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FBI: Officers Questioned Suspect In 2023 As He Lived In Nearby County; 14-Year-Old Suspect Charged With Felony Murder After Four Killed; Trump Team, Prosecutors Spar In First Hearing Since Immunity Ruling. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 05, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:15]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Charged with murder and set to be tried as an adult, the 14-year-old suspect in yesterday's school shooting in Georgia making his first court appearance tomorrow as we're learning more about the investigation, including how he was questioned by law enforcement last year about threats to carry out a school shooting.

Plus, laying out the case, the judge and Donald Trump's election interference case considering what's next after the Supreme Court decision on immunity for the former President. And with this major election looming the judge saying, quote, "this court is not concerned with the electoral schedule."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And a secret battle over a media empire worth billions. As Rupert Murdoch's family fights over the succession plan, news organizations are fighting for the details to be made public. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

SANCHEZ: The 14-year-old suspect in the deadliest school shooting thus far this year is set to make his first court appearance tomorrow. Officials say, the 14-year-old will be charged as an adult accused of yesterday's rampage inside his school, Apalachee High in Winder, Georgia.

Two fellow 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, were killed along with two math teachers, Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie. We're now learning that the teen was questioned by law enforcement last year about threats to commit a school shooting and at an unidentified location and time. This is according to federal and state officials. And this was when the suspect lived in a neighboring county.

CNN's Nick Valencia is live outside Apalachee High School tracking all these developments. And Nick, we're getting new details about what happened during that visit by law enforcement to the student last year. Bring us up to speed.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Boris, that incident is being brought back into focus because of what happened here yesterday. And we are getting new details about that visit.

Law enforcement officials, the FBI Atlanta office around along with local law enforcement releasing a statement saying that this suspect, when he was 13 years old in 2023, was questioned because of a series of anonymous tips that came in that alleged that he was making threatening messages online. He denied making those messages. And we're getting new details in these charging documents obtained by Senior Producer Devon Sayers.

And this is what his father told investigators when he was interviewed, saying, quote, "Colt is allowed to use them when supervised," talking about the hunting rifles that were in the home, "but does not have unfettered access to them." The father went on to say that, "Colt assured me that he never made any threats to shoot up any school. I urged Colin to keep his firearms locked up and advised him to keep Colt out of the school until this matter could be resolved."

What's unclear at this point is if those interviews, if this discussion with law enforcement officers, if any of it was communicated with the school officials here, and look, for all the questions there are this morning and this afternoon about what happened here yesterday, there's clearly a lot that was done right here by the school.

They had automatic doors that locked. And they also implemented recently a new security system that was consequential, police say, in getting law enforcement officers here as quickly as they responded. Boris?

SANCHEZ: And Nick, one eyewitness actually spoke to CNN yesterday. She sitting next to the suspect in class right before the shooting. And she gave new details about what she observed. Tell us about that.

VALENCIA: Yeah, chilling new details. And you have to remember that Colt Gray, the suspect in this shooting, was a new student, relatively new student here at this high school. So pretty much unfamiliar to a lot of the classmates around him. But listen to his classmate describe what she saw sitting next to him in class before the shooting.

LYELA SAYARATH, APALACHEE STUDENT WHO SAT NEXT TO SUSPECT: He's in the bathroom, and I'm just in class as normal, and we're working. And my friend goes to the bathroom. And a little bit later, an administrator comes in looking for them -- well, one of them. And they mistake my friend for him. And they take my friend, like, his bag. And a little bit later, he'll -- he comes back in with his bag. And I had asked him, like, oh, what happened? And he was like, oh, I don't know. They were looking for the kid that sits next to you, not me.

VALENCIA: He will be charged as an adult. The big question here, how did he get his hands on that AR-style-15 rifle? And were there any warning signs that could have been listened to?

[14:05:03]

Boris? SANCHEZ: Nick Valencia, live for us in Winder, Georgia. Nick, thank

you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: The community where that school shooting took place is reeling today. Students are processing the horror and the trauma of what happened on their campus.

