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Ex-DOJ Official Who Pushed To Overturn 2020 Election Meets With 1/6 Committee; Pentagon Briefing On U.S. Raid That Killed ISIS Leader. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 03, 2022 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:21]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: I'll share some new images with you this hour. You see them right there that capture the high drama in Syria overnight. On the left, a photo of the compound, the ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi used as a hideout before a U.S. military raid. On the right is what that home look like after a sustained fight involving U.S. Special Operators.

Al-Qurashi, President Biden says was killed during the raid. The President says he exploited a suicide vest instead of surrendering. We're standing by for an update from the Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby any minute. We'll take you there live. We expect to get more details on that rate.

In the meantime, two very different witnesses help us better understand the broad scope of the January 6 committee investigation. Oath Keepers Leader Stewart Rhodes met with the committee for several hours. On the right you see the former top Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. He was interviewed for nearly two hours yesterday. Rhodes helped spread conspiracy about election fraud and he was outside of the Capitol with other members of Oath Keepers on January 6.

Clark wanted to help Donald Trump pushes bogus fraud claims and at one point he urged the then president to put him in charge of the Justice Department.

With us now to share their reporting and their insights, Asma Khalid from NPR, Lisa Lerer, The Washington Post and Tia Mitchell from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Asma, I want to start with you in the sense where you look at these two very different witnesses, two very different witnesses. It gets at the scope, you're talking about Stewart Rhodes, number one, the Oath Keepers on the Alex Jones Show all the time promoting fraud but then on hand on January 6, as well. And then Jeffrey Clark, an inside player who tried to help Donald Trump was wanted to be the acting Attorney General, to take over the Justice just shows you that the investigation is not just about what happened at the Capitol on that day. ASMA KHALID, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Certainly not John, right? And I do think there has been a desire to better understand some of the root causes of what led to January 6 itself. You know, I will say though, I have been struck by I think the movement we have seen in terms of the January 6 committee and its desire to figure out what exactly transpired and hold people accountable. Well, you have this counter narrative going on the Republican side, where we heard from President Trump over the weekend, suggesting that if you were in charge, you would be pardoning these rioters, right? And that the Vice President has the power to potentially overturn incorrectly his assumption but overturn the election. So, there are these dual narratives that continue to exist in our political just consciousness at this moment.

KING: And Lisa Lerer, that was a Ron Burgundy moment, I read the teleprompter. I know where you work, the New York Times not at the Washington Post, that one's on me, Mr. Burgundy, your newspaper today has a fascinating story. Again, we have learned over the last couple of weeks, including just the last couple of days some amazing new details, that you know, there are some people who say forget about it, move on. But you learn these details, you get the depth of a plot that was essentially a coup from within the United States government. Then President Trump wanting to hold power, talking about the obsession with January 6.

Now, with the other days on the calendar, where the electors are certified, the electors do their stuff and send it to Washington. This is just a little piece from this fascinating story. The memo show, just over two weeks after election day, Mr. Trump's campaign was seeking to buy itself more time to undo the results. At the heart of the strategy was the idea that the real deadline was not December 14 when official electors would be chosen to reflect the outcome in each state.

But January 6, when Congress would meet to certify the results. This was I call it a conspiracy. There may be a better term, something that started on election night, this whole idea, what is our best option to try to just say no, and they thought it would be January 6, where they thought Mike Pence and maybe some of their allies in Congress to go along.

LISA LERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: You're hitting the nail on the head here, John. I think what we're seeing emerge and what the committee that wants to come out here is this idea that this wasn't about election fraud, or this January 6, wasn't about election fraud or any other of these things that people are talking about now, you know, that these people weren't political prisoners that were wrongly imprisoned, which is a narrative as (technical difficulty).

KING: I think we lost Lisa's audio there. We're having a technical day right there. So, Tia Mitchell, jump in on that very point, the idea that, you know, the committee, you know, it's the January 6 select committee, but the scope of the investigation is a whole lot broader?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Yes, and I think the committee is showing that it is starting to get some of the folks that are closer and closer to former President Trump. You know, we're hearing about, you know, Mr. Clark coming, as you mentioned, the leader of the Oath Keepers, even former Vice President Pence's chief of staff, and so, the committee is, you know, working quietly but working diligently in really building a case or building a sphere of what happened the context of January 6 that really started we know now in November with President Trump trying to buy time in hopes of overturning the results of the general election.

