The latest news and information from around the world with host Ana Cabrera. The latest news and information from around the world with host Ana Cabrera. For the cockpit voice recorder, looking for the flight data recorder. Ultimately what those things could yield we dont know because we have the extensive conversations between the 29yearold and air traffic control. But i want to you listen now to what the ceo of Alaska Airlines said just a few moments ago. Take a look. It was a 3. 5 years employee of horizon air with a Ground Service agent. To answer the question you asked, he was a a Background Check there was a couple of couple different criminal Background Checks we run on employees. He got a badge with the port of seattle. Thats another. He worked his shift yesterday. We believe he was in uniform. His job is to be around airplanes. The c. E. Is tow certified, meant to be be shall did dsh airports have a secure and nonsecure side. He is meant to be on the secure side. Thats part of the fulfillment of his job responsibilities. Now, authorities are
saying and they believe that there was only one person in the aircraft. But they want to scour that scene extensively before reaching that final conclusion. Now we know that investigators went to the island early this morning. So we should be seeing them arrive here sometime in the hours ahead. Now, in terms of Kitron Island itself this is a sparsely populated area, sort of akin to a gated commune. Its a private island. The last census showed only 17 People Living there. All right, dan simon, so much mystery. Let me get mary in here the former director of the department of transportation. The Ground Service agent managed to take off, Taxi Work Radios and perform Flight Maneuvers before he crashed and died. How did he pull it off . He had to have some pilot experience, right. I think he did because of one
employees in the airport with less scrutiny than the passengers. And they were worried about people in the airport who might have ties with terrorism. But this was a known loop hole but just that it wasnt closed because until now no one exploited it. Although private planes have been stolen frequently. There was a famous case of someone called the Barefoot Bandit who stole five private planes sent to prison in seattle. Also in seattle. Ironically. A lot of people point to the State Of Mind of mind of this guy. Do these queues employees a Ground Service agent undergo Mental Health screensings. And how often. They have a criminal Background Check, fingerprints, prove who they are, id. They have to have the work history. And if they have a gap in the work history they have to explain it. But otherwise once you are on the job there is not and theres been a lot of on the debate about this. There is not a continuing update
on whether you have additional run ins with the law after that. But unless you are a pilot you do not have to go through a medical, which includes psychological information appear whether you are taking drugs for depression or any other mental disability which you have to report to the f. A. A. If you are a pilot. But if you are a grounds person you dont have to have the flight medical to perform your job. Mary, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Eye in the sky. How californias fire pilots could be singlehandedly saving homes just feet from the flames. Live to the west coast next. You are live in the cnn newsroom. Ouldnt you be at work . [ mockingly ] shouldnt you be at work . Todd. Hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game fist pump your real bikes all fixed. Man, you guys are good well, we are the numberone Motorcycle Insