20s.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate your -- your expertise.

Moments ago in the money lead, Wall Street closed in the red after a strong start with President-elect Donald Trump ringing the opening bell. But Trump has something else to show for the day. His face on the cover of "Time Magazine" as Person of the Year, and a ton of headlines in a major interview. We're going to run through some of those headlines and get into why they seem such a big deal.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:25:12]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, President-elect Trump has been named "Time Magazine's" 2024 person of the year, and he's making a lot of news as he prepares to return to power. In a wide ranging interview with the magazine, when asked if he's spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the election, Trump said, quote, I cant tell you. It's just inappropriate, unquote.

Trump did say he, quote, vehemently, unquote, disagreed with President Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to use American long range missiles to strike inside Russia, saying, quote, we're just escalating this war and making it worse, unquote.

Asked about ending a major conflict in the Middle East, Trump said, quote, I think it's more complicated than the Russia-Ukraine, but I think it's easier to solve, unquote. Though he didn't offer specifics on how he would end Israel's war against Hamas, when pressed if there was a scenario where he would allow Israel to annex the West Bank as some extremists in the Netanyahu government have said they wanted to do, Trump said, quote, I'm not saying that's a very likely scenario, but I want a long lasting peace.

He went on to say, quote: You can do a two state, but there are numerous ways it can be done, end quote.

On the domestic front, when asked if he would use the U.S. military to help carry out the mass deportations of undocumented immigrants in the United States, Trump said, quote, I'll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows, end quote.

Trump also signaled a willingness to getting rid of some vaccinations if so recommended by his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., getting rid of those vaccines, of course, would be opposed by every major, credible scientific organization, and they say it will cost lives. Trump says, quote, it could if I think it's dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial. But I don't think its going to be very controversial in the end, unquote. It's pretty controversial right now.

Asked if he would commit to making sure the Food and Drug Administration does not take away the access of women to abortion pills, Trump said, quote: That would be my commitment. Yeah, it's always been my commitment, unquote.

Here now to discuss, "New York Times" senior political correspondent, CNN analyst, Pulitzer Prize-winning, Maggie Haberman.

Maggie, good to see you.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: How are you?

So, first of all, this is the second time he's been person of the year. You and I are old enough to remember when he coveted it so much. He had a fake. There it is. That's the fake one, the fake time. Man of the Year cover made up of himself and hung in at least five of his different resorts.

No need to fake it now. No need to fake the funk. He's got. He's got two of his own.

How important is this for him, this achievement? And what can you tell us about his mindset from this interview as he gets ready to reenter the White House?

HABERMAN: Sure. A couple of things. It's hugely important to him. And he has all of these cultural touchstones that are sort of trapped in the '80s, right? And an era of --

TAPPER: Magazines --

HABERMAN: Right, and when national magazines, you know, were huge. So this is very exciting for him, going and ringing the bell at the stock exchange is very exciting for him. And that's now part of the process of being named Person of the Year.

So these are -- these are things that he's clearly reveling in. And you could see it when he was there today.

In terms of his mindset, you know, he was actually a little more explicit on certain things than he has been. It's also just a reminder, Jake. Yes, he certainly was much more accessible than President Biden or Vice President Harris, but he actually has not been that accessible to mainstream media for a while.

TAPPER: Nope.

HABERMAN: A lot of podcasts. He has not done a ton of interviews. He is starting to do a few more.

So he talked about, you know, medicine abortion. He actually was dodging answering questions about that. He talked about following the law, but going up to the maximum of what the law allows. And what we have seen is that his -- his lawyers have repeatedly pressed for a maximalist interpretation of what the law would allow.

TAPPER: Right.

HABERMAN: So what it tells me, and I think tells you, is that he is coming into D.C. really feeling quite powerful and feeling as if he can, you know, test what he wants to test.

I do think it's important for people to remember he did do the job once before, and so he is coming in with a better understanding of how Washington works. Is he the most detail-oriented human on policy? No, he did come in last time, actually, with a policy agenda that he wanted to enact, and he got totally stymied by, you know, someone in his own administration and flummoxed by the various investigations into him.

He's not facing any of that right now. So it'll be interesting to see what it looks like.

TAPPER: Well, the question then becomes, does this knowledge that he has, does that mean that he will be more Reaganesque in his delivery? Or is it like the velociraptor who tests -- tests the door in Jurassic Park and then is now figuring out how he can more successfully wreak havoc?

HABERMAN: Right. Several people who have worked for him over the years have used the Jurassic Park analogy, so I think that seems.

TAPPER: Yes. I didn't make it up.

HABERMAN: Right. It seems like. Well, I'm just saying, if you have to pick which one you think it's going to be.