[12:35:18]

KING: And remarkable success, I would argue getting pretty high up the Trump chain of command in the Trump inner circle, if you will. But I'm not sure if we have Lisa back with us or not. Lisa, one people with the chairman just yesterday, the chairman just yesterday saying, you know, he still hopes, the committee sent a letter to Ivanka Trump. We know from other testimony, Ivanka Trump was among those who went into the Oval Office on January 6, essentially begging her father to do more, to try to stop it and he would not do so.

And the committee's letter back in January issue that said they want to have, wishes to discuss conversations you observed between President Trump and Pence the morning of January 6, and the other conversations you may have witnessed or participated in regarding what they what the committee calls a plan to obstruct or impede the counting of electoral votes. How likely is it that we get Ivanka Trump to voluntarily help the January 6 committee?

LERER: I mean, we've seen a huge question from the people closest to Donald Trump not to participate in this. We know that's coming from the former president. So, it feels pretty, like it would be a tough sell for the committee. And it feels pretty unlikely. But I suppose you never know their right to ask. They're casting a very wide net.

And I think what this committee is trying to show is that this wasn't -- January 6 wasn't about election fraud, or any of these other narratives, that this was about the President's pursuit of political power. And it was about -- it was a plan that, as you pointed out earlier, was laid in place that January six was seen by the President, his advisors and his legal team, as this hard deadline to overturn the results of the election on really these false claims of, you know, a voting issues that just didn't and electoral issues that just didn't exist.

So, I think that's the narrative that the committee is trying to put out there. Whether that resonates with the public, is another question that local question. But in terms of questions about our democracy, this is important work.

KING: It's incredibly important work. And you make a key point there. And so, Asma, let's follow up on that. What about breaking through? If you're someone who's anti-Trump, if you're someone who's closely follow the news, you're even more outraged now than you were then about what happened, but the challenge here for the committee is to try to break through with those who still believe the big lie, with those who want to make January 6 go away. So, we know there's a plan for public hearings. It's been pushed down a little bit into the spring. Is the committee prepared as they get -- they're gathering information now, are they prepared for that challenge, trying to break through, crash through the skepticism?

KHALID: John, I think that's really just an insurmountable challenge. And again, I go back to the President's comments over the weekend, the statements he issued that were not based, in fact, and after he suggested that, essentially --

KING: Asma, forgive me for interrupting, we need to take you live to the Pentagon now, in the Spokesman John Kirby, let's listen.

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: -- you've no doubt heard, last night, U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission in northwest Syria that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al- Qurashi, also known as Hajji Abdullah. Hajji Abdullah was a very hands-on leader and involved in many day-to-day operations of ISIS and certainly keenly interested in restoring the lethality and the higher up tempo that ISIS wants to enjoyed.

So, his death, we believe, dealt a significant blow to ISIS, or you've already heard from the President this morning. And I think you've probably seen a statement that Secretary Austin put out adjoining the president and commending the professionalism and the skill readiness exhibited by our forces in this operation. Particularly with the extensive regard towards safeguarding innocent life that we knew was located there at the target's location.

And while the cowardly actions of Hajji Abdullah and a small number of his followers resulted in the death, the tragic death of at least three innocent civilians, the calculated efforts of our forces succeeded in protecting more than 10 women, children and babies. These efforts included a deliberate decision by the President to execute a raid on a location as opposed to an airstrike. Despite the additional risk that that decision, put on our forces.

And as I think you've probably seen, in addition to all that as they got to the site, they called out to everyone in the building, and giving them an opportunity to leave peacefully, quietly. And for Abdullah to surrender himself, of course, he chose a different route.

[12:40:22]

While there were no U.S. casualties, one of our helicopters did suffer a mechanical failure. Early on, in the infiltration phase of the operation. The helicopter was able to depart the target location and land at another location, further away off site. But ultimately, it was determined that further use of the helicopter was not practical, and in fact, could be dangerous. And so General McKenzie made the decision that the helicopter should be abandoned. And detonated, so it could be destroyed in place.

So, moving forward, I'm sure you got lots of questions, I'll do the best I can to answer them, I want to remind that this is an operation that is not yet 24 hours old. So, while we will provide as much context as we can do, I suspect, as you have covered these kinds of things, before that, we will continue to learn more information as time goes on, we are still reviewing the results of this operation, we are still going through the after-action process that we always do. And we'll do the best we can to provide you as much context.

