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Police Link Suspect's Gun, Fingerprints to Crime Scene; Missing U.S. Citizen Located in Syria; Austin Tice Search Continues. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired December 12, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:03]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: That, kids, is how you find yourself -- well, he was already on the naughty list, but, you know. Also, just don't jump in a chimney. That's my only suggestion.

New hour of CNN News Central starts now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news in Syria this morning. An American discovered in Damascus, why was he there? What he heard while he says he was imprisoned? And what happened to him? We're following the latest details as they come in on that story.

And the forensic evidence that could be key against Luigi Mangione. What police say they now have linking the suspect to the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO.

And fear, frustration, and questions are growing over the mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey. A local mayor saying they are, quote, "literally being invaded." While another just telling CNN the federal government owes them answers.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman.

This is CNN News Central.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So major news overnight. Police have now said the gun found in the man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, they say that gun is the murder weapon. They say it's based off ballistic evidence they collected.

Luigi Mangione is in Pennsylvania fighting extradition to New York where Manhattan's top prosecutor says new charges could soon come. Let's get right to CNN's Brynn Gingras for all the latest here.

Good morning, Brynn.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John. Good morning. Yeah, so this was something that police were, you know, waiting for. The evidence that they could find to tie Mangione, they say, directly to the crime scene here in Manhattan. And it appears, according to them, that they did. So the police commissioner saying that they now know the ballistics of

the gun that was found on Mangione in Pennsylvania matches the shell casings that were found at the crime scene last week when the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was killed.

They also say the fingerprints match of Mangione to the water bottle and the kind bar that was left behind, if you remember from the getaway route of their suspected killer. And this is a big deal. If you also remember about those fingerprints, what we were reporting, they had partial fingerprints, but they didn't -- they ran them in through all the systems and they couldn't find a match. Well, now they say that is a match. They were able to sort of cross-reference that. So that was something they were certainly waiting for.

Of course, there's more evidence that investigators have been collecting as they continue to fight this, as the defense continues to fight the extradition of Mangione back to New York. They have all the surveillance video.

They have the fake I.D. that Mangione was carrying that police say he used to check into a hostel on the Upper West Side. And then more of his writings in a spiral notebook about, you know, referencing sort of the killing.

As far as his defense is concerned, he says he hasn't seen the evidence to make that connection. And he talked about that to Erin Burnett last night. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS DICKEY, ATTORNEY FOR LUIGI MANGIONE: Saying you have something and getting that admitted into court are two different things. We need to see it. We need to see how they collect it, how much of it matches. You know, like -- I don't want to get too technical, but fingerprints, they go by ridges, different things like that. And then we would have our experts, we would have experts take a look at that. And then we would challenge its admissibility and challenge the accuracy of those results.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: Clearly you can see from there that he was continuing -- will continue to fight extradition for his client. I have to tell you, sources telling me, you know what, they're not in a rush as they continue to build their case. The top prosecutor here in New York saying that it's possible more charges could be coming.

In the meantime, investigators still trying to piece together, John, exactly where Mangione was the days, the weeks, the months prior to this alleged murder. They are now -- we are now reporting from sources that his mother even said he didn't know where her son was. She reported him missing to the San Francisco PD on November 18th. And at that time, John, she said she didn't believe he was a threat to himself or others.

BERMAN: Brynn Gingras, great reporting on this since the minutes after this first happened. Thanks so much for being with us this morning and keeping us posted.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And joining us right now is Chris Swecker, former Assistant Director for the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division.

Chris, Brynn, really did a nice job kind of rolling through the latest of what we know, what investigators at least revealing right now. When you hear Mangione's attorney say that he still needs to see the fingerprints and ballistic evidence that they have, that's one thing, right? But in terms of what evidence investigators have shown us and talked about so far, what do you see as most important right now? Linking Mangione to the crime scene and to the murder.