[16:30:02]=

I don't think it's going to be Reaganesque delivery. I think he is going to say things like, ill be fair to you, as long as you're fair to me, which we have heard him and his version of fairness is not necessarily everybody else's.

TAPPER: That means no criticism.

HABERMAN: Right. It means -- it means doing what he wants or saying what he wants and not opposing him.

TAPPER: So Trump was asked what his father, Fred Trump, a very important figure in his life, would think about his political comeback. And he said, quote, I think he maybe would not call it a comeback. He would have said, it's just Donald.

What do you think of that?

HABERMAN: So he had something -- I think two things. I think his father looms incredibly large for him, as you know. And I think that that relates to something else he said in that interview.

He got asked another time about, you know, what a comeback this is. And he said something to the effect of, I don't think of it as a comeback. I've always been here. And so I think that --

TAPPER: That's what LL Cool J said --

HABERMAN: Right. Well, you know, I think there is something to how he framed that about his father, and now, he's thinking of it himself, which is his father would not really allow for any public acknowledgment that Trump has had troubles over the last four years. Trump's whole approach has generally been reality is what he decides to make it.

TAPPER: And during the campaign, of course, Trump said he had nothing to do with project 2025. That's the group of conservative MAGA adjacent and MAGA part of part of MAGA world. Individuals who wrote this plan and the Democrats tried to attack them with it. And Trump would say, I don't even know what that is.

But he said, quote, no, look, I don't disagree with everything in Project 2025, but I disagree with some things I specifically didn't want to read it because it wasn't under my auspices, and I wanted to be able to say that.

But he might not have read it, and I certainly believe that. But people told him what was in it.

HABERMAN: Yeah. Or at least some of what was in it. And he spoke at some event for them. Look, it wasn't his. That's true. His stuff was I think it was Agenda 47 was what it was called. But number one, you didn't need Project 2025 to know that Trump was spending a lot of radical things, right? Just listen to his own language during the campaign, a lot of which overlapped with Project 2025.

The bigger issue, Jake, is that Trump's campaign aides said no one who had anything to do with 2025 -- with Project 2025 will be in this administration.

TAPPER: That's not true.

HABERMAN: And that's just bluntly not true. And I really don't believe that they always planned on sticking with that. So they said something that that was a lie during the campaign.

TAPPER: Yeah. Imagine. Maggie Haberman, thanks so much. It's always good to see you.

All this week, we've seen stunning and emotional reports from CNN teams in Syria. And up next, we're going to bring you another one from CNN's Clarissa Ward. See her heartbreaking glimpse of those who were likely the last victims of ousted dictator Bashar al Assad.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:58]

TAPPER: Back with our world lead. A missing American was found walking around Damascus barefoot today. Missouri native Travis Timmerman says he was in a Syrian prison for seven months after entering the country illegally for, quote, spiritual purposes. This is according to CBS News.

Listen to what Timmerman said about his time there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN, MISSING AMERICAN FOUND IN SYRIA: It wasn't bad. I was never beaten. The only really bad part was that I couldn't go to the bathroom when I wanted to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The U.S. State Department says they are working to get Timmerman home. This comes as the search for another missing American Austin Tice continues.

Tice, a journalist, was detained by the now toppled Assad regime in 2012. As for Syrians currently grappling with their new reality, many are searching for missing loved ones themselves.

CNN's Clarissa Ward is at a morgue in Syria, where the bodies left behind reveal signs of the cruelty inflicted by Assad's regime. Up until the last possible moment, and we should warn our viewers, you might find the following report upsetting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A woman wails on the floor of the Mujtahid Hospital.

My mother, she's been missing for 14 years, she says. Where is she? Where's my brother? Where's my husband? Where are they?

Dr. Ahmed Abdullah shows us into the morgue where about 35 bodies have been brought in.

Discovered in a military hospital days after the regime fell, they are believed to be some of the last victims of Bashar al Assad.

Take a look. This is the crime of the regime. He says even in the middle ages, they didn't torture people like this.

Another man points to their tattered clothing evidence. He says that most were detainees at the much feared Saydnaya prison. Even in death, they are still only identified by numbers.

Everyone here heard about the horrors that took place in Assad's notorious prisons, but to see it up close is something entirely different.

A lot of them have bruises, have horrible wounds that seem to be consistent with torture. I just saw one woman retching as she came out of the other room.

Families are now going through trying to see if their loved ones are here.

There's not enough room for all of them in the morgue, so a makeshift area has been set up outside.

More and more families stream in. The light from their cell phones the only way of identifying the dead.

My only son, I don't have another. They took him for 12 years now, just because he said no, 12 years, my only son, this woman shouts. I don't know anything about him. I ask Allah to burn him, she says of Assad. Burn him and his sons like he burned my heart.

A crowd swarms when they see our camera. Everyone here has lost someone.

All of these people are asking us to take the names of their loved ones, to help them try to find them.

