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Erin Burnett Outfront

Trump's DOJ Releases Trove Of Heavily Redacted Epstein Docs; Autopsy: Gunman Died By Suicide Two Days Before Police Found Him; Putin's War Is Having A Deadly Impact On Finland's Beloved Reindeer. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired December 19, 2025 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:24]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

Breaking news, we're just learning the DOJ briefed the White House on what the Epstein files contained, as we see some heavily redacted Epstein files released tonight. What the DOJ is choosing to release is also very telling.

Plus, new details about the gunman who killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor. A man who calls himself the gunman's only close friend at Brown speaking out. He's our guest tonight.

And a little known yet deadly consequence of Vladimir Putin's war playing out far from the front lines in Ukraine.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

And OUTFRONT tonight, we begin with the breaking news on this Friday, the Epstein files released. Now, I had a little hesitancy on that word because it's only part. The DOJ releasing a mass dump of heavily redacted documents tonight. I want to just emphasize that point. By heavily redacted -- I mean, a lot of pages that look like this and this and this and this and this, and that's all I was going to do to the printer to make the point, okay. There's a lot more of them.

We have teams across CNN going through what was released right now in terms of pages that are not quite as black as these, but the DOJ is admitting in a letter to Congress that the files are not complete, separate from the redactions themselves. And that lack of completion is a big problem because the deadline by law, thanks to congress forcing Trump's hand on the Epstein files, is today.

Now, the key Republican who is behind getting that law passed is Congressman Thomas Massie. And he's posting on social media tonight, quote, "Unfortunately, today's document released by A.G. Pam Bondi and Deputy A.G. Todd Blanche grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law that Donald Trump signed just 30 days ago, and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said, quote, "Release all the files. It's literally the law." Well, they did not. And they have not yet. The White House saying tonight that it did not receive the Epstein documents that were released by the department of justice before release. So, they're saying that they weren't involved with what the DOJ chose to put out today. But the Justice Department did brief the White House on what the documents contained.

So, what do we actually have tonight on the pages that aren't black, as the country starts to shut down and check out for the end of year holiday time, we do have some, apparently never before released documents, along with thousands of files that were already public. The redactions, of course, and a whole bunch of pictures of Bill Clinton.

Now, among the never before released documents is this photo of Bill Clinton. He is with Epstein. Got a print out of that one as well. And then a photo of a shirtless Clinton in a jacuzzi next to another person whose face is redacted, and a photo of Clinton swimming in a pool with Ghislaine Maxwell, and another woman whose face is redacted. Now, it's important to note Clinton has not been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing related to Epstein.

And a Clinton spokesperson posting on social media tonight. The White House hasn't been hiding these files for months, only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they'll try and hide forever.

Now, as for Trump himself, he didn't want to talk about the files today. He refused to take questions about anything today when he appeared in public to announce a drug pricing order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I won't even take questions today because there's no way I can take questions that are anywhere comparable to what you just witnessed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: To be clear, what he's talking about, what we just witnessed was an announcement from Trump about drug prices.

M.J. Lee has been going through the files such that we have them.

And, M.J. Lee, look, you know, we got these photos, we got lots of redactions. Lots of things missing, but there are still, you know, many -- many pages of documents that you are able to look through. What are you learning from them?

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Erin, as we are going through these thousands and thousands of pages of documents and photos to try to figure out what's new, what's significant, are there people of interest that we should be taking note of? You're right that this is just a partial release of the so- called Epstein files from the DOJ. And what's interesting is that Todd Blanche has essentially informed Congress as of this afternoon that this is happening in this way because of the sheer volume of the documents that we are talking about and what he essentially communicated is that we needed more time to figure out what information needed to be redacted, including on some information that the agency got recently.

Now, one thing that is interesting is that he made clear in this communication to Congress that they made a decision to withhold, and redact information that goes beyond what is stated in the law.

[19:05:08]

And just as a reminder, what is stated in the law is that there are five categories of information that can be redacted. That includes identifying information about the victims and just scrolling through these documents. You can tell there are photos where there is a black box over a woman's face. That clearly falls under that category, but there are other examples as well, like child sex abuse, anything that shows physical abuse, anything that could hurt an ongoing investigation, something that could hurt national security.

But the fact that there are going to be more documents coming out on a rolling basis, and that so many redactions. Again, beyond what the law originally stated, is going to have huge political ramifications. And I also think we should talk about the ramifications that that is going to have on the survivors, because one of the things that the survivors are very much looking for in a big picture way as they go through these files, is a sense of a better understanding of why some of these internal decisions over the course of many years were made, including, you know, what charges did the department decide to not bring on certain people? What were the decision-making processes that took place over the course of many years that they've never gotten the answer to?