CHRIS SWECKER, FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR FBI'S CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION: Well, yes. Before I was an FBI agent, I was a prosecutor. I've been an attorney for 18 years since I retired. So I think I know a strong case when I see one. This is one of the strongest cases I've ever seen.

[09:05:09]

It's nice to get a match to the gun with the shell casings to the gun. Anytime metal strikes metal, which is the -- the -- the trigger lock or the trigger hits the gun casing. There's a very distinctive mark. So that's been matched up.

You have fingerprints, you have eons of video of his movements going to the crime scene and from the crime scene. And you have his own confession in his own sort of manifesto. So this is a very, very strong case.

The Defense Attorney, who I think is just a placeholder right now because he's in Pennsylvania and he won't be practicing law in New York, defending him in New York, is buying time. He's trying to get as much information as he can. He's trying to gather up all that, you know, see what the -- what the evidence is at this point. But he's -- you know, he's only got about 30 days to do that. And he's buying time so that they can get a high-powered firm in New York City.

The family has money and they will get someone other than this attorney in Pennsylvania. But it's a strong case. They're just trying to do what defense attorneys do at this point at this stage in the proceedings.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. Let's talk about motivation or the search for. I mean, you have a spiral notebook that says a lot. You have the loose -- loose papers that also say a lot, that were found on Mangione when he was picked up. What types of things are investigators looking into still to get the clearest picture possible of this?

SWECKER: Yeah. Well, first, this is going to be premeditated murder. So motivation is -- is not an element of the offense, but it's good to have and it's relevant and it's -- in it. I think it's relevant to -- to what drives him in terms of his ideology, because it could be that this was an act of domestic terrorism. They're trying to affect social change through violence.

So they'll be searching through all his social media, all his writings, all his -- you know, they will interview everyone that he's ever known since his childhood to get a good picture, particularly in the last year or so. What, you know, what kind of drove him to this just as more of a case study than as an element of the offense itself.

So, you know, all -- the FBI in particular, because they're interstate, you know, they can they've got agents everywhere are digging up all this information and it'll -- it'll become very clear what his motivation was. But I think -- I think we have a general sense of it right now.

He was a he was a true believer. He sort of self-radicalized himself during a period in his life where he had been laid off from his job. He was in great pain and he just latched on to this ideology like the Olympic bomber, Eric Rudolph, like the Unabomber. And he felt like this was an act of nobility to go out and kill somebody.

BOLDUAN: You've seen people online, you know, calling him kind of like fawning over him and lionizing him, calling, you know, calling him a vigilante. But I am hearing -- I'm interested in when you talk about the week we could be looking at domestic terrorism here, because I've started to hear more law enforcement analysts starting to point to that. Talk to me about why this is important to start honing in on.

SWECKER: Yeah. In this case, we still don't know whether there were co-conspirators, you know, who made the gun for him or did he make it himself? Who was he talking to on the phone?

But, you know, if it's an act of terrorism, it's something against society as a whole, not just that particular CEO. It makes it more dangerous, more sinister. It invites followers, if you will, which we've seen and you just pointed out.

And you don't want to see something like this become viral and have a copycat type killing or a copy type -- copycat type operation because, you know, for the -- for obvious reasons. I mean, this kind of thing, we've seen sort of an underground movement developing and that in itself is sinister.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. Chris Swecker, it's always good to see you. Thanks for coming in.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Coming up, growing frustration in New Jersey as officials struggle to uncover who is behind the mysterious drones that have been circling the skies for weeks now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't know where the drones are coming from. They don't know who's doing it. They don't know why they're doing it, but they say there's no credible threat. It was annoying to be there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And more than 4000 acres now scorched by the fast moving, raging wildfire in Malibu. Twenty thousand people have been evacuated, homes and properties burned and schools closed. We'll speak to the mayor of Malibu on the latest his community is facing this morning.

And breaking overnight, new video went to CNN. An American who's been missing for the last six months found alive in Syria. Well, what he says he was doing there when he was jailed.

