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College Admissions Cheating Scheme Press Conference; Forty-Six People are Charged in a College Admissions Cheating Scheme; Pelosi Not Going Down Impeachment Path; Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 12, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] ANDREW LELLING, U.S. ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS: To get a near perfect score on demand or to calibrate the score. So Singer would discuss with his clients what kind of score they're looking for. So if you daughter took the SAT on her own the first time and got a particular score, retaking the exam, if her score goes up too much, that would invite scrutiny. And so Singer would discuss with parents what kind of score was impressive, but not too impressive, and then would instruct Riddell to attempt to get that score. And he was just good enough to do it.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

LELLING: I'm not sure how much of that is public, so I'm going to err on the side of not answering that. I think in the charging document for Riddell, which is now public, you will find whatever I'm allowed to say on that point, but I don't remember it standing here.

QUESTION: How do they actually change the SAT or ACT scores? Like what do they actually do?

LELLING: Well, Riddell would either take the exam in place of the student or would correct answers after the student handed in the card with his or her answers on it. And that would be submitted to the SAT -- to the -- to the college board or ETS (ph) for the SAT or to ACT Incorporated for the ACT, and it would just be scored under that person's name.

QUESTION: Don't you have any (INAUDIBLE)? Was there anything that that thought there might be cheating was going at any of the (INAUDIBLE)?

LELLING: I can't comment on that.

QUESTION: There are two -- there are two pretty prominent actresses that you mentioned. Is it safe to say that they were among those who were arrested without incident today?

LELLING: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, thank you guys.

LELLING: Thank you.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: You've been watching -- that's live, Boston, Massachusetts. A remarkable press conference. Big, breaking news this hour. A flurry of new indictments today ensnaring celebrities, CEOs, college coaches, and a massive scheme to game the college admissions system. Felicity Huffman, an Academy Award nominee, and Lori Loughlin, the actress of "Full House" and "Fuller House" fame, just two of the more than 40 alleged participants in a wide-ranging conspiracy to cheat, bribe and lie to get the children of the super rich into an elite university.

Here's Andrew Lelling, U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, and the FBI special agent in charge, Joseph Bonavolonta.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW LELLING, U.S. ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS: We have charged three people who organized these scams, two SAT or ACT exam administrators, one exam proctor, one college administrator, nine coaches at elite schools and 33 parents who paid enormous sums to guarantee their children's admission to certain schools.

JOSEPH BONAVOLONTA, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: This is not a case where parents were acting in the best interests of their children. This is a case where they flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they could set their children up for success with the best education money could buy, literally. Some spent anywhere from $200,000 to $6.5 million for guaranteed admission. Their actions were without a doubt insidious, selfish and shameful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Brynn Gingras joins us now live from Boston. She was right there as this was unveiled.

Brynn, wow.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, exactly, John. I mean how elaborate this scheme was according to federal officials, that's what strikes me most. We're talking about just an enormous amount of people involved and now arrested. In some cases, some have already pleaded guilty.

But also just how detailed these schemes were. Now, again, let's talk about the center of this all. His name is Rick Singer. According to authorities, he's already pled guilty to some federal charges. And he basically set up a non-profit and parents would come to him and basically ask for his help to get them into elite universities. We're talking about USC, Georgetown, Yale University. And he did it in two different ways. One route some parents would take is basically have their kids take SATs, ACTs, entrance exams, and he would either have someone who was very smart, as authorities say, retake those tests, changing some of those answers in order to get a higher score for those admission tests. In some cases they would have their daughter or son go to a therapist and get more time to take those entrance exams. That was one route. Another route, according to federal authorities, was they -- Rick Singer would get in touch with athletic coaches at these universities and have students admitted through the athletic route, sometimes even faking pictures of these students as athletes and basically bribing these athletic coaches to help these students get in that route.

I know two names that we've been talking about who were parents that have been arrested is Felicity Huffman, an Academy actress, a nominee. Of course we know her from "Desperate Housewives," among other movies and shows. And then Lori Loughlin, we know her, of course, from Hallmark movies, "Full House." He was the mom in "Full House."

[12:05:14] According to these court documents, they took two separate routes. Felicity Huffman, if you go into these court documents, basically asked for Singer's help, allegedly, to take the test for their daughter and declined to have him do the same thing for her second daughter. And federal authorities actually said they're not sure why she changed her mind for the second time around.

When you look at the charging documents for Lori Loughlin, they said that they used Singer's help in order for her -- their kid-- her daughter to get into USC through Crewe (ph), even though she had no talent whatsoever with that sport.

So, again, a lot of details just came out in that news conference, and it's just mind blowing the amount of money that was pushed around, how many people were involved, the fact that even some of the children knew that this was happening, some of the children don't. Some of these students are still in colleges. But important to note, John, that according to these authorities, these universities that were involved had no knowledge of this. But this investigation is still ongoing.