It is a mark of desperation. Such is the need for answers. But finding those answers will not be easy.

At the military intelligence facility known as the Palestine branch, officers burned documents and destroyed hard drives before fleeing. But their terror was on an industrial scale. Troves and troves of prisoner files remain. It will take investigators years to go through them.

Below ground, more clues etched on the walls of cells that look more like dungeons.

So you can see this list of names of it looks like 93 prisoners here. There's also a schedule for keeping the cell tidy and just graffiti everywhere. People trying to leave marks for someone to find.

Down here, insects are the only life form that thrives. It's clear that anyone who could survive this will never be the same again.

The cells are empty, but the doors are finally open. The quest for answers is just beginning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (on camera): Now, Jake, as you can see from that story, the Assad regime was very studious about documenting its extensive crimes. But the question now becomes, when do investigators get to come into Syria? When do human rights workers get to come into Syria and really start to tackle the job of going through all of that documentation, and also to what end?

At one stage, the dream for many Syrians may have been to see Bashar al Assad one day face his day in court. Now, with Assad in Moscow, that becomes increasingly unlikely. But there are activists in Syria who say, okay, but were still going to go after the system, the apparatus behind him.

And in order for them to do that. One possibility would be for the rebels here to essentially cede this territory as ICC jurisdiction, or being under ICC, the International Criminal Court jurisdiction. We saw Ukraine do this as well. We don't know if that's on the cards at the moment, and all of this clearly a very long, drawn out process. But at least now, Syrians are entering the phase where they can start to really think about how they go about getting justice for what they've been through -- Jake.

TAPPER: Amazing.

Clarissa Ward in Damascus, thank you so much. Another important report.

Let's bring in Kareem Shaheen. He's a writer and editor for "New Lines Magazine" focused on the Middle East. He's covered Syria for years, including the chemical attack in Syria in 2017.

Kareem, so where did all the Assad loyalists go? The prison guards, the police, the government officials? Do you do you think they're in hiding? Did they flee? Are they -- are they trying to camouflage themselves? What do you think?

KAREEM SHAHEEN, MIDEAST AND NEWSLETTERS WRITER/EDITOR, NEW LINES MAGAZINE: Yes. So a number of them are in hiding. Obviously, the rebels also gave a general amnesty to most of the conscripts. A lot of them just shared uniforms. And one other difficulty is that former loyalists are now all of a sudden, you know, pro-revolution even Manal al-Assad, who's the wife of Maher al-Assad, Bashar's brother and, you know, very brutal enforcer, you know, a few days ago, she posted on Instagram, you know, cheering on for the Syrian military.

And then yesterday she posted, you know, the traitor to his country has fled, you know, long live free Syria with a picture of the Syrian flag -- of the free Syrian flag. And so, you know, a lot of these loyalists are in hiding. A lot of them are some of them are posting some videos indicating that they are still alive, that they're still around. And the rebels have put up a bounty on a number of them, particularly the ones that have taken part in some of the worst atrocities of the past 14 years.

TAPPER: Well, let me ask you about Bashar al-Assad's sister in law there. I mean, do you think the rebels will buy it?

SHAHEEN: I don't think they will. But, you know, it's a question that's going to be, you know, a crucial part of, you know, transitional justice and moving on from -- from the conflict. You know, people were people are very keen to see the worst atrocities. You know, the people who are running these prisons, you know, they're essentially concentration camps.

They're very keen on seeing these people held to account. It's very important that a lot of these documents, a lot of this documentation I was talking about, is protected and preserved. A lot of the crimes of the past 14 years have been archived and cataloged by many different organizations.

And so the question of how to deal with these loyalists, you know, from all the way to the top, the people who are in charge of these security agencies, the prison wardens, the jailers, and all the way down to the people who are just following orders, you know, if you will, what the rebels are going to do with them is -- is going to be a key component of their pathway going forward, because a lot of people wont be okay with simply, you know, burying the past and burying the past 14 years of suffering.

This is one of the most brutal, you know, totalitarian regimes that have ever been conceived really by humanity and, and the crimes that they've committed, as we're seeing now from Saydnaya and the dozens of other prisons that have been uncovered, are, you know, truly horrific.

TAPPER: And another outstanding question, of course, has to do with the rebels themselves. Biden administration officials today continuing to express skepticism about Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS. That's the group now in charge of Syria that the U.S. considers to be a terrorist group.

What are you hearing about the leader, Mohammed al-Jolani? His real name is Ahmad al Sharaa. And what do you think his real intentions are for Syria if you have any idea?

SHAHEEN: Yeah, I think I mean, as everybody knows, you know, he originally started out as part of a splinter group from ISIS, from the Islamic State in Iraq at the time, pledged allegiance to al Qaeda before severing ties with the transnational jihadist network.