So, this is going to be sort of a long running process. And I can tell you with certainty that survivors are not going to be happy about what they are going to see as still, the continued lack of transparency here.

BURNETT: Yeah. All right. Thank you very much, M.J. Lee. And everyone is here with me now.

So, Barry Levine, obviously, you know, you've been covering this for years and you've pushed every, every night here for the files to be released. So, the day comes, the deadline comes, and we get some stuff, we get some new stuff. We get a lot of stuff we already knew. We get a lot of black pages. And when it comes to men, we get a lot of pictures of Bill Clinton.

BARRY LEVINE, AUTHOR, "THE SPIDER": Yeah. Erin, apparently there's about 10 percent of the actual FBI files that were released today, and 5 percent of that, 5 percent of the ten we already had. Okay? So, we're receiving, for the most part, very little.

And, you know, it's already been playing politics in the sense of putting out pictures of bill Clinton. You have to wonder if the DOJ has assigned Jay Clayton at the SDNY to investigate. Clinton and other Democratic enemies of President Trump.

Why are they showing all these photos of Bill Clinton? You would think that would be part of the investigation. So that doesn't make any sense. We did learn that there's 1,200 victims more than we initially thought from the DOJ. The DOJ also said, and this is most important to me, and I think the survivors DOJ communications on investigations into Epstein and his associates and details of any immunity deals.

And so I'm looking for the FD 302 forms, which are the FBI witness reports that Representative Tom Massie says pertains to 20 men, that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked. These, children to and from the initial look that I made earlier, I don't see any of the 302 forms. However, we may see them in a later document dump.

BURNETT: I mean, Stacy, just to state the obvious here, it's just definitionally impossible that its random what we got today, right? If you're putting out 10 percent, someone's making a decision on what that 10 percent is.

STACY SCHNEIDER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yeah, exactly. And it seems like Todd Blanche is the propped up announcer of it. But to Barry's point, it's so significant that President Trump directed Pam Bondi to investigate Bill Clinton directly named him in a social media post, along with other Democrats.

And then she answered the call and appointed a U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York to investigate and the policy of the justice department is you don't release anything related to an ongoing investigation, especially photographs about the subject of an ongoing investigation. And obviously, it seems to be in disingenuous subject being Bill Clinton being ordered to be investigated at this late stage of the game. It certainly did seem targeted at the time and still does.

But why would they go against their own policies and then release Bill Clinton's photos? It's kind of makes a farce of this entire situation, right?

BURNETT: If your whole point, if you were going to hide behind an ongoing investigation, the one that you've got going is into Bill Clinton. And yet we got a whole bunch of pictures of him in a pool and a jacuzzi and whatnot.

RYAN GOODMAN, JUST SECURITY CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Yeah. And I'll just add one more building block, which is that the legislation, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, actually has an exception. It says you do not have to release information if it's if -- it could jeopardize an ongoing investigation. So, it's not just that that's Justice Department policy. The law allows for them to actually have that --

BURNETT: This is the law, right, that Massie --

GOODMAN: Yes, exactly.

So, it's the oddity that that would be the piece that's released, and especially when the victims have named at least 20 men, and then we've only got one, one out of 20.

[19:10:06]

BURNETT: Right. And it happens to be that one. Okay, Max. So, I mean, we all -- we all get that. And obviously, everybody -- if there's anything more to know about Bill Clinton than people should know it, right? But they should know about everyone else as well.

The two -- two men behind the bill, the law that Ryan is talking about, Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie have both said this is a load of baloney. And Massie saying, you know, basically get out of town. Right. His words are that it fails to grossly fails to comply with the spirit and the letter of the law.

Then, you had Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, you know, has been a regular voice on this issue, but now other issues going against Trump.

Does this become like everybody jumps on board to this or no?

MAX ROSE (D), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: There are now three things that are universally approved of in politics motherhood, apple pie, and releasing all of the Epstein files, which is what makes this so incredibly jarring, alarming, and politically stupid that the Trump administration is acting this way. They are either grossly incompetent and that, you know, tells look at how they're dealing with issues of affordability or they're on the wrong side of the Epstein conspiracy, the Epstein case. Call it whatever you want. They're on the wrong side of it.

I cannot for the life of me understand why they are operating this way, unless they're trying to hide something on behalf of Donald Trump.