I also would add, and I'm saying this as a bit of a disclaimer here before we begin taking questions, that there are still operational security matters that we're just not going to be able to speak to, we obviously, take these kinds of missions very seriously, we obviously want to be able to continue to conduct these kinds of operations, because ISIS remains a threat. So, there's going to be some information that you will want to know that we are simply not going to be able to provide so that we can preserve our flexibility to conduct these sorts of operations going forward.

With that, Bob?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, John, thank you. A couple questions on the civilians. If I heard you -- did you -- I hear you correctly that you said you verified three civilians were killed? And also, could you elaborate on, perhaps explain a little further what Secretary Austin meant in his written statement about looking into the possibility that U.S. actions may have resulted in harm to civilians? What exactly is he referring to?

KIRBY: So, we know that when Abdullah detonated an explosive device, which obviously killed him, we know that there were three people on that third floor with him that were also killed, his wife and two children, and -- so that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the three.

We also know, as I said, that we were able to safely evacuate 10 individuals, six from the first floor -- an adult male, an adult female and four children, and then four children from the second floor, which our forces were able to safely get -- to get out of the building. On that second floor, where one of Abdullah's lieutenants engaged our forces -- actually, one of his lieutenants and the lieutenant's wife firing back at our forces. They were killed, and it appears as if a child was also killed on that second floor.

And as for your second question, I mean, we're always mindful of the potential for civilian harm, a harm to innocent life. And while the strong indications are here is that the life -- that the lives taken in this operation, the lives of innocents taken in this operation were caused by Abdullah and his decision of blowing himself up and everybody else with him on that third floor, as well as the resistance of his lieutenant on the second floor, we're willing to take a look to just examine and make sure that there wasn't any action that we might have taken that could have also caused harm to innocents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mean indirectly, or do you mean directly?

KIRBY: In any way. I think we're just going to take a look and see. But right now, the strong, strong indications are that to the degree there's a loss of innocent life, it's a loss caused by Mr. Abdullah and his lieutenant. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're quite confident on the three? That it's only three people on the floor --

KIRBY: That is the -- that's what we have right now, Bob. I'm going to give you what I can right now, and I think you know that information can change over time. That's what we have right now.

[12:45:07]

Yeah, Pierre (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just another information on the team that executed the operation?

KIRBY: I'm sorry?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any additional information about the team that executed the operation?

KIRBY: No, I don't have any more information about the team that executed the operation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any more details about what kind of support or cooperation that the SDF provided to the operation?

KIRBY: The SDF were helpful in enabling our ability to conduct this operation but I'm not going to go into more detail about the -- or what that assistance looked like. I will remind, Pierre (ph), that this was a U.S. operation conducted by U.S. forces only.

Jen (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John, will anyone get a reward for -- justice reward for this tip? And how long have you had this intelligence? Also, you referred to the three innocent civilians, but would the wife of Hajji Abdullah be considered an innocent civilian?

KIRBY: You know, I think I'm just going to leave it the way I characterized it, Jen (ph). And again, we're going to continue to review and look at this. I think I'm just going to leave it the way I described it.

And as for the reward, I don't have any updates on that, yet. There was a $10 million reward on his head. But I don't have any updates on whether that award can or will be claimed.

And then on the intelligence, I would just tell you that this operation was literally months in the planning. And, of course, a strong basis for being able to conduct an operation like this is valuable intelligence, intelligence that comes from multiple streams.

And again, without getting into more detail than that, there was, as obviously, because of the success of the operation, I mean, the intelligence was a mosaic that allowed us the level of awareness and fidelity of information to be able to conduct this in the way we did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was he responsible for the Abbey Gate bombing?

KIRBY: I don't have a direct connection to speak to in terms of that. However, he's the -- he was the leader of ISIS. And it was an ISIS-K attack. But what we do know is he was a hands-on kind of leader. The -- we know that he certainly had knowledge of and was at least maintaining a level of situational awareness during the Hasaka prison break last week. We know that he was directly involved in the massacre and the rape of innocent Yazidis back in 2014.

This is a -- this was a man that we should all be happy is no longer walking on the face of the Earth.

