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Inside Politics

Shooting at Rail Yard Near Downtown San Jose, California; State Department: Multiple Fatalities & Wounded, Suspect Dead in Shooting; WAPO: Grand Jury Convened, May Decide Whether to Indict Trump; Book: Secret Service Promotion System "Closely Resembles" The Mafia. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 26, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: John King is going to pick up our breaking news coverage right now.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello everybody, top of the hour, I'm John King in Washington. We begin this hour with sad major breaking news out of San Jose, California, multiple dead, and multiple injured after a shooting at a Santa Clara County rail yard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEP. RUSSELL DAVIS, SANTA CLARA CO., CA SHERIFF'S DEPT: We have multiple casualties at this point. I can't confirm the exact number of injuries and fatalities. But I will tell you that there are multiple injuries and multiple fatalities in this case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That very brief update a few moments ago from the County Sheriff's Department we expect more at the bottom of the hour. We also do know the shooter is dead. The victims are valley transportation authority employees.

So far, no information on the weapon or the motive, or a firm number of those killed and injured. Again, we expect to hear from the authorities again, perhaps around the bottom of this hour. Let's go right now to CNN Stephanie Elam, our Senior Law Enforcement Analyst, and Andrew McCabe.

But Stephanie, let me start with you. Not much from the authorities, but they were alerted to an active shooter sometime around 6:40 a.m. local time in California this morning. What else do we know?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right and let me paint the scene if I can just take a little liberty here as someone who grew up in Santa Clara County. I can tell you right where this is, this is very close to San Jose International Moneta, San Jose International Airport, and it's on the southern end of that, that's where you'll find this light rail station that was built there.

So it's very close to the intersection of the 880 freeway and the 101. So it's a very busy artery around it, although where this location is, I believe is a lot less trafficked here.

Inside of this valley transportation authority, light rail yard that you see here, we don't know a lot. We do know that they've got they received numerous 911 calls right about 6:34 am. We know that there are multiple victims and that falls into the category of both people who have lost their life as well as people who are injured in this area.

But knowing who this is and who the shooter was, we don't know. All we know is that this shooter is neutralized and no longer posing a threat. It's also worth pointing out here John that this location is right next door to a sheriff's department.

And that is the point now that they're using as the reunification point for people who are coming to try to find their loved ones who may have been at work early in the morning they're getting.

The part that I keep thinking about John is the fact that so many of these people work so hard to get through the pandemic, to keep people moving who needed to get to work. They've made it through and then they've lost their lives just as we're starting to come out of it.

I keep thinking about that with these people who have probably been out there running these trains on the up and down through Silicon Valley there up and towards San Francisco. So all of this happening very early in the morning, but like you said, we just don't have a lot of information right now.

KING: Stephanie, stay with us. Please raise your hand if you get any new information. I want to add to our conversation our CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Anthony Barksdale and Jonathan Wackrow joining us as well, Andy McCabe to you, so this is a few hours now since the first word is Stephanie just noted.

We did hear from the Sheriff's Deputy there, that the shooter has been neutralized. What happens now from a law enforcement standpoint of they obviously know more than they're sharing right now? But what are the key most important questions they are trying to answer right at this moment?

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY FBI DIRECTOR: Sure. So the most important thing John is of course, getting a full assessment on your fatalities and your injuries, getting those who are injured out to seek medical assistance and then preserving that scene and processing that scene to collect all the evidence you can from those who are unfortunately died in the shooting.

At the same time, you're trying to develop a - as full and rich a picture of the shooter that you possibly can. You of course, begin by identifying that person, likely by fingerprinting that person on the scene, there's ways that you can do that remotely and then figuring out who that person is, where they live, where they worked.

In this case, it looks like that may have been the shooter may have been an employee of the rail system. And then to try to develop some sort of an understanding as to why that person showed up at the rail yard today with a rifle and started killing people.

That's a really important question for the community and for the rail system to understand how to think about security going forward. But ultimately, it does not change the fact that you have a number of citizens injured and dead today and yet another mass shooting which is horrific.

KING: It is horrific another mass shooting, sadly - just been through this too many times. Anthony Barksdale, to that point though, to Andy McCabe's point about what investigators are looking for right now. You have the shooter neutralize me and the shooter has been killed on the scene, which diminishes the threat obviously on the scene.

What happens from it now? Andy mentioned you could - you can interview witnesses do they know this individual. Does the individual have identification on them?

[12:05:00]

KING: Once you do have identification on the shooter, in this day and age, this is often a social always immediately a social media scrub what else to try to build the question of motive? Why did this happen?

ANTHONY BARKSDALE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, of course, I mean, we're really going to start trying to find documentation, something that can explain it to us.

So again, we've heard look at social media, but also you're going to have to figure out where this individual lives, execute a search warrant.