BURNETT: I mean, and again, one of the basic things here, Barry, is that we know that there are, what, up to two dozen men, there could be way more, right? But we know that there are at least that.

LEVINE: Yeah.

BURNETT: Todd Blanche came out today and announced that there's at least 1,200 women, which is a stunning number. We did know there were more than 1,000, but to say 1,200, but nothing about the men?

LEVINE: No, that's -- and that to me is what this is about.

BURNETT: Right. This is about.

LEVINE: We want accountability.

BURNETT: The victims should always be protected if they want them to be protected. But it's about accountability for them.

LEVINE: The American public wants accountability, but the survivors have been living with this for decades. You know, we're finally seeing something. You know, Maria Farmer went to the FBI in 1996. Okay. We're almost at the 30-year anniversary of when she went to the FBI to

report Jeffrey Epstein. And it's only now, decades later, that we're finally seeing some files.

And what we're seeing tonight is, is not going to help us understand the accountability of these men who took part in the sex trafficking.

SCHNEIDER: And also, can I add something?

BURNETT: Yeah.

SCHNEIDER: The way they're releasing the file under the law is insulting. They knew they had 30 days when the law was passed to do it. They're not sitting around with ten lawyers in a room in the Justice Department going through files. There's software to do that. They can enter key term searches into the software. They can know what to redact out. It cuts out a lot of the work.

BURNETT: I'm sure ChatGPT, which people use every day now, could maybe help you find how many times does the name X appear and cross it out. It's not difficult.

SCHNEIDER: You've got artificial intelligence.

BURNETT: Microsoft Word could have done that 20 years ago.

SCHNEIDER: Exactly. So for them to come on the day the releasing the documents and say, oh, well, only giving you part of it because we're still redacting, how about come to us two weeks in and say we have an overwhelming number of documents, tell the public how many documents do you actually have? If you've got 300,000 now you're releasing or that number, how many more do you have that you need this extra time to insult us this way?

BURNETT: Yeah. I mean, and to point out that I guess they were hoping this day would not come. Right, but obviously, Trump could have ordered this in the first day of his presidency. And it's been months where it's been building to this point. You could have been prepared.

GOODMAN: Right. And there's also been reporting and the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrats have included in their letters that we know that they already scanned the files for President Trump's name. So they've had the files, they've scanned them multiple times. They could have done something with it.

And it's not just about the timing of the release of the files, but it's what you showed at the beginning that the files that they have released, they've spent time redacting them, and there's no excuse for that. The law does not allow for redactions, and it certainly doesn't allow for redactions of closed investigations, and when Congress is in fact looking into wrongdoing on the part of law enforcement.

BURNETT: So, is there any legal recourse, right? So, if you have an ongoing investigation, as they say they do, into Bill Clinton, and you put out these pictures of Bill Clinton, what happens there? GOODMAN: So, I think the biggest legal recourse is on the part of

Congress. They really have standing here. And they could bring a case in court. They could also hold the attorney general in contempt. I think Eric Holder can tell you about that. And that's one aspect.

Ro Khanna has already used the I-word tonight. He has said impeachment. I think he would think about impeachment of the attorney general. She's primarily responsible. The act is directed at her, and it's under her stewardship that she releases this information. Also, Todd Blanche.

So I think that's what is being talked about as to how far they'll go down that path. Contempt filed a lawsuit in court, and they could do that by committee. Or they could do that by either chamber.

BURNETT: And the question is how many Republicans will get on board.

ROSE: A ton. I mean, look, our whole reaction here is so predictable. This is the most predictable thing in politics.

[19:15:02]

So the number one question Democrats should be asking right now is why is the Trump administration inflicting such incredible political self- harm to themselves right now in a way that this is totally predictable? No one thought that this could possibly go well doing it like this. So, they must be hiding something. What are they hiding and why is it so damaging that they would go through all this political damage in order to hide it?

BURNETT: Because they have they have taken a lot of political damage over this. They have and it is metastasized.

ROSE: This is horrible for them.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you all very much.

And next, CNN combing through thousands of pages of those newly released Epstein files, I'm going to speak to someone who dated Epstein and says Epstein and Trump were like best friends. Important. Again, in context of what we're seeing tonight.

Plus, more breaking developments this evening. The man behind the Brown University mass shooting was found dead at a storage facility -- was dead. I'm sorry, two days before they actually found him.