And he then moved on, essentially to try and reform his group into more of a national liberation movement rather than, you know, a terrorist group as -- as we know in the west. But the, you know, and from all indications, people who've been following the group very closely over the past few years believe that this move away from al Qaeda is genuine. I think it raises a lot of very important questions for the U.S. and for Western countries that want to see a, you know, a free, democratic Syria in the future.

The institutions that we've built as part of the war on terror were meant to prevent another 9/11 attack. But in response, a lot of groups, a lot of jihadist groups, a lot of fundamentalist religious groups have transformed themselves and they've turned themselves into national liberation movements rather than movements that have an interest in attacking American interests abroad. And so, now, we're faced with the question of dealing with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and with other similar groups like the Taliban, for instance, and trying to revise the understandings and the institutions that we've built as part of the war on terror to deal with this new type of group that isn't interested in attacking America.

And I think its going to be a huge challenge for western policymakers. But we need to we need to address that challenge pretty soon. You know, the rebels are already in talks with the Russians about, you know, retaining access to a military base in the Mediterranean. And if we don't act swiftly, you know, were going to lose a key opportunity here to build up relationship with a key group that's going to be running Syria in the coming years.

TAPPER: Fascinating stuff. Kareem Shaheen, good to see you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

The hits keep coming against Sean "Diddy" Combs. Today, three more sexual assault lawsuits, one with claims fairly recent. Only two years old.

What else makes these lawsuits different from so many others against him? That's next.

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TAPPER: In our law and justice lead, more shocking accusations against Sean "Diddy" Combs today.

The claims go back as recently as 2022. Three men filed separate lawsuits alleging that combs drugged and sexually assaulted them while they were unconscious.

Let's bring in civil rights attorney Areva Martin.

Areva, what's the significance of these allegations? Do you think?

AREVA MARTIN, ATTORNEY & LEGAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Well, Jake, these are very serious allegations made in these complaints involving these three plaintiffs. I think one of the things that's different is that there are three men now, there has been a male suer.

There are some male plaintiffs in some of the other civil suits, but we haven't seen three men filing suits on the same day making accusations of being drugged and then sexually assaulted by Sean "Diddy" Combs. I think these allegations again may lead to further criminal investigations with respect to Combs. You know, he's waiting for trial in a Brooklyn jail as we speak. Trial that's going to happen in May of 2025, but this may open up another line of investigation for prosecutors in New York City.

TAPPER: These are civil suits, we should note. That's separate from the criminal charges that he's facing. But do you think these allegations could ultimately impact the criminal case?

MARTIN: Well, they could lead to an opening up of the indictment against him and could lead to further charges being filed against him. These are fairly recent accusations of 2019, 2022 and pretty detailed, you know, accusations in terms of what happened, drugs that were provided to these men, allegedly, and sexual assaults that would be criminal if these claims are true.

So we know that Sean "Diddy" Combs is already facing sex trafficking and other charges. But these are, again, the kinds of claims that could lead to criminal prosecution.

TAPPER: In a statement, combs attorney said today, quote, these complaints are full of lies. We will prove them false and seek sanctions against every unethical lawyer who filed fictional claims against him, unquote. How do you mount a defense against the sheer number of allegations

he's receiving?

MARTIN: It's going to be challenging. These cases or these claims today, Jake, are reminding me of the claims against Bill Cosby. We know there were dozens of cases filed against him, civil claims made against him that he drugged women and then would sexually assault them.

And this is starting to sound like and appear to be a very similar pattern with respect to Sean "Diddy" Combs mounting a defense is difficult enough, but particularly when he is incarcerated himself or at least detained, and may be found guilty, may be incarcerated on criminal charges. So its going to be challenging, to say the least, for his team to mount a credible defense.

TAPPER: And you noted how recent these allegations are 2019 and 2022. What do you make of that?

MARTIN: I think the floodgates are open, Jake. Obviously, we saw that horrific video of Cassie Ventura. We know that there was a lawsuit filed in that case, a very quick settlement. We've seen a dozen or so lawsuits filed since then. I think anyone that's had any interaction with Sean "Diddy" Combs and may have been hesitant about coming forward with any allegations against him, are now emboldened, feel empowered, feel as if this is the best time and perhaps an opportune time to file civil claims against him.

[16:55:14]

TAPPER: All right, Areva Martin, thank you so much for your expertise. We appreciate it.

Some major news just coming in on that CEO murder investigation and the lone suspect behind bars. At least three new search warrants have been issued. What sources just told CNN about the contents of those search warrants. We'll bring that to you next.

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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, quote: We are literally being invaded by drones, unquote. Those comments from one New Jersey mayor as weeks of mysterious drone sightings across the garden state are prompting new security concerns. Where did these drones come from? Who --