Maybe there's more evidence there that we need to figure this out. And then the victims is this was he focused was he or she focused on specific individuals was this random was the person recently fired.

We need to know all of this, because we need to figure out how to prevent this from happening again. So we're still early in this and there's a lot of legwork to be done by law enforcement.

KING: And Jonathan Wackrow, we're told by the Mayor Sam Liccardo, that we will have more information from him in about 20,25 minutes on the scene that he tweeted a short time ago, a shooting at the VTA facility on younger street has left several people being treated.

Situations still being assessed, the shooter is no longer a threat, the facility has been evacuated, I will update as more information becomes available, we should hear from the Mayor there.

Again, I said 2025 minutes or so. Take me through Jonathan, the crime scene at the moment. You have the Sheriff's Deputies who are already there, you will have state authorities, and you'll have federal agencies respond as well to do everything they can to try to put the horrific pieces of yet another mass shooting together.

WACKROW: Yes. So listen, this is the second phase of this incident response, right? The initial part was responding to the active shooter now that the threat is down; we have a massive crime scene that actually has to be processed. So what are they doing right now?

Investigators are actually trying to identify the boundaries of what that - what that crime scene consists of. You know, we obviously know that there's the facility inside, but we also have to take a look at you know, were any victims outside was any shooting occurring outside.

So how far out is the boundary of this crime scene, go from the center building? We also need to start correlating witness's statements, taking those witness statements, looking at anything of video evidence. And then comparing that to identified physical evidence we have to start processing this crime scene.

You know, so we the way they they're going to do that is conduct multiple searches of the facility to identify anything of evidentiary value again, what are we doing this for? We're trying to answer that question why? Why did this occur? What was the motivation of this shooter?

We can interview the shooter, the shooters dead, so we have to look at all other investigative tools and techniques that are available to start piecing this together. And some of my colleagues had just said, you know, this individual in today's age has a lot of digital exhausts, you know.

So they're going to look at anything that this person has stated online in the past, any type of comments, comments to friends, family, again try to find out what has occurred.

Now, one thing I do want to point out is that the secret service has done a lot of research into mass shootings by the national threat assessment center.

And one of the key findings was that when they looked at the hostile actors, the threat actors of mass shootings, nearly all of them made some sort of threatening or concerning communication prior to carrying out horrific acts of violence.

So ad is what investigators are going to utilize as a baseline going back and say, wait a second, it's not normal for someone to wake up and walk into a transportation maintenance facility and start killing people. It's just not normal behavior.

So understanding that behavior is a continuum, looking back at this person's life, were there other types of behavioral anomalies that could have been red flags? Were there comments that were made?

We know historically that they were. They're going to try to find what those comments; comments were again, to try to piece this together. Was this a place of - was this an act of workplace violence targeted towards a boss or a co worker?

Or was this something else and again, we have a lot that remains unknown at this time and the investigative process is just beginning. Law enforcement will give us the answers as they move along through the investigation. KING: Right. And I believe Stephanie Elam is still with us as

Stephanie were piecing trying to piece this together from a law and order perspective. You know who was the shooter? Why did this happen? But there are dozens of families right now trying to piece something else together.

Is my brother's my sister is my husband, is my wife still alive? If and if you can get the answer to that is my brothers, my sisters, and my husband's wife child injured and how so?

Your perspective I think at the top of the program was critical a year from the area be these - the importance of light rail and the transportation in the valley may not be known to some people watching around the country.

These are frontline workers who dealt with all the stress of the pandemic who kept their community going and people moving. And now in that community now there are a lot of people trying to just find out basic information is something I love alive.

[12:10:00]

ELAM: And it's the crucial information as the only information that they care about right now. And we know because sadly, John, we've covered so many of these, that at moments like this, things happen, cell phones get dropped, as they're running for their lives.

And so in the immediate aftermath, you have people unable to reach the people that they want to hear from more than anybody else on the planet. And so we do know that they're saying to go next door to the Sheriff's Department for these people to be, you know, reunited, reunited with their loved ones, but there's still all of this mayhem of not knowing.

And then you've got the people who are hurt and the people who have lost their lives. And still all of those people, we don't know the condition of the people that are hurt; some of them may be in critical condition, not able to respond. All of this is happening right now.

And think about this. These people were at work at 6:30 in the morning. Now, obviously, if you're running a transportation authority, you've got to have people out there before most people are trying to get out and go to work and do all of that.

But still, when you see this when we've seen it before, oftentimes when it happens early like this, the assailant is someone who is known to the people who were inside of this building, or if it happened outside from the pictures, I would believe it's probably happened inside.

So we've seen this play out before we're usually when it's this early and when there's something happening early in the morning. This is someone who had a grievance of some sort. We don't know that for sure at this point.

But what we do know is that there are probably dozens of people who are looking to try to find out if their loved one is alive right now. And this is a situation that keeps playing over and over again in the United States.