And Russian wolves killing Finland's beloved reindeer. Why this story is actually a result of Putin's war in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we are wolves. Most of them come for the east. The Russians are.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:20:25]

BURNETT: Breaking news, new details as CNN is continuing to comb through this first data dump, hundreds of thousands of pages from the Epstein files released by the DOJ. Just a bit ago. One of the new files confirms that Epstein was reported to authorities almost 30 years ago. This is Epstein survivor Maria Farmer's first complaint to the FBI, which was filed in September of 1996.

Now, it's not clear what action law enforcement took after this, but it was ten years after that complaint. She's talked to us about it, but it was 10 years after that Epstein was first arrested.

Now, my next guest is somebody who dated Epstein in the 1990s, before she quickly became very troubled by his behavior. Stacey Williams was a "Sports Illustrated" model who spent time with both Epstein and Donald Trump together, in one disturbing alleged incident, which Williams went public with last year before the presidential election. Williams says Trump groped her in front of Epstein at Trump Tower in 1993.

Trump had denied Williams allegations through his campaign when she first told her story, saying in part, quote, "It's obvious this fake story was contrived by Kamala Harris's campaign."

Stacey Williams is OUTFRONT again with me now.

And, Stacey, I'm really grateful to be talking to you tonight. You know, and I know as we were in commercial, you and I were talking about, you know, whether you expected or didn't expect the amount of information we got today. You know, the Trump team saying, oh, gosh, this is an incredible amount of information. You know, Barry Levine was just saying it's about 10 percent of the total. But the White House is saying its absolute commitment to transparency is what this shows.

What do you think from what you're seeing tonight?

STACEY WILLIAMS, FORMER EPSTEIN GIRLFRIEND: Those redacted pages you held up, you know, a few minutes ago, don't reflect transparency to me. So, you know, I'm confused. You know, I feel -- I mean, are we in a "Saturday Night Live" skit at this point? I believe they did an episode of the news where they showed, you know, the redacted photos coming out and information and, and this looks even more redacted than what I saw on "Saturday Night Live".

So, it's laughable. There's, you know, we have a bipartisan agreement about what transparency means based on, you know, this act that was passed and, and hasn't been achieved. They've broken the law. I mean, it's quite clear the law has been broken today.

BURNETT: So, Stacey, just as -- you look at this with the deep history, the deep knowledge that you have, why? Why do you think they're doing this at this point?

WILLIAMS: You know. Exactly. I'm so confused. I know from personal experience that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein

were best friends. The fact that anyone is litigating that at this point is just absurd. We don't need the files to confirm the closeness of that friendship.

We know that. I'm not the only one who's come forward. Theres, you know, mountains of evidence about how close the two of them were. So, I want to know why there can't be more transparency about this process? I don't -- if there's no there, there, and they were, you know, simply close friends, why are we still here? It doesn't -- it doesn't make sense to me.

BURNETT: No, it doesn't.

You had recently talked, Stacey, about how Epstein told you he secretly recorded you -- disrobed was the word that you were describing it as in a bedroom at his house. And you have said that that conversation haunts you to this day. And I can only imagine how that is. And you wrote in an op ed when I watched FBI agents raid Epstein's homes in 2019, I grew nauseous at the thought that such videos could have ended up in the hands of other people. Let me be clear I did not consent to being groped by Donald Trump, and I did not consent to being to being filmed by Jeffrey Epstein.

Now, Stacey, of course, I will note Trump has denied your accusation, but do you think at this point, I guess I don't know if you were even able to ascertain from what we have today that you could be in the FBI files on Epstein and perhaps even in some of the ones that are being released, whether your name is yet to be found or whether your name is blacked out on one of these pages.

WILLIAMS: Exactly. I would love to know that. I mean, that's sort of like, you know, that's the dog I have in this fight, right? I care so much about being an ally to these survivors. I want justice for them, first and foremost. Okay?

You know what they endured, as I've said before, is so beyond that brief incident that I had that was horrible.

[19:25:09]

And, you know, and abusive for sure. But nothing compared to what they have gone through.

But, you know, I want to know, as someone who, you know, knew Jeffrey, and Jeffrey looked at me and said, I have videotape of your room. Where is that? Is it true? Does it exist?

Other survivors have come forward and referenced surveillance in the homes. So, where -- where is all of that? Where, you know --

BURNETT: Just to be clear, even if that video is of you and or and who knows what else those videos, they are not telling you.

WILLIAMS: Nobody's telling me. I've never spoken to DOJ. I've never -- I've never heard -- I've never heard from any DOJ, from any administration on this. So, you know, yeah. That's right. You know, exactly.