KING: Still ongoing and interesting the level of detail, amazing.

Brynn Gingras, appreciate it, right in the room there where they just unveiled these charges.

Our legal analyst, Jennifer Rodgers and Paul Callan, join the conversation now.

Please don't follow me. You're a lot smarter than me when it comes to this. But let me just start with you first, Jennifer.

When you hear the level of detail from the U.S. attorney, the FBI, the IRS, obviously they say the ringleader is agreeing to plead guilty, so they flipped the guy at the top of the pyramid. What else is your big takeaway here?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I'm just impressed by the scope of this investigation. I mean, as you said, they did apparently get Rick Singer to plead guilty, so clearly he, I think, has told them all about the scheme. That must be how they were able to wrap all of this up in just over a year, I think the U.S. attorney said it took.

So, you know, it's an impressive scope. You know, hopefully these universities will be able to clean house. There are a lot of coaches here who I'm assuming will be fired. You know, what the schools choose to do about the students, you know, will be up to them. I'm sure they'll do their own investigations and decide how to proceed.

But it's an impressive investigation. You know, I do hope that Rick Singer, if he's pleading guilty, didn't get a terrific deal out of this, a cooperation deal. You know, usually you wouldn't cooperate the head guy against people below him. So we'll have to wait and see when his documents are released whether it's a cooperation agreement or just a plea agreement. But it's certainly an impressive takedown.

KING: It's a -- it's a great point about, we'll see what the plea agreement is there.

And, Paul, you heard the U.S. attorney say they got a tip. They were interviewing a target in a completely different investigation who apparently was trying to give them something, which happens a lot in law enforcement. I'm in trouble, let me give you something else.

Again, your biggest takeaway? Include for me, if you will, the significance of them using RICO, the racketeering statute here.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's a fascinating use of the racketeering statute which is customarily used against organized criminals. That's what it was designed for. And the Feds now have figured out a way to apply it to college admissions. The result, this is probably the biggest college admissions scam in U.S. history.

It's really kind of staggering in its dimensions. It's nationwide. It involves some of the top schools in the United States. And it's going down, by the way, at a time when Harvard's being sued for the way they admit minorities to their colleges. Here we have, on the other hand, parents who are bribing their way in to some of America's top colleges. And it's a very sophisticated scam that involved cheating on ACT and SAT scores, the forgery of false athletic resumes to make it look like you're some sort of a star athletically and deserve admission to an Ivy League college. So it's a fascinating use of the RICO statute to solve a crime.

KING: And obviously to both of you, I mean it will get a ton of attention because of the celebrities involved, two well-known actresses who obviously were trying to help their children and go to what the prosecutor say was incredibly corrupt and illegal efforts to do so. But you have -- you have, a, two Hollywood stars, bi, these schools, Yale, Stanford, USC, Wake Forest, Georgetown, athletic coaches who were taking bribes. In some cases, prosecutors said, the coach put all of the money into the program, but in most cases they kept some of the money and put -- either kept all of it or put it in.

Just, again, as you go through the level of detail here, what does it tell you, Jennifer?

RODGERS: Well, I don't even know how they put money into the program. I mean these were illicit bribes going to the coaches. So I don't even know how they would put money into the program.

I mean one thing I think these colleges are going to have to think about, particularly those that have strong athletic programs, like UCLA and USC and Stanford are, you know, the oversight that they give to these coaches and what do they do once these students arrive and, you know, all of a sudden they claim an injury or they're just not participating. You know, there ought to be more oversight of these athletic admissions because clearly this Rick Singer person was able to recruit coaches from all over the country. I mean how do you do that? You can't just walk in or pick up the phone and say, hey, would you like to take some illegal bribes?

[12:10:07] So the fact that he was able to get so many participants at these top colleges really, I think, should be a wake-up call to these schools to keep a better eye on this process.

KING: And, Paul, help me just a little bit about what we're talking about in terms of penalties. Again, I'm going to focus on the two known names. But if you go through the parents, all of the parents here, and some of them are from the business community, a lot of rich, privileged people here. But Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin both charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, what are we looking at here in terms of potential punishments?

CALLAN: Well, for most all of the parents involved, you're looking at a felony that could lead to five years in federal prison. This, of course, depends upon what the federal guidelines are with respect to their involvement.

But they're all very, very serious felonies with very, very serious jail sentences, and it's -- they've got a tough road ahead.

KING: A tough road ahead, to say the least.

Paul Callan, Jennifer Rodgers, appreciate it. Brynn Gingras as well. We'll continue to stay on top of this throughout the day, get reaction from some of those who have been charged as well.

When we come back, though, a shift back to politics.