And you would think after the pandemic after people were afraid of losing their lives in one way. Now this other threat almost seems to be larger than it was before. It's just mind boggling and devastating, John.

KING: Stephanie Elam is going to stay with us. We're going to take a quick break. Our Analysts will stay with us as well. CNN has crews on its way to the scene, Correspondents on the way the scene.

We're told we'll hear from the Mayor in just a few minutes again, multiple people dead, multiple injured the shooter also dead a mass shooting this morning on the West Coast near San Jose, California. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: We continue to follow the major breaking news out of California this hour multiple people killed multiple injured in a mass shooting in the San Jose rail yard. We expect another press conference from Police and the Mayor in just a few moments; we will go back there live.

At the moment though let's shift to politics and word today have a special grand jury seated to answer this giant question. Is there enough evidence to indict the Former President Donald Trump? This is a major escalation in the Manhattan District Attorney's office investigation.

Trump calls it another witch hunt he suggests it just proves his critics fear a political comeback. Let's get straight to CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara, - a grand jury is a big escalation. What else do we know?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: That's right, John. So I mean if they're in paneling a grand jury is watching him post reports that are an indication that the DA's office is going to begin its presentation of the evidence.

That is know how they would have witnesses come in before a grand jury and testified to certain documents, testify to certain conversations, that kind of information as they would begin to put together a piece of a story of potential crimes that they would then present to the jury and have them ultimately vote on if they think that there is enough to charge.

I mean, this is still a little I mean, this certainly is a significant turn of events to begin the presentation of witnesses and evidence to a grand jury. But there's still a lot that has to be done. I mean, there's - they've been investigating this for quite a while.

They've got the former president's tax returns. They got them in late February. They've been talking to a lot of witnesses. So this shifts the investigation forward. But this is not an easy investigation.

I mean, this is a complex financial investigation, looking at everything from potential insurance fraud, potential tax fraud, potential issues around the company's gifts and compensation.

It's very wide ranging. And the one thing about the Trump Organization is though, you know, it is a big name; it is run by a small number of people.

So it will be a big question of do they have people that can cooperate. And that will, such as Allen Weisselberg, the Chief Financial Officer, there's obviously a lot of interest and attention on him.

He himself is facing a personal tax investigation. He also has previously cooperated and in the instance of Michael Cohen, he testified he got an immunity deal then when spoke with federal prosecutors and their prosecution of Cohen.

But this is also complicated because the Trump Organization has relied on the advice of counsel; they also have used accountants for many of these decisions.

So there will have to be something that they have to overcome that hurdle if they're going to be able to bring a case against the Former President, John.

KING: Kara Scannell grateful for the reporting. And I know you'll stay on top of this as it plays out. With me here to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Hirschfield Davis of the New York Times, CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams and Carol Leonnig of "The Washington Post" she's also the Author of a fantastic new book, you see it right there, Zero Fail, The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service.

Elliot, let me start with you from the legal perspective and just walk us through as a former prosecutor. Prosecutor does not impanel a grand jury in any event, but especially when you're looking at a case involving a former president and a marquee real estate organization in New York City, you don't do that unless you're serious about getting the finish line, right?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. You don't do that. Once you're serious about getting to the finish line, you don't do that unless there appears to be at least some chance that there's evidence or information that there is some crime or some wrongdoing.

Look, more important than that and you're touching right on this, John. Not only that, when you are investing, investigating a Former President of the United States, it behooves the prosecutor's office to and it's never happened before. So right there that itself is legally and historically significant.

But you have to ensure that the case that you're bringing is righteous and legally supported and so on because what you have here is a chart regardless of what anyone thinks of Donald Trump? It is the target of an investigation that has the potential to make

life miserable for the prosecutor's office both in terms of not cooperating but also somebody who comes and prosecutors think of as somebody that comes with a large platform and a lot of resources.

[12:20:00]

WILLIAMS: And so I would be near certain that these prosecutors are quite confident with what they have, even if it doesn't ultimately end in charges for the president himself.

KING: And so as we have this major escalation, I'm lucky to have at the table, two reporters with considerable experience covering Trump and the Trump Organization. Carol, to you first.

This is from the Washington Post reporting today and Karen's going to touch on this Alan Wiesenberger, the longtime Chief Financial Officer, man who knows everything, he knows all he knows everything about every transaction in the Trump Organization.

Vance's office has been trying to pressure the Trump Organization's Chief Financial Officer, Alan Wiesenberger, into cooperating against his boss, a person familiar with the strategy confirmed.

Wiesenberger is said to know the ins and outs of every business transaction at the company over the course of his decades in employment there. You know, the Trump Organization you have reported on it. How important is Mr. Weisselberg in the sense that was there bank fraud?