You know, this goes beyond lists. There's not -- you know, I don't believe there's some suitcase with a bunch of, you know, secrets in it, clearly. You know, there are piles and piles of evidence, and that must include, as we know, email communications, videos.

I mean, boxes were hauled out of both homes. I was in both homes. You know, where is that? I want to know. I want to know if I'm in them. I want to know the truth, as these other survivors do.

BURNETT: Yes, we do. And it's just very unclear as to whether were any step closer to that tonight with this very, very partial release of the files.

Stacey, thanks so much. I'm glad to have the chance to talk to you again. Thank you.

WILLIAMS: Thank you so much.

BURNETT: And next, we are learning much more about the gunman behind the Brown University mass shooting and the killing of an MIT professor. Why was he reportedly estranged from his family? The man who says that he was his only close friend in graduate school is choosing to speak tonight to OUTFRONT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:30:58]

BURNETT: Our other major breaking story on this Friday. We're learning tonight, the Brown University shooter who went on to kill an MIT professor, was dead for two days before he was located by authorities last night. Now, this is according to the autopsy report. This is new. And we're learning more tonight about the gunman from the people who knew him and describe him as a brilliant but difficult student.

Now we're going to speak to one of his former classmates in a moment. But first, as the mystery surrounding the gunman's motives grows tonight, Brian Todd begins our coverage OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the manhunt finally over in the Brown University and MIT professor shootings, many questions still remain as to a clear motive in the killings. Providence chief of police, Colonel Oscar Perez, believes the killer was very strategic in his measures to dodge detection before the shootings.

COL. OSCAR L. PEREZ, JR., PROVIDENCE POLICE CHIEF: I mean, he was communicating with apps he was utilizing certain ways to drive and picking certain neighborhoods to drive around. He wasn't picking main streets. I would assume that he was probably trying to avoid, like, certain licenses -- license plate readers.

TODD (voice-over): The gunman, 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, was found dead late Thursday in a New Hampshire storage unit from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He's originally from Portugal, and his last known address was in Miami.

PEREZ: We also learned that he had an address here in the city of Providence, which led us to believe that he was pretty familiar with the east side, with Brown University.

TODD (voice-over): And they know that Neves Valente attended Brown roughly two decades ago as a PhD student studying physics, but he only stayed for about a year, enrolling in the fall of 2000 and leaving in the spring of 2001. At one point, he was even assigned an office in the same building where the shooting took place.

CHRISTINA PAXSON, PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY: I think it's safe to assume that this man, when he was a student, spent a great deal of time in that building for classes and other activities as a PhD student in physics.

TODD (voice-over): A post pulled from an Internet archive, first reported by "The New York Times", but which could not be independently verified, appears to show a post left by Neves Valente on a Brown physics message board after he left the school. Part of it was left in Portuguese and was translated to, quote, "The greatest liar is the one who is able to lie to themselves. These exist everywhere, but they sometimes proliferate in the most unexpected places."

Authorities also know Neves Valente attended the same university in Portugal as the MIT professor he killed. In an interview with "Publico", a newspaper in Portugal, former classmate Felipe Mora describes his impressions of Neves Valente as aggressive. Quote, "He had a confrontational personality in class. In other words, the other good students would intervene, ask questions. But Claudio liked to say that he was the one who knew".

And in a Facebook post in Portuguese, Mora wrote, "Claudio was obviously one of the best, but in class he had a great need to stand out and show that he was better than the rest."

As for the man who helped break the case wide open, a man known only as John in the affidavit who posted on Reddit, writing in part, quote, "I'm being dead serious. The police need to look into a gray Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. That was the car he was driving." That post, eventually leading investigators to his car.

PEREZ: It was a great, great thing that he was actually paying attention and that he was actually observing his surroundings. He helped us out a lot. He was able to break this case.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on camera): Chief Perez says that even though authorities have had the shooters name since Wednesday, they have not yet made contact with any relatives he may have in the U.S. or in Portugal. But he says Portuguese police are helping in this investigation -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Brian, thank you. And OUTFRONT now, the Rhode Island attorney general, Peter Neronha.

And, Attorney General, I appreciate your time. I mean, the more you have a chance to think about this story, the more it is bizarre, disturbing, and confusing. I mean, if we start with a mass shooting of 20 people at Brown and then we find out the shooter worked on a PhD in physics there 20 years ago, I mean, just Brown itself.

[19:35:01]

Is it any clearer to you tonight why the shooter attacked those students in that Brown classroom?