[09:10:00]

And right now, President-elect Donald Trump at the New York Stock Exchange, where he's going to be ringing the opening bell this hour. But he's got a lot to say about being named TIME's Person of the Year. Those stories ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Breaking news out of Syria. The man believed to be a missing U.S. citizen from Missouri has been found just south of Damascus. Travis Timmerman told reporters he had just been freed from jail in Syria.

The search, though, for Austin Tice, the journalist who disappeared in Syria 12 years ago and whose family has been begging for help to find him, does continue.

[09:15:08]

Now, at this hour, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in the Middle East in Jordan on an urgent trip amid the fall of Syria's Assad regime and a lot of questions about what may lie ahead.

Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York joining me now. He is the Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Congressman Meeks.

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): Thank you for having me, Sara.

SIDNER: We just talked about the fact that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in Jordan and he's there really to promote a Syrian-led transition. I want to ask you about the rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al- Sham, which led the assault that toppled al-Assad. They were formed as an offshoot of al-Qaeda initially. The founder then claimed that they broke with al-Qaeda in 2016. I'm curious how concerned you might be about what the new leadership might mean to the region and to the relations with the United States.

MEEKS: I'm concerned. I think that we have to look into it. I know that the administration, Secretary Blinken, I had a chance to speak to him briefly yesterday before he left, and I know that the administration is looking -- has been in communication with a number of the rebel groups on the ground there. It is important to us to try to figure it out. It is still a question mark of who they are. We know who they were. They're still on our terrorist list. So we've got to figure out who they are and whether or not it is a good thing for them being in charge. We do know it's a good thing for Assad to be gone, and I think that that's what we can all agree upon in hoping and looking for a better day.

But, you know, we've got to take, and I think we're trying to find, if there are any chemical weapons or other kind of weapons there because we do not want them to fall in the hands of anyone at this stage of the game. So there's a lot to be done. You know, there's some upsides and there's some questions, and those questions I guess will be answered in the next few days and weeks.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about some new reporting that we've been seeing where, you know, they are trying to dismantle the regime's military that was there. And we saw this happen in Iraq and then what led to sort of ISIS and all this just absolute confusion and chaos in that country. What do you see potentially happening here when you have a military being dismantled, obviously they are armed, and how you see that playing out?

MEEKS: So the question that, you know, I think what took place in Iraq, and you don't want to, was a lot of civil servants, the police, and all of those that managed the streets to keep things calm, all of those individuals were disintegrated.

Now the question is, what is going to happen here? And I think it's going to be the United States will be a part of that, but there's other countries, our allies, Turkey is going to be interested in what's taking place in that region. Israel is going to be interested. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the Gulf countries, everybody's interested and hoping and trying to make sure that we have a different type of regime that's there, as well as make sure there's a transition that is peaceful and that can keep the peace and have some structure and create some institutions that will be safe for the individual --from the Syrians. Because the Syrians have been crying to be free from the Assad regime for years, for decades already.

And so for the Syrian people to be able to put them in a place where they can be able to stabilize and govern themselves is important, and I think that the contributions of all of the countries in the area, our allies in particular, is very important.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about Blinken, who was on the Hill before taking this trip, being grilled by Republicans for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, where he said, to the extent President Joe Biden faced a choice, it was between ending the war or escalating, but he also addressed the 13 families whose soldiers were killed during that withdrawal. And I want people to hear that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: And I think today especially of the 13 heroes that we lost at Abbey Gate, and I deeply regret that we did not do more and could not do more to protect them. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: The question a lot of the families have is, couldn't the United States have done more to protect those soldiers and make it a less chaotic withdrawal?

MEEKS: Look, as was said yesterday by the Secretary, I know I ask a series of questions. Look, it was chaotic because of the Afghan President Ghani dissembling themselves when they had said they would not. I had met with Ghani myself a week before he decided to up and leave, and there was no one left there.

[09:20:06]

And, yes, the visions that we saw of people on the planes, et cetera, it was horrible. But the State Department did a great job in getting 124,000 people out after that, you know, after he left. And so that's not talked about enough.

