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FBI Analyzes DNA from Glove Found Two Miles from Guthrie Home; New Bipartisan Frustration Over DOJ Letter to Congress Listing Hundreds of High-Profile Names in Epstein Files; Murder Trial Begins for Father of Alleged School Shooter in Georgia. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 16, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, a new plea from Savannah Guthrie as investigators focus on a glove found right near her mother, Nancy's home. We are live in Tucson.

Plus, naming names, big names, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, they're among hundreds of prominent people listed in a new Justice Department letter to Congress about the Epstein files. We'll ask Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell about that and the fiery hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi.

And you can't just say aliens are real if you're a former president and just leave it at that. Well, President Obama now clarifying the comments that went viral.

Welcome to our viewers, the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown Wolf. Blitzer is off, and you're in The Situation Room.

Happening now, a possible breakthrough in the search for Nancy Guthrie, the FBI says a glove found two miles from her Arizona home appears to match what the masked suspect was wearing the night of her disappearance. DNA from the glove is being analyzed in hopes of identifying that person, and the search is now in its third week. And NBC's Savannah Guthrie has posted a new appeal on social media for her mother's return. Let's listen to her entire message.

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SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NANCY GUTHRIE'S DAUGHTER: I wanted to come on, and it's been two weeks since our mom was taken. And I just wanted to come on and say that we still have hope and we still believe.

And I wanted to say to whoever has her or knows where she is that it's never too late and you are not lost or alone. And it is never too late to do the right thing. And we are here and we believe in the essential goodness of every human being, and it's never too late.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Tucson. Ed, what more are you learning there this morning?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as we listen to Savannah Guthrie speak there and listen to how excruciating it must be to continue putting up this video, we're now entering the third week of the search and investigation in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

And I want to kind of focus on that DNA and the glove that we are closely following today. So, you talked about how one of the gloves that appears to match the glove used by the suspect here the night that Nancy Guthrie was abducted, that investigators have found DNA on that.

Remember on Friday, the sheriff here in Pima County told us that DNA of un unknown person has been discovered here at Nancy Guthrie's home. Now, the question is, do those two DNA samples match? If they do, that's an even stronger lead.

But to get to that, that would -- you'd have to presume that the suspect in this case, as he fled the scene, somehow lost track of one of his gloves and either fell out of his car or was thrown out the window. That's kind of, you know, the possible theories that you would have to believe might have happened here.

So, whether or not these are going to match, or if this is really going to be connected to this case, we'll wait and see. But those DNA tests are being done. We've been told by investigators that those results could come back as early as today, so we'll continue to monitor that.

And remember, we talked to the sheriff on Friday, Pamela, and there was more than one camera here on the property. And the fact that investigators have been able to resurrect the video from that front doorbell camera, I asked the sheriff whether or not those efforts were continuing to try to resurrect video from the other cameras here on the property.

The sheriff did say that that work is being done, whether or not they will be able to pull something from it is not clear at that point. But you could imagine that there's still -- if they could pull off what they've done with that front doorbell camera, there could be even more video evidence here, perhaps a car or perhaps something else, that could be an even bigger clue and create even bigger leads for investigators.

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Because right now, they're combing through tens of thousands of leads that have come to them because of that front doorbell camera video that was released last week, and they say they believe that could -- the leads coming from that is what is eventually going to lead them to catching the suspect. Pamela?

BROWN: We sure do hope that suspect is caught, that is for sure, and that Nancy Guthrie is brought home to the family just to give them some peace. I mean, what a horrible three weeks. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much.

LAVANDERA: Sure.

BROWN: And if you have any information that could help investigators, please call the numbers on your screen. The FBI tip line is 1-800-CALL FBI, the Pima County Sheriff's Department at (520) 351-4900.

And happening now, there is new bipartisan frustration in Congress after the Justice Department sent a list of, quote, politically exposed persons in the millions of files related to its probes of Jeffrey Epstein. That list includes many prominent figures who appear in the files without any context, like Janice Joplin and Pope John Paul II. No one name besides Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, has ever been charged in connection with Epstein's crimes.

Several lawmakers argue the Justice Department is intentionally muddying the waters on who was a predator versus someone simply mentioned in an email or perhaps an article.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee. Hi, Congressman.

So, what was your immediate reaction when you read this list of names, which includes people like Marilyn Monroe who died when Epstein was just nine years old?

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Get real is my reaction. It's nonsense. These monsters were forwarding news articles about me. And if you check these billionaires' emails today, I bet they're still talking about me because they're worried. They're worried about many that they've listed in that email, and they should be, because I and many others that they're trying to muddy us up with are not going to rest until every single one of them has been brought to justice.

So, this is just a distraction. The American people want to see justice on these files. The Congress has asked for this. It's not going away, Pamela, and, as I said, I'm not going to away.

BROWN: Notable missing --

SWALWELL: And the victims aren't going away, more important.

BROWN: Well, certainly, and we continue -- we will continue to talk to them.