PETER NERONHA, RHODE ISLAND ATTORNEY GENERAL: It isn't. It isn't, as you point out, the connection to Brown goes back at least a decade more, really. It is the physics building, and he did study physics. But why now? We still don't know.

We may learn more in the days ahead. But I really don't want to speculate because its a hard one to even really -- it's really hard to come up with really anything, frankly, frankly, based on what we know right now.

BURNETT: Yeah. I mean, a few days ago, when the first question was asked of whether there was any connection between the, you know, the murder, apparent assassination at MIT and Brown, the answer from law enforcement was a pretty quick no. Right? I mean, because it just seemed too bizarre to even contemplate. And then the dots were connected, it turned out that was the case.

I mean, has there been any clues in either location or, of course, in that storage facility that give you any sense of motive as to why he did what he did at Brown and MIT, which in and of themselves were very different sorts of events. Right? One, a mass shooting of people that he didn't seem to know, and one something that was deeply personal.

BURNETT: Yeah. Look, it appears that, Erin, that he knew the MIT professor, from some time spent together in Lisbon. I don't have a lot of information about that case, since its not in my jurisdiction.

I do know that that one of the things that finally led us, put them together was we realized, you know, within the last, you know, up until last night, within the 24 hours or so preceding it, that the same car had been used in both incidents.

And then as we started to, you know, again, to pull those threads that you and I have talked about before, you know, we saw similarities in the clothing, for example, at the storage unit, the vest that he had worn and kind of a lime green yellow vest that he'd worn in the shooting in Massachusetts, which connected him to that shooting as well as evidence up there that connected him to the Rhode Island shooting.

But it was the car, you know, the agents came in and said, it's the same car. And in fact, in in New Hampshire, the plate on the car, he had a Florida plate connecting him to Rhode Island, connecting that car to Rhode Island and a Maine plate connecting him to the crime in Massachusetts.

Yeah. So, quite a turn of events in a relatively short period of time.

BURNETT: Now, an autopsy attorney general says the gunman is believed to have died by suicide on Tuesday. Right. So, the Brown shooting was on Saturday afternoon evening. The MIT assassination was on Monday night. And then Tuesday. The affidavit says that he died by suicide. But I mean, the autopsy -- the autopsy says that he died by suicide.

NERONHA: Right.

BURNETT: But then the affidavit seems to say that the gunman called a rental car company on Thursday, which obviously is two days after the autopsy said that he was dead. Do you know what that discrepancy is about?

NERONHA: Yes. So, we -- you know, in the course of an investigation like this, you get leads. And at the time of that -- at the time that we drafted that warrant and got it signed, we didn't know that the gunman was in New Hampshire. We knew that he had a connection up there, but we know that he was there.

And, you know, we had source information. We had a couple one, that he was on route 24 headed northbound. There was actually a plane in the air trying to track him. We had information that he might be returning the car in Connecticut at one point. Those leads turned out to not be valid.

But that's not unusual in a case like this. What we do know now, what we do know now, is that he swiped into that unit on the 15th. We had no information regarding him coming out, but --

BURNETT: That unit is the storage unit where he was found dead.

NERRONHA: Correct. Correct, Erin. In New Hampshire. So, we knew he had swiped in there on the 15th. The last time we had we did not have him swiping out. But you still have to be very careful. Obviously, in drawing any conclusions, you know, conclusions from that because you just don't know.

And this guy was very, sophisticated in his efforts to elude law enforcement. He was using voice over Internet protocol to access the Internet. He was not using cell service. He was using -- using a method of paying for things, not using traditional credit cards.

You know, he had multiple plates for his car. He was -- he was a sophisticated actor. And so, you know, now, knowing from the medical examiner's report when he died, that doesn't surprise me, but that's the explanation for --

BURNETT: So. Okay, so basically you're saying he swiped into the facility on the 15th, which is Monday. Autopsy says he died Tuesday by suicide. So, then this call that the affidavits referring to on Thursday to the rental car company actually wasn't from him.

[19:40:03] It was just --

NERONHA: Correct, those --

BURNETT: It was something they thought might have been. But it wasn't, right?

NERONHA: That's correct.

BURNETT: Okay. All right. Well -- and did he by any chance, do you know, did he leave behind a note, whether a paper or anything in that storage facility or digitally at this point that would help with motive?

NERONHA: No, not to my knowledge. But I will say that, you know, since last night, ballistics evidence now matches him to both shootings, both in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and DNA evidence matches him to Rhode Island. So, you know, there is no doubt that -- not that there was yesterday, but those two things were run down today because that lab testing takes time. Much as we were dealing with on Sunday. And now we have, you know, finalized those two pieces of evidence.