And, yes, we mourn and pray for the families that lost their loved ones, as we do for all 2,400 over the 20-year period. And the key to yesterday, because no one says the evacuation was perfect, we wish that we could have done more, and the key to figure out how do we prevent this from ever happening again is to look at the 20-year, make a 20-year assessment from four presidential administrations to see what went wrong, what led up to this, because it's just not the tail end is the result of what took place. It is all that led up to it, including the tail end.

And so I think that if we're going to do right for the families, we need to do a complete and thorough investigation as to what led up to it, why this took place and why that didn't take place, and make sure we're dealing with the facts, because at one time the Republicans were saying that a sniper had the bomber in sight, and they told the families that, and the families felt that something should have been done to give the order to shoot the sniper, to shoot the bomber, but it wasn't true.

You know, and the Republicans never talked about that, that it was two different people, so they kept perpetuating a situation that gave the families, you know, made them feel that something else could have been done to save their loved ones, when in fact that was not a fact as it had been told to them by Republican colleagues.

SIDNER: All right, Representative Gregory Meeks, thank you so much for joining us this morning bright and early. We appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, just moments from now, we're looking at live pictures right there. President-elect Trump will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, and this morning a new CNN KFILE report reveals that Trump nominee Pete Hegseth says that allowing gay troops to serve openly is a gateway to Marxism.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [09:27:05]

BERMAN: All right, happening right now, President-elect Donald Trump is at the New York Stock Exchange. He is getting ready to ring the opening bell. You can see right there where it will all take place. Trump spoke moments ago. Why? Well, you can see by that sign behind him. He must love this. He was just named TIME's "Person of the Year."

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I do want to thank TIME Magazine. I've been on the cover many times. I don't know who has the record. But I can only probably talk well about 25% of the covers. 25% are great. The others I just sort of hide. But it's been an honor. And every time it's an honor, I will tell you. Thank you very much for doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Thank you very much for doing it. Robert Kennedy in the background there. With us now in studio, the pride of Florida, Steve Contorno up here.

So, as I said, I mean, Trump must love this. I mean, Trump put up signs of himself being Man of the Year before he even was TIME Magazine's Person of the Year. Now he's been awarded it for the second time. And did an interesting interview.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: He did a very interesting interview. And you mentioned RFK Jr. standing behind him. And one of the more controversial elements of this interview was what he had to say about vaccines and the fact that RFK Jr. is now leading his health department. And he was asked specifically, if RFK Jr. moves to end childhood vaccination programs, would you sign off on that? And Trump said, we're going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it.

And then the interviewer went on to ask, so that could include getting rid of some vaccines. And Trump said, "It could if I think it's dangerous, if I think it's not beneficial, but I don't think it's going to be very controversial in the end."

Obviously, this would be incredibly controversial if he did take those steps. There are seven Nobel Laureates who have asked Donald Trump and the Senate not to confirm RFK Jr. because of what he has had to say about vaccines in the past.

BERMAN: You're looking at live pictures now from the New York Stock Exchange. You can see, I'm looking over here because it's the only screen I can see, guys. But Donald Trump is there, up there getting ready to ring the opening bell.

You can see the First Lady is with him. Is it Ivanka standing there as well, which is a little unusual. J.D. Vance there, he's got a lot of people very close to him. I see Tiffany Trump there as well. This is obviously something very important to the President-elect.

I can count on one hand the number of times that Melania has been with him the last several months, being named TIME Person of the Year, obviously something that he considers a very, very special honor, and probably being at the New York Stock Exchange as well as a one-time resident, a long-time resident of New York City. He is no longer. The Stock Exchange, I'm sure, holds a very, very special place in his heart.

Any words, Steve? And we have about 30 seconds before they will ring the bell. So how he feels about being here today?

CONTORNO: Look, this is something that has preoccupied his mind for a long time. You mentioned the covers that he held or posted in his club before he was even TIME Man of the Year.

[09:30:14]