Notably missing from that letter I noticed were names like Longevity Dr. Peter Attia and Steve Tisch, co-owner of the Giants, both of whom communicated with Epstein in the emails in the most recent dump of files. They haven't been accused of any wrongdoing. But what do you make of that, this big list of names, including Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, and then those names not actually being on the list?

SWALWELL: And also, by the way, the name that is listed the most in these files and talked about the most is Donald Trump. And of all the people that Jeffrey Epstein talked to in the world, and it looks like this guy got around and there are millions of files, and Donald Trump's name is mentioned many, many times, up to a million, some are speculating through the searches, there's only one person that Jeffrey Epstein described as his best friend, and that's Donald Trump.

But the effort since this summer, and I want to just walk you through the timeline, has been to avoid this at all costs on the Republican side. They refuse to swear in Adelita Grijalva when she would've been the person that got the Epstein discharge over the goal line. During the summer, they were willing to shut down the government because they didn't want these files to be released. And, again, the Department of Justice won't release all of the files now, and many of them, you know, are redacted. And only about 50 percent have come forward. It's a cover-up job at the Department of Justice, but we're not going away.

BROWN: And, certainly, Trump's name has been in there quite a lot and he still -- he has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But, certainly, it raises questions the way that this release has happened, as you noted from the survivors themselves who have been on this show and have asked why it's being handled this way and why some names are redacted, others aren't. And this letter list reasons why the Justice Department redacted information that goes beyond the requirements of the law passed by Congress compelling the Epstein files release. Many members of Congress say that's unacceptable, but what recourse do you actually have at this point?

SWALWELL: Well, to keep taking the Department of Justice to court, I'd recommend that in the next round of funding for the Department of Justice, we withhold funding until they get this right. And I was a former, you know, sexual assault prosecutor in California, and you don't have to have had done that job to understand why this is important. But when I talk to Californians, this is one of the most important issues to them.

The Epstein files are not just about documents.

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Many people see this as a final exam for democracy. Either the most powerful people in Washington are going to hold to account these monsters or they're going to protect them. And right now, I think you're better off if you're on the side of the victims and transparency rather than to do anything to protect the people who may have been at fault.

BROWN: All right. I want to turn to this partial shutdown. The Department of Homeland Security ran out of funding over the weekend as Democrats, like yourself, demand sweeping reforms to ICE. I want to watch what White House Border Czar Tom Homan told my colleague, Jake Tapper, yesterday.

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TOM HOMAN, TRUMP BORDER CZAR: ICE has continued to enforce law across the country. They're already funded. Now, the ICE officers won't be getting paid, but they're getting used to that, it seems like. So, no, the immigration mission, the reason why President Trump was elected to be president, continues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: You know, as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, that ICE and CBP are largely unaffected by this shutdown because of the so- called big, beautiful bill. So, how will this shutdown convince Republicans to negotiate with Democrats? Of course, we saw what happened last time around.

SWALWELL: Yes. Well, Democrats are not going to sanction or co-sign on any more public executions. And the way I see it is that giving another penny to ICE almost guarantees that we lose another nurse named Pretti or a mom named Good.

And recently I was talking to a grocer in San Jose and she told me right now when she leaves her shift, when she goes to the parking lot late at night and a van rolls up, and if someone's masked, she asks, do I get in it? Is it ICE? Is it law enforcement or is it a bad guy? And that's the environment that they've created in our community.

And so what we're saying is, until you end the roving patrols, until you stop targeting people because of the accent they speak and the color of their skin, until you take the masks off and the identification comes out, until you go to a judge before you just go into somebody's home, we're not going to fund it any further. And we have to stick together on this. The American people are behind us. They want only the most violent people targeted, not for our friends and neighbors to run through the fields of factories where they work and to be subject to community terror.

BROWN: Congressman Eric Swalwell, thanks so much for coming on.

SWALWELL: My pleasure, Pamela. Thanks.

BROWN: Well, still ahead here in the situation room, the father of an accused school shooter is now on trial himself. It is the latest case testing the limits of who can be held responsible.

And how former President Obama is indirectly addressing a racist video that was posted on President Trump's social media account.

You're in The Situation Room and we'll be right back.

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BROWN: Happening now, opening statements are underway in the murder trial of a father whose son is accused of killing four people at his school in Georgia. In 2024, 14-year-old Colt Gray allegedly used an AR-15-style rifle to kill two students, two teachers, and injured nine other people at Apalachee High School. Authorities say Colt admitted to the shootings and he has pleaded not guilty.

His father, Colin Gray, is being tried on murder and manslaughter charges. Authorities say he bought Colt the rifle as a Christmas present, even though he'd been warned the boy could be a danger to others.

CNN's Isabel Rosales is in Winder, Georgia. What have we heard so far, Isabel?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pam, good morning. I am in the hallway right outside of the courtroom where we were just listening and watching District attorney Brad Smith do the opening statement.