BURNETT: All right. Attorney General Neronha, thank you so much. I appreciate your time tonight.

NERONHA: You're welcome, Erin.

BURNETT: And OUTFRONT next, speaking out, the man who says he was the shooter's only close friend at Brown speaks to OUTFRONT as we are learning new details about the murderer this hour.

Plus, what the uptick in Russian wolves killing Finnish reindeer has to do with Putin's war in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, the soldiers and the young hunters, they hunt the wolves, but now they're hunting people in Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:45:34]

BURNETT: Breaking news, the gunman accused of killing two Brown University students in a mass shooting there, and an MIT professor was estranged from his family for more than 20 years. Now, this is according to "The New York Times", who spoke to a relative of Claudio Neves Valente who said of the family, quote, they are devastated. His mother said this morning that she had always worried that the next time she would hear about him, he would be dead.

OUTFRONT now, Scott Watson, a Syracuse University physics professor who describes himself as Neves Valente's only close friend at Brown when the two were studying there together. And, Scott -- I mean, gosh, it's just your insight here is going to be so imperative. When you heard that Neves Valente, when that name comes back in your -- in your lexicon in life and you hear he's the one who's responsible for a mass shooting at Brown and the murder of MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, what went through your head?

SCOTT WATSON, FRIEND OF GUNMAN IN BROWN AND M.I.T. SHOOTINGS: Well, first I have to say I'm sad for the victims, so I don't want to explain away. Very sad for the victims.

But I was shocked. The last time I talked to him was in 2003, and he was going back to Portugal, and I didn't talk to him since then. So it's very confusing. But through a long day of conversation today, I realized maybe the signs were always there.

BURNETT: So, can I ask you about those? Because I know when you refer to the long day of conversations. I know you said it was all right for us to share this. You did speak with the FBI today because they're trying to find people who knew him, right? And you may not have talked to him for a long time, but you knew him and you studied together, and there was a time when, you know, he considered you a friend.

What -- after talking to them and all of the interviews today, what came out of it? Do you think you know what happened here?

WATSON: Well, the main thing I recalled from the old days, is, I mean, one particular story was he would have these anger bursts with the other students. And in particular, there was a guy, Daniel Ferrante, who was from Brazil, and as some people know, Portugal had a colony in Brazil. And when Daniel would arrive at the office, he would always call him, hey, slave. Glad you show up.

And once it peaked with the comments and they started, they were going to punch each other. I had to stand in the middle and separate them, and I forgot about this. I mean, again, it was, you know, 2001. So, yeah, something, something, something --

BURNETT: Yeah. What happened in 2001?

WATSON: September 11th. So --

BURNETT: And you -- yeah. Go ahead.

WATSON: I -- no, I wonder if that had an effect as well. But he also hated living in Providence. He didn't like he couldn't get his fresh fish and these things. And he was always complaining about it.

BURNETT: So, you know, you talk about breaking up that fight, and I know that in your conversations here, you've talked about him as somebody who almost could be two different types of people, right? The bullying, the fighting. And then also someone who came off as much more gentle. How often did you see the darker side of his personality?

WATSON: On and off again. Its hard to remember given the time period, but, with me, he was sweet, nice and caring. We would go to these dinners. He introduced me to the concept of salted cod. I mean, I never thought he would do something like this.

But then as talking with the FBI today and to many journalists, I realized it was there. I mean, with other students, this -- the thing you said earlier about the competition with the guy at MIT, the guy from MIT, when I saw pictures, I actually recognized him from school days. He would come to Brown.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: Oh, you did, yeah. So he would come to Brown. So they -- okay. Go ahead.

WATSON: That's all I know.

BURNETT: Yeah. Well, okay. But -- but that that obviously could establish, you know, we knew that they had at some point they studied together in Portugal, but him coming to Brown and I know you may not know the answer to this, but obviously, that could be very significant here. Were they -- was he coming to Brown to see him? I mean, we're they -- were they friendly? Was there, you know, friendship there of any sort?

WATSON: That's the part I don't know. I just recognize the face.

BURNETT: From back then?

WATSON: Yeah.

BURNETT: Okay. Well, I mean, it's still - I'm sure -- I'm sure as they would have felt that was hugely significant as well because it establishes another touchpoint between the two. At the other place the shooting occurred. So obviously that could be very significant.