Nancy Pelosi says no when it comes to the issue of impeachment. At least for now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:22] KING: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not quite closing the door but setting a very, very high bar for impeachment. This to "The Washington Post" magazine. I'm not for impeachment, the speaker said. Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country and he's just not worth it.

The speaker's firm comments rattling some of her party's most anti- Trump members and delighting conservative headline writers. Look here, "The Drudge Report" declaring Democrats are shook over her position. "The New York Post" says the speaker blinked on impeachment.

Most veteran Democrats see smart politics behind the speaker's decision to draw a hard line now. But, even one of her lieutenants, the House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth of Kentucky, listen here, predicts the speaker's line will eventually be crossed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN YARMUTH (D), CHAIRMAN, BUDGET COMMITTEE: When we see evidence of impeachable offenses, we need to start the process to remove the president from office. I don't think right now there's any way that we could get 218 votes on the floor of the House for an impeachment resolution, but I think -- I think that's not a matter of whether, it's a matter of when.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Manu Raju live on Capitol Hill.

Manu, the speaker said in this interview, I'm going to give you some news. She knew she was going to cause a buzz. She did, huh?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: She absolutely did. And most Democrats are aligning with her at the moment, including very powerful ones, like the House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, who told me that he agrees with her, that there's not a bipartisan support behind moving forward on impeachment. It doesn't make sense to move forward. Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, told me failed impeachment is just not a good idea.

But there are rank and file Democrats who hope her mind is changed and hope to continue to convince her. One rank and file Democrat, the freshman, Rashida Tlaib, told me that she still plans to push forward with impeachment and even offer an articles of impeachment resolution later this month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D), MICHIGAN: Speaker Pelosi has always encouraged me to represent my district, has never told me to stop, has never told me to do anything differently, ever.

RAJU: But you're going to continue to push for impeachment?

TLAIB: I know it's hard to believe, but it's very true.

RAJU: You're going to continue to push for impeachment, right?

TLAIB: I am beginning the investigation. That doesn't mean we're voting on it. It means we're beginning the process to look at some of these alleged claims that he's -- you know, impeachable offenses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Pelosi very clearly wants to move on. She did not address this in a closed door meetings earlier this morning. I am told that also she was asked by a colleague, Cheri Bustos, why not wait until the Mueller report is released before essentially closing the door on impeachment. She said, I've said from day one that I think impeachment is divisive. She's trying to say that she's been consistent all along.

But, again, John, we'll see if her mind is change, but at the moment throwing a lot of cold water on a push from the left.

John.

KING: Trying to keep folks in line, I think we can say.

Thank you, Manu, appreciate it, live from The Hill.

With me in studio to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Pace with the Associated Press, Jackie Kucinich with "The Daily Beast," Karoun Demirjian with "The Washington Post," and CNN's Abby Phillip.

And it's interesting. Nancy Pelosi did not have her best week last week. Then she starts this week by deciding essentially -- it's not slamming the door shut, but, boy, it sets a really high bar. Why?

JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": Well, I think there are a couple of things going on here. You know, Pelosi has been pretty -- has been setting a high bar for impeachment for the last couple of months. She did take this a step forward here.

I think part of this is, she feels like if Democrats were to go down this road, the bar should be high. And I think that's quite reasonable. She doesn't want it to look like Democrats are just trying to impeach the president because they don't like him, because they're unhappy with some of his policy moves, they don't think he's fit for office. There has to be some sort of evidence for a -- of a crime. And I think she's trying to lay this out ahead of the Mueller report to give an indication of what she would be willing to accept.

The second piece of this is, you know, impeachment is divisive and there are Democrats who actually don't think that this would be good politics for their party in the lead-up to a presidential election. That it actually would be better for their nominee to be able to run against President Trump, you know, as is instead of kind of mucking up that campaign with an impeachment process that might not succeed anyway.

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DAILY BEAST": And speaking of politics, I mean, this isn't about the -- yes, the progressives and the left part of the party are the ones who are pushing this. This is about the moderates, the ones who have made them -- made them a majority who don't want to talk about this, who want to talk about other things because they're not there. They went there not to impeach the president but to, you know, get some stuff done. And that's what you hear people from blue dogs, for example, say.

They -- and they're going to be asked this question, too. And now they can just say, well, Speaker Pelosi slammed the door on that. Let's move on.

[12:20:02] KING: To that -- to that point, let me -- as you jump in, let me play one. This is Cheri Bustos. She's from Illinois. She just won a Republican seat. She's a Democrat in the Congress. She -- when she goes home -- it's conservative country. There are Republican voters, too. She says, I don't want to go here. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHERI BUSTOS (D), ILLINOIS: I'm one of 31 Democratic that comes from a district that Donald Trump won. I can tell you, we don't go home talking about impeachment every weekend. And not only that, we don't hear from people that we represent talking about impeachment at every -- at every turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: If Nancy Pelosi wants to keep the majority, she needs to keep her.