Did you inflate assets or deflate assets when you're dealing with insurance company here, a bank there? What about the hush money payments to stormy Daniels in Karen McDougal. If things were done wrongly, would Mr. Weisselberg know?

CAROL LEONNIG, AUTHOR, "ZERO FAIL: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECRET SERVICE": As prosecutors often say he's the person in this organization who knows where the bodies are buried but isn't a family member? He was at Donald Trump previously not President Donald Trump's shoulder for so many of these decisions. His signature is on many of the documents that are now under investigation.

And really this grand jury phase John is the squeeze portion, the squeeze portion of this play in which he's being pressed to explain why did you have this access to some beneficial things like a house that don't appear to be reported.

What about your liability under the criminal statutes? And how are we going to use that prosecutor to get you to give us more information? The grand jury is also so important because it's the place where you can't fudge. It's entering into evidence; your testimony makes you liable for another crime if you don't tell the full truth and nothing but the truth so a lot of pressure on Alan Weisselberg now.

KING: A lot of pressure. And so when you try to talk to allies of the former president, some of them say witch hunt go away. They just emulate what he says others say there is a lot of anxiety right now, because they do understand he does not have the protections of the presidency anymore.

One of the reasons we're having this conversation is most of these investigations actually go back years, but he fought the release of the documents. He fought surrendering the documents and he had presidential privilege, if you will, to slow it down for the longest time to the politics of this.

This is the drudge report headline today Trump Grand Jury Indictment Summer. Now that's speculation. But again, this is the jitters that you see in Trump land and across the Republican Party, the former president; he is predictable in some regards. Here's what we get.

This is the continuation of the greatest witch hunts in American history. This is purely political and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the presidential election. And it's being driven by highly partisan democrat prosecutors.

Interesting to just today, a poll came out indicating far in the lead of the Republican presidential in the general election. Just to the point that, look, I get the politics of it. But Donald Trump wants you to believe none of this is real. It's just bad people, bad Democrats after me.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He does. And I mean, you're right, he's very predictable. We've heard this from him many times before both times that he was in PHR. He talked about a witch hunt trumped up charges, people who are after him for their own personal gain.

And that is what you hear from a lot of the people surrounding Donald Trump right now a lot of his allies. But privately there is a lot of anxiety because as Carol said, the grand jury is kind of where the rubber meets the road.

You can make all the political arguments you want, you can as well as I think it seems likely and even apparent that the president is likely to do former presidents likely to do you know use the potential for another campaign as a way to say they're just out to get me and hurt my campaign.

But there's going to be information that's going to be conveyed in this grand jury setting that he is not going to be able to push back on. And it's really not clear where this is going for him. And it doesn't look like it's headed anywhere good based on the decision by the prosecutors to move forward here. So there's a lot of uncertainty, certainly a lot of jitters about where this goes next for him.

KING: I had hoped to have more time today and I'm going to bring you back. The tragic shooting in California is taking time from the show. But Carol is also the Author of this great book; I covered the White House for ten years, spent a lot of time around the secret service.

It's a cherished institution, about your book lays out a lot of holes, a lot of mismanagement, a lot of mistakes. I advise people to read it, it's very well written to so you can get through it. It's fascinating. It's is like a crime novel.

But sadly, it's not a novel. It's very real. I just want to read one piece of it. You talk about a lot of the management failures, they repeat, you can go back to Nixon and all the way up.

Some of it you attribute to this the agent pointed to the secret service's corrupt promotion system, which so closely resembles "La Cosa Nostra's" that agents refer to being made when they win their first major promotion, orchestrated through horse trading among competing bosses. Once you're selected and initiated into the club, your loyalty is to the hierarchy regardless of the situation.

[12:25:00]

KING: I covered the mob a bit when I first got started in journalism; it's just if you enter the door of corruption, you're stuck in the door of corruption. What does that do to an agency that's supposed to protect the president among other high urgent priorities?

LEONNIG: And John, I'm so glad to use the word corruption because that's the word the agents use when they interested me and risk their careers to tell me these secrets. They basically said our leadership is corrupting how we elevate the best and the brightest.

It's no longer a meritocracy. It's what can you cover up, it's a problem. How can you keep the brand looking great? Instead of admitting and digging into and fixing the vulnerabilities, there are a lot of chinks in the armor of the secret service and agents are ringing the alarm balancing do something before there's a JFK catastrophe you know, do something now. So thank you for focusing on it.

KING: Now I focused - as I said, I promise you if you'll come back we'll spend some more time on it. I'm personally fascinated in the subject but I also think viewers to learn a lot from it. They should pick it up, pick it up. It's a great read. Thank you. We'll get more to it.

I apologize when we come back more coverage of the tragic breaking news that is taking a lot of our time today. Deservedly so, multiple people killed, multiple injured the shooter also dead we're expecting an update any moment now at San Jose, California. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:00]