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NICHOLAS CRISWELL, STUDENT AT APALACHEE HIGH SCHOOL: I heard gunshots. Sounded like someone was just banging on a door. And then there's a red alert that popped up on the screen, and then a light went off. And it sort of hit me, what was happening, went into a corner. My teachers were a little bit panicked, but they held themselves. They got us in the corner, followed the procedure of a school shooting, a drill.

LAILA FOHRMAN, STUDENT AT APALACHEE HIGH SCHOOL: I was scared I was going to die, to be honest. And when I heard hard lockdown, I knew it wasn't a drill. I immediately texted my dad. And I was just like, I don't know if this is a drill. I'm really scared. And I just kept my feet up, and I prayed, and I closed my eyes. And I tried to stay calm, and I was shaking. I was worried that they would hear me. But when I heard gunshots, I was just -- I knew.

JAYDEN FINCH, STUDENT AT APALACHEE HIGH SCHOOL: They were approximately, like, four classes away from mine. We were in a presentation. And then all of a sudden, the hard lockdown screen came on our TV. And then it was like a moment of just straight silence. And you just hear gunshots. And everyone just runs to the corner. And after about, like, 15 minutes, the police, like, unlocked the door and barged in. We had to, like, put our hands up. They had, like, search us to make sure no one in here was, like, the shooter, and they were trying to hide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: First, some more perspective on the investigation that is unfolding right now. We're joined now by former Senior FBI Official Katherine Schweit. She's a consultant and speaker on workplace violence and also an expert on active shooters.

And, Katherine, I do just want to note, we just have some reporting that I just got in from our Josh Campbell that says authorities searching the home of the suspect, Colt Gray, found documents that they believe he wrote referencing past school shootings. This is according to a law enforcement source who's familiar with the investigation, and that the writings were discovered in his bedroom and included references to the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Is that par for the course for you? What do you think about learning that?

KATHERINE SCHWEIT, FORMER SENIOR FBI OFFICIAL: It is when we talk about teenagers, you know, a high school age shooters, they don't start out as five-year-olds who want to become shooters. They decide to do that. And part of their decision to get to that point is to research others. We saw -- you made a reference to -- we've made references to the fact that this discord account or this kid -- that this kid had, the name in Russian was Adam Lanza, the shooter from Sandy Hook. We know that that Sandy Hook shooter had a big display on his bedroom wall.

We've seen time after time after time shooters who admire and make lists of other shootings and look at the clothing they wore, the weapons they carried, the ammunition they used, their targets, their techniques before the shootings, very, very typical and a great advertisement for the fact that no child should have privacy in their own bedroom.

KEILAR: That's a very interesting point. What questions do you have right now about this case?

SCHWEIT: The information that you're getting about Josh having that information and the kid having it in his room, that's information that tells us, this was a long planned event. And the location might have just been the serendipity, the opportunity to get to this school. He was brand new at this school. But if he had remained in his community in this previous community where he lived with his dad, the school there would have been the target.

We know shooters go back to their shooter -- their schools. He probably was looking for whatever the current target was, and it happened, sadly, to be this school.

KEILAR: So when authorities questioned this suspect and his father a year ago, it was about online threats to commit a school shooting. And as you're well aware, you've been following all these details. Suspect's father told law enforcement in a neighboring county where they had then lived that, yes, there were hunting rifles in the house, but that his son did not have unfettered access to them. He had supervised access to them.

And then the boy denied making online threats. But you mentioned the discord account. I wonder if you think more could have been done or if it also reaches a certain point where law enforcement is trying to chase down so many things, it's hard to tell what is the signal and what is the noise.

SCHWEIT: Yeah. And the cross, you know, the crossover is reasonable, you know, suspicion and probable cause. And can you do -- you do your due diligence as a law enforcement officer, whether you're federal, state, local, or tribal, to try to investigate and run things out. But you're not allowed under the law to continue to run things out to the point where you're basically just invading somebody's privacy endlessly. You can't just leave a case open because somebody said something or in this case, we have information that an account which traced back to his house.