Courtney?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've got a bunch. Did you get DNA of him and have positive DNA? Is that how you were able to identify? Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

KIRBY: Can you -- oh, if you've got a bunch, let's take one at a time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Great.

KIRBY: All right. We were able to identify his body through fingerprints and DNA analysis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On site?

KIRBY: On site.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks. Can you --

KIRBY: Well, the fingerprint -- the fingerprints were on site. It took a little bit longer to get the DNA analysis, so it was a combination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you give us a little more detail about this firefight that occurred sort of towards the end of the two-hour timeframe that they were on the ground, some locals or something? What was that? And the couple who were killed?

KIRBY: Yeah, towards the end of the operation, there were -- as I -- a small group of individuals approaching the compound. They were appropriately deemed as hostile and they were engaged, they were engaged. And we know that in that engagement, two of them were killed, and that resulted in the end of that hostile activity, the remaining of individuals left the site.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they engage on the ground or via air -- by the air?

KIRBY: I don't know exactly. I know that at least some engagement came from the air, but I can't be sure that there wasn't some engagement from the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you say -- do you know who the lieutenant was? You mentioned he and his wife were killed. I mean, was this someone relatively senior? KIRBY: It was a senior lieutenant of Abdullah. I don't have the name -- you can say it was a deputy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then can you -- was this mission a kill or capture mission? Was there ever an effort to try to take him alive?

KIRBY: I won't -- you know, without getting into the specifics of the orders, this -- it was a raid against Abdullah, and again, he decided to kill himself and others before coming into direct contact with the assault force. He did not fight back.

[12:50:13]

The objective was to finish his leadership of ISIS, and that was achieved.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then finally, the question I'm sure all of us are wondering, was there a dog involved? What was its name? And do you have a photo?

KIRBY: I do not know -- I do not know and I do not know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you take that question?

KIRBY: I'll take all three.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much.

KIRBY: You're welcome. Louie (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, John. Why did the mission take two hours for -- what was the process? I mean, was there a calculated process to get civilians out of this building? Was that a part of the delay? Because it sounds like two hours on the ground is quite a long time for the -- one of these kind of missions.

KIRBY: So, it's a great question, Louie (ph). First of all, the plan was to have them there for two hours. From the get-go, the plan was for two hours on site. And it speaks to the level of care that U.S. Special Operations Forces used in this mission, which was designed to preserve innocent life.

I mean, to go to the site, as they did -- first of all, it was securing and isolating the site, then it was to get innocents and, quite frankly, to encourage Mr. Abdullah to leave this site, and that's why they used a bullhorn and made several callouts, beseeching everybody in that building to leave. That takes some time too. You want to make sure you make a good faith effort to do that, and we did.

They were engaged at -- there was an explosion on the third floor and engagement, gunfire from the building, and then they had -- they went in. And obviously, you want to process the site as best you can, get as much information as you can, and of course, in this regard, because he chose to end his life the way he did, to be able to identify and then safely leave the site. So honestly, from soup to nuts, the original plan was to have them there for two hours and they were there for just about exactly two hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the characterization has been, by other officials, that he detonated this explosive very early on, after the arrival of the troops. I mean, do you have a notion of how quickly he did that or was this a long, drawn-out process?

KIRBY: Yeah, I don't have the exact minute by minute tick-tock, but that characterization, as I understand it, is accurate. It wasn't long after they isolated and secured this site and began the callouts that there was a large explosion on the third floor, which turned out to, of course, been Abdullah killing himself and the family members that were with him on the third floor and putting at significant risk everybody else in that building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then one more please.

KIRBY: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Kabul air drone strike and the repercussions that have happened. Since then, we saw the Secretary issue his guidance recently. Did that factor in at all into the notion of that "we're going to go in with ground troops in an air raid, as opposed to a drone strike"?

KIRBY: What factored into that decision, Louie (ph), was our longstanding practice of trying to minimize civilian harm, not what happened on the 29th of August or on any other day, but a longstanding desire to minimize civilian harm. And the President made that decision, and it was a significant decision because it involved putting our troops at much greater risk in order to do it this way. But that's in keeping with a longstanding desire by us to try to minimize civilian harm as much as possible.

Oren?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just a follow up question to civilian casualties, you said there were three on the third floor, the wife and two kids, but you also said it appears as if a child was also killed on the second floor.

KIRBY: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was that before --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Well, I was referring -- when I said -- when I was referring to the three, I was talking about the context of him killing himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then who killed the child on the second floor?