When police released the surveillance video of Neves Valente and I don't know how closely you were following this story at that time, even Scott and, you know, did you did you ever occur to you it could be him? And then as a separate point to that, that, now you look at it, is it recognizably the person who once was your friend?

WATSON: So, he looks nothing like he did when I knew him. But another thing I learned by talking with the FBI and remembering that the scene where he puts his hands behind his back and walked back and forth, that's what he used to do when he was trying to think about something. And I forgot --

BURNETT: So you recognize the gesture, huh?

WATSON: Yes.

BURNETT: And one final thing, Scott. Just because you know, we have had some new information here. It was the estrangement from his family. You know, after he came to brown, he reportedly became estranged from his family. Did he talk much to you about his family? Did you know anything about that?

WATSON: No, I mean, the no, I did not more importantly, the thing I would add, which I think is the main motivation, at least for Brown, he thought he wasted his time by coming to the U.S. A lot of the news has been saying that, you know, part of this was that he couldn't graduate and all that. He was bored because he knew more than any of us. He already should have had a PhD.

And there's a -- I don't know how much time I have, but there was a complicated physics book that physicists know when he was an undergraduate. He solved every problem in this book, and most people can't solve them. I think that's a weird thing. But he hated Brown, and he hated Providence.

BURNETT: That's fascinating, because you're talking about a level of brilliance there as well. Look, Scott, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Lots of new, small details here that can make a difference. And thanks so much.

WATSON: Thanks for talking.

BURNETT: All right, you two. And we have an OUTFRONT special report next on a little known yet deadly consequence of Putin's war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wolf is the worst. And they just kill, kill, kill, kill. It's awful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:56:42]

BURNETT: Tonight, Vladimir Putin adamant that Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine until he gets everything he wants. It comes amid a little known but deadly consequence of Putin's war, far from Ukraine's front lines.

Isobel Yeung is OUTFRONT

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine is having far reaching and surprising impacts. Even hundreds of miles away here in Finland, the country with the longest NATO Russian border in the world, reindeer herding is at the heart of Finland's culture and economy.

Juha Kujala's family have been herding reindeer for over 400 years but all that is now under threat.

YEUNG: Oh, poor reindeer.

YEUNG (voice-over): -- from a surge in the number of predators.

YEUNG: What is it that's killing the reindeer? JUHA KUJALA, REINDEER HERDER: Wolf is the worst. And they just kill,

kill, kill, kill. It's awful. This area, wolves, most of them come from the east. The Russian side.

YEUNG: How do you know that?

KUJALA: You see the tracks? They come from the Russian side.

YEUNG: Why do you think there are more Russian wolves?

KUJALA: That's the Putin who changed the world.

YEUNG: Putin?

KUJALA: Yeah. The soldiers and the young hunters, they hunt the wolves, but now they're hunting people in Ukraine. There's nobody anymore there left who's hunting wolves.

YEUNG: So do you blame Vladimir Putin for these reindeer?

KUJALA: Who could I blame? I could blame the whole world. Why this happen? It's getting worse after the Ukraine war.

YEUNG (voice-over): Russian men are paid bounties by the state for every wolf they hunt. But recruitment drives into the war in Ukraine have been intense, leaving fewer people to hunt the wolves.

Now, reports in Russian media say wolves are increasingly entering villages and towns, and it seems they're crossing the border into Finland. Extensive wolf DNA testing supports that theory. In Finland, there's been a dramatic rise in wolves, which are killing reindeer in record numbers.

Sightings like these are increasingly common all along eastern Finland, and that's something that will be difficult to stop as tensions along this over 800 mile border are at their highest point in decades.

YEUNG: So right now, we are with some Finnish conscripts in the northernmost part of the European Union.

YEUNG (voice-over): Finland has increased its defense spending and is carrying out large scale military training.

YEUNG: We're about 25 miles or so away from the Russian border right now, and we know that the Russians have been building up military bases just on the other side of the border. Finland seems like a very optimistic but also very prepared country.

SOLDIER: It's smart to prepare.

YEUNG (voice-over): As Finland preps for the worst, Kujala is hoping for the best.

KUJALA: Hopefully, Mr. Trump, if you hear me, do everything to try to stop this war. If we cannot fix this wolf situation quickly, some part of the area

going to be without reindeers.

YEUNG: And what would that mean to you?

KUJALA: Like somebody -- somebody took my life away.

YEUNG (voice-over): Isobel Yeung, CNN, in northern Finland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Talk about the consequences that no one could even conceive of. Such important reporting. And thanks so much to Isobel, and to all of you for joining us on this Friday.

"AC360" starts right now.