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Yes, she's got to keep her people satisfied and calm enough about how this is going. And I actually don't think this timing is very accidental at all. Look to the last two weeks. You had the investigations on the House side really, really get into gear, both with the 81 document requests that the House Judiciary Committee sent out and then the Michael Cohen extravaganza, I have to say, in various stages, public and private. And you've seen the political back and forth. It's already being waged. I mean Republicans are accusing Schiff of being corrupt. And everything's kind of already a giant mess. If they want to be able to conduct these investigations and do it without being accused every 30 seconds of just trying to orchestrate a slow motion impeachment, Pelosi has to come out early and say that's not actually necessarily our end game at all. We're trying to do these based on the merits. And so to protect that, she had to kind of do this early on.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, she's setting the rules for engagement --

DEMIRJIAN: Yes.

PHILLIP: In the beginning of what's going to be a very long, oversight battle with the White House. And the White House's strategy is explicitly that Democrats are trying to impeach the president. That's what this is all about, because they don't like him. They are not even dealing in large part -- in large part on the merits of some of these investigations. They're not trying to dig into the details of what Democrats are looking for. They're just saying Democrats don't like Trump and they're trying to use these investigations to go after him.

So Pelosi sees that coming from the White House. She's trying to get ahead of it, trying to say -- actually, this is about oversight. For the next couple years, what we want as Democrats is to have another agenda going forward.

It was interesting to hear Cheri Bustos also expressing some frustration that when Michael Cohen was on The Hill last week, he sucked all the oxygen out of the room on Capitol Hill. They couldn't get attention on any else, any of the other hearings they were trying to do at that time, and there is some frustration that there is no alternative message that will break through as long as impeachment is constantly swirling in the air (ph). KING: It's a great point. And Pelosi's been around long enough to have gone through the last impeachment where a Democratic president was impeached for sexual behavior, and the one crime they think they can prove is the payoffs, or at least -- if not illegal, immoral activity by the president with the hush money payments. Remember, a Democratic president was impeached. Two Republican speakers lost their job. That was the impact. Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston lost their job in the backlash after that.

You mentioned the politics. Let's just look at this. We just polled in Iowa. Do Democratic voters in Iowa, when they pick the next president, do they want to talk about impeachment? No. Only 22 percent of Iowa likely Democratic caucus-goers say they should be talking about impeachment a lot. Health care, climate change, other issues, way bigger than that.

And then let's look at the recent Quinnipiac poll. Should we begin the process of impeachment? Sixty-six percent of Democrats say so. But 92 percent of Republicans say no. Even 27 percent of Democrats say no. So more than a quarter. And six in 10 independents say no. That is Nancy Pelosi looking at the map and saying, if I want to stay in the majority, I have to keep conservative Democrats, and I absolutely have to keep those independents or some of those districts go back and I hand the gavel over.

PACE: And Pelosi also know that there is space for some Democratic presidential candidates to talk about impeachment on the campaign trail, they'll talk about all the bad things they think Trump has done. But for her to still hold the hard line, that's actually not too bad of a split for her. But she knows the second that the House were to move on this, to Abby's point, it blows out of the water every policy agenda that they have. It's all gone. It's just impeachment. And that's not a good situation for her party.

KUCINICH: And she has a willing partner in Congressman Jerry Nadler, who's the head of the Judiciary Committee. I would encourage everyone to listen to him on "The Daily" this morning. There's a really -- "The New York Times" podcast. And he lays out that, yes, he doesn't -- he thinks the president may have committed some crimes, but those -- but, you know, they're -- just because it's a crime doesn't mean it's an impeachable crime.

KING: Right. That's why we had elections is what the speaker's point is. And we shall see. We'll see as we go forward here. Still waiting for the Mueller report. That could change things.

Up next, Joe Biden's not so subtle 2020 hint.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:29:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: Run, Joe, run! Run, Joe, run!

JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I'd like you all to -- I appreciate the energy you showed when I got up here. Save it a little longer, I may need it in the next few weeks.

Be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you wish for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's former Vice President Joe Biden just this morning hinting at a possible 2020 announcement. That announcement could come very soon. If Biden runs, he'd, of course, be considered the frontrunner. And International Association of Firefighters among those in the labor movement happy to have him in the race. The former vice president gave a glimpse of what a Biden candidacy would look like, trashing the proposed Medicare and Medicaid cuts in President Trump's budget, while showcasing his blue collar roots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The country wasn't built by Wall Street bankers and CEOs and hedge fund managers. They're not necessarily bad, they didn't build this country. It was built by the great American middle class, and unions built the middle class.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:04] KING: CNN's Arlette Saenz joins our conversation.