KIRBY: Again, I'm not going to get into a blow-by-blow on every single event here. We are still processing this, Oren. It's not even 24 hours old. We're giving you as much information as we can right now. Information will continue to flow in, and as we can share it with you, we will.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And one follow-up on a different --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: But let it not be forgotten, though, that we also, you know, saved -- helped save 10 lives, including four kids on that second floor. So, 10 people, mostly children, we were able to get out of that building safely because of the care that was put into that mission.

[12:55:14]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One follow up question, did any of those who took part in the planning for either the Bin Laden raid or the -- or the Baghdadi raid take part in the operation or execution of this raid, as well?

KIRBY: I don't know.

Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, about the children, those who were killed or those who are saved, who are they, do you think, right? Who are the civilians in the -- who were the civilians in the building?

KIRBY: Again, I want to be careful here, as I don't -- we don't have perfect knowledge of every single individual that was killed in this raid. We know Hajji Abdullah was killed, we know his lieutenant that was on the second floor was killed, we know that, when he blew himself up on the third floor, three others went with him. And we know of at least one child that was killed on the second floor.

But I -- you know, I don't have much more information to give you than that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And are there any civilians under U.S. custody right now? Where did the saved ones go after the operation?

KIRBY: There is no -- there are -- there's nobody in U.S. custody as a result of this raid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just to follow up on the helicopter , what was the mechanical issue with the helicopter --

KIRBY: I would describe the mechanical issue as a drivetrain issue that rendered it not usable for future flight in the operation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did (inaudible) fire or somehow --

KIRBY: It didn't catch fire; it was a drivetrain issue. It didn't crash. It landed safely at an alternative location. They looked at it to determine whether it could be fixed and continue to be used and, in the operation, and it was determined that was not possible. So General McKenzie ordered that it be detonated and destroyed on site. All right, I haven't gotten any --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Real quick --

KIRBY: Yeah, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. In addition to the people involved, was there other material, like digital media, that were recovered that could be useful for --

KIRBY: Without getting into details, Bob, I think you know that it's common practice when we conduct raids of this kind to try to collect information and material that might help us in the continued prosecution of these kinds of operations and operations against ISIS, and I think that's as far as I'll go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, just say yes, or no?

KIRBY: I will just tell you it's common practice for us to try to examine whether there is usable material that can help us in future operations, and I think I'll leave it at that.

Carla Babb?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

CARLA BABB, VOICE OF AMERICA PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, thanks, John, for doing this. I have three questions, just to clear up some things. If those who were saved are not in U.S. custody, where are they? Are they in SDF custody? Were they left at the scene? Can you clarify that?

Clarification number two please, when you said that the hostiles that were coming at the end, does that -- is it safe to assume that these hostile actors had weapons and they were engaged, as you were kind of referring to with Courtney, they were engaged with an airstrike?

And then number three, VOA's spoken to the SDF, and they said that the -- the SDF says that U.S. launched the operation from SDF territory. Can you confirm that? And can you confirm that they were helping with the intelligence and the tracking of the ISIS leader? Thanks.

KIRBY: There is nobody in custody, Carla, so there's nobody that -- there's nobody to tell you that they're in custody, that -- and certainly no U.S. -- there's nobody in U.S. custody for sure.

On the engagement at the -- towards the end of the operation, the other two that I talked about, there were clear indications that there was hostile intent. I'm not going to get into more detail than that. Clear indications that there was hostile intent, and they were engaged, and their compadres left after that engagement.

And then three on SDF, we appreciate the support that we got from the SDF. I'm -- I'll leave it to the SDF to describe it in ways that they deem fit. I am not going to talk about it in any more detail than that. OK, Jeff Schogol?

JEFF SCHOGOL, AIR FORCE TIMES SENIOR WRITER: Thank you. Can you say what type of Special Operations Forces were involved in the raid, such as SEALs, Delta or Rangers?

KIRBY: I'm not going to describe them in any greater specificity than I have. U.S. Special Operations Forces, under the control of U.S. Central Command.

Tony Capaccio?

TONY CAPACCIO, BLOOMBERG NEWS DEFENSE REPORTER: Hi, John. Two quick questions. What happened to his body? Was it carried away like what the U.S. did with Bin Laden's body or was it too badly damaged to do anything with?