[14:10:09]

So it's even more tenuous. So unless you get closer and closer and closer, there -- you -- once you run your leads out as an officer, as an agent, there isn't anything else you can do in terms of law enforcement. But I think there are other things that we can do as a community. And that includes sharing, you know, concerns and understanding what behaviors that we should be looking for and taking care of, not just the parents, the students, the teachers. But, you know, it's got to be a whole of community kind of solution in order to catch somebody along a pathway to violence.

KEILAR: Yeah, it is. And we're learning new information really by the hour. Katherine, thank you so much for your insights. We appreciate it.

SCHWEIT: Thank you.

KEILAR: Still ahead, 61 days until Election Day, but the judge overseeing former President Trump's election interference case says, November 5th has no relevance to the trial or when it begins. We'll have more from inside the first hearing since the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity.

Plus, the U.S. says, a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza is 90% complete. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is painting a very different picture about where negotiations stand. And we'll roll the tape how Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance once again appears to be using the military to score political points.

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[14:0109]

SANCHEZ: Today, the Judge and former President Donald Trump's federal election subversion case, making it known, she's not considering the 2024 presidential election or Trump's campaign schedule in deciding next steps in the case. And the first hearing since the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, Judge Tanya Chutkan pushed back against Trump's legal team, saying the November election is not relevant as she decides how the case will move forward.

CNN Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz is live outside the federal courthouse for us here in Washington. Katelyn, what more did we learn from today's hearing?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Boris, it was quite a zippy hearing for about an hour and 15 minutes. Judge Tanya Chutkan went back and forth primarily with Donald Trump's defense lawyer, John Lauro, who's trying to put things on hold as long as he can to make things last a long time so that they can do legal arguments, gather their information, look at things.

But inside this building in Judge Chutkan's courtroom, the election just is not playing a role for Donald Trump as a criminal defendant. A quote from the Judge, "I'm not talking about the presidency of the United States. I'm talking about the four corners of the indictment."

Yet, they still have to talk about the presidency because in this case, they have to figure out what to do with presidential immunity and how it applies here to Donald Trump after the election, especially in his exchanges with the then Vice President Mike Pence. And the Justice Department is prepared in just a couple weeks to start laying out evidence.

If the Judge wants it then to put in papers, grand jury transcripts, interview records, documents, FBI memos, all kinds of pieces of evidence, we've never seen before that aren't even mentioned in the indictment, they're ready to go if that's what the Judge wants to do next.

SANCHEZ: So Katelyn, what are we anticipating is going to be the next shoe to drop? What comes next?

POLANTZ: Well, today even, we could have judge Tanya Chutkan's decision on what the schedule is going forward, and when the Justice Department could potentially be laying out this evidence that they say they have ready to share and make public to a certain extent. The thing, though, that we don't have at this time is a trial date. The Judge is pretty clear, she's not going to set one at this time because everybody in this case agrees. Boris, there's going to be at least one more round of appeals that's going to put everything on hold.

SANCHEZ: Katelyn Polantz, live outside the Federal Courthouse. Thank you so much.

Let's discuss further with John Dean. He served as White House counsel for former President Richard Nixon. Also with us, former Federal Prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers. Thank you both for being with us.

First to you, Jennifer, was today a win for one side or the other. How do you read it?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, not really a win for one side or the other, I would say. I mean, Judge Chutkan, who I continue to be impressed by, by the way, continues to kind of give each side some of what they want, but not all of what they want.

I think if you had to pick, you would say, it was a win for the government because Judge Chutkan made clear that she doesn't agree with Judge Cannon in Florida's dismissal of that case on the grounds that the special counsel was not properly appointed. And she also doesn't seem inclined to string out this series of motions and let them do one at a time and all that sort of back and forth that would take months and months.

On the other hand, the government wanted her to reject as waived the arguments -- some of the arguments that the Trump team was making because they didn't make them soon enough pursuant to the prior schedule. And she seemed inclined to consider those. So she gave each side a little bit, but continues to keep tight reins on this thing to move it along to the extent that she can.

[14:20:01]

KEILAR: John, what stood out to you in court?