I want to start with a comment he said right off the top to the jurors, 15 of them, 7 of which are women, 8 are men, that I think is really sharp and eye-opening as to the strategy that the state will be employing here throughout the duration of this trial. He said this. This is not a case about holding parents accountable for what their children do. That's not what this case is about. This case is about this defendant and his actions, his actions in allowing a child that he has custody over access to a firearm and ammunition after being warned that child was going to harm others.

What we also saw in there was him pulling out this cardboard representation, this map of the school. And what he did was track minute by minute the actions of Colt Gray. Colin Gray's 14, at the time, year old son. He -- the district attorney, mentioned every name of every survivor, every name of every victim, and he painted a picture of Colt Gray's actions during that morning.

He also showed pictures of the gun, the AR-15-style gun that was used to carry out this mass shooting, and also a picture of Colt's wall that he called a shrine to the Parkland school shooter. We could see multiple pictures everywhere of that Parkland school shooter who ultimately ended up killing 17 in Florida.

Now, the state is going to argue here, Pam, that if it weren't for this father's negligence, these children and these two teachers would still be alive today. Investigators also testified during a preliminary hearing that Colin Gray bought this AR-15-style gun as a Christmas present for his son even despite him being visited by deputies a year prior, warning that there were some behavioral issues here, tips about an alleged school shooting that was being planned, ample warning, the prosecution is saying, and he should not have had the judgment of buying that gun.

Now, this case could depend on what specific actions Colin took to address risks that he safely stored the gun and the ammo. Did he take any steps to address his son's deteriorating mental health?

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Now he's been charged with nearly 30 counts, 30 charges here, including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. If he is convicted, and he's pled not guilty, if he is convicted, he could spend the rest of his years here in prison. Pam?

BROWN: Isabel, thank you so much.

And coming up how former President Obama is setting the internet straight after his comments about alien life went viral. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are aliens real?

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: They're real, but I haven't seen them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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BROWN: Happening now, former President Barack Obama is speaking publicly for the first time since President Trump's social media account posted a racist video of him and his wife, Michelle. It depicted them as apes in a jungle. It was eventually taken down, but not before bipartisan outrage exploded over the post.

CNN Senior White House Reporter Kevin Liptak is here in The Situation Room. So, walk us through exactly what the former president said about this.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And I think it's always notable when you hear from the former President Obama about something that Trump did however obliquely, because you don't hear from him very often.

BROWN: Right.

LIPTA: It's not sort of a daily thing that he's responding to what Trump is doing or saying. He's kind of selective in his moments. What he said in this interview was interesting. He was asked by the interviewer, Brian Tyler Cohen, about what he called this devolution of the discourse. And he went through a number of things, including what's going on in Minneapolis, some other incidents, but also this video that the president had on his social media feed last week.

He didn't answer directly, but he did talk generally about what he called a clown show that's happening on social media. And he suggested that not all Americans -- in fact, a majority of Americans were just not supportive of this kind of sort of language. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: First of all, I think it's important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling. You know, it is true that it gets attention. It's true that it's a distraction.

What is true is that there doesn't seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LIPTAK: So, you hear him talking about their lack of shame. It's worth noting President Trump, given the opportunity, did not apologize for that image in the video. And just when he was asked last week whether anyone had been disciplined for it, because remember he said that it was a staffer that didn't watch all the way to the end and didn't see this image, when he was asked whether that staffer had been disciplined or fired, he said no.

BROWN: I want to bring up something else that we heard from the former president there, and that is about aliens, Kevin. He had to clarify some remarks he made about the existence of aliens.

LIPTAK: Yes. And for all of the interest in the video that Trump posted, this is what really sort of caught fire. A lot of people want to know whether Obama, whether any president has seen evidence that the U.S. government has found aliens. This has been a sort of a conspiracy theory, although many people believe in it that has been fueled over the last couple years in particular by some of those images from the military of UFOs, essentially.

BROWN: Yes.

LIPTAK: Listen to what Obama said. It was in sort of a rapid fire round of questionings. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are aliens real?

OBAMA: They're real, but I haven't seen them and they're not being kept in -- what is it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Area 51.

OBAMA: Area 51. There's no underground facility, unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?

OBAMA: Where are the aliens?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So listen, if I was interviewing Obama, if you were interviewing him, I might have followed up about where the aliens are.

BROWN: Yes.

LIPTAK: No follow-up there. But the former president is clarifying now what he was talking about. He put out this lengthy, very kind of Obamian cerebral statement on Instagram. He said he was trying to stick with the spirit of this speed round in this interview, but he said, let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good, there's life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we've been visited by aliens is low.

And this is the important part. He says, I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. And then at the end, seemingly predicting that many people might not believe him, he says, really?

BROWN: Really?

LIPTAK: Yes.

BROWN: All right. So, no aliens at Area 51 according to --

LIPTAK: No Aliens at Area 51.

BROWN: All right. Thank you for clarifying all of this for us, Kevin Liptak, we appreciate it.

And just ahead here in The Situation Room, investigators are searching for Nancy Guthrie now in week three. They are anxiously waiting for DNA test results that could be a key piece of evidence.

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