JOHN DEAN, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: In particular, I would say the fact that she doesn't think this election that is all around us is going to influence her decision on this case at all. And that's actually the norm in the way it should be, unlike some of the other cases where it's playing a bigger role.

So I think that's the most standout point to me, that she's all business. No politics in her courtroom. And we're going to get a schedule today. And that will resolve a lot of these issues.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. I love the way John described the election. It's all around us. It's all consuming, it seems, at times. John, I'm curious about how you think Judge Chutkan is going to approach this superseding indictment. Is she inclined? Does it seem to you to leave it as is or potentially ask for more changes?

DEAN: It appears to me based on the hearsay reporting we get out of the court secondhand. There may be a transcript later today, too, or soon thereafter, and we'll have a better idea. But it seems that she's going to try to make some sense out of the Supreme Court's ruling that she's going to dive right into the issue of whether or not Mike Pence, the Vice President, can be a player in this trial or not. The government wants that. They want to cast him not as his role as vice president, but as the president of the Senate and a candidate for reelection.

So that -- and I don't -- I heard nothing that she rejected any of that outright, notwithstanding arguments by Trump's lawyers. So I, you know, I just -- I thought I had a very good feel about today, that we're in the hands of a very competent Judge, and she's going to make some very clear decisions today that will, as a result of scheduling, and we'll have a better feel at when that schedule comes out.

KEILAR: Jennifer, how could this issue of Mike Pence and whether what he was doing was, you know, unofficial act or an unofficial act, how could that affect the strength of the special counsel's case?

RODGERS: Well, I think (inaudible) they wanted to (inaudible) that part of the criminal scheme, the pressure campaign on Mike Pence, is because it is one of the strongest parts of the case. I mean, these phone calls and all of this pressure as the other parts of the scheme were failing and were not getting Trump what he wanted, the last ditch effort to get Mike Pence not to accept the real electors and to throw it all back into (inaudible) for voting was a huge part of this, the really damning part. And so I think they really want to keep that in.

Judge Chutkan's challenge, though, is to just make sure that it is properly staying in. I mean, no one, not the judge, certainly, and not the prosecutors, although I shouldn't say no one because I think team Trump wants this. They don't want to go up the chain again twice, right?

We know we're going to have appeals on the immunity decision that Judge Chutkan makes. We don't want to have it go back up and then come back (inaudible) be careful to evaluate all of this with a very close eye on this Mike Pence evidence and hopefully get it right so that we only have one more set of appeals before she can set a trial date.

SANCHEZ: And, John, I'm curious to get your reaction to Judge Chutkan, saying that anything that she decides is going to get appealed. She sort of notes that the entire process is going to be challenged the entire way through by Trump's legal team in myriad ways. What did you make of that?

DEAN: Well, the fact that she's open to the idea that she'll entertain whether they can even appeal, whether the special prosecutor is properly appointed, while she wouldn't let it in today and they're not timely, she didn't throw it out as something they couldn't even raise shows how fair she is and how she's going to look at everything.

So in that context, the fact that she'll be reviewed on everything is not terribly surprising. But she's a good judge. And I think she'll make the right decisions in these cases. She will be fair. And so she'll probably survive any appeals.

KEILAR: All right. John Dean, Jennifer Rodgers, great to have you. Thank you so much.

And still ahead, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu not mincing words about a possible truce with Hamas. He says, quote, "there's not a deal in the making." But the Biden White House says an agreement is 90% complete. We're going to ask the State Department about the mixed messages.

SANCHEZ: Plus, a big development in Hunter Biden's federal tax evasion case. The President's son offering to change his plea to avoid trial. Will he admit to breaking the law? The details in just moments.

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[14:29:37]

KEILAR: J.D. Vance is once again using the military to try to score political points. This is what he said Tuesday night on Fox.

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J.D. VANCE, UNITED STATES SENATOR AND CURRENT U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We really are on the brink of serious readiness issues because nobody wants to put on a uniform and serve in Kamala Harris's military. This is a person who wants the United States army to be a about gender inclusion, ridiculous diversity politics, instead of about serving your country and uniting together as Americans to serve on the same team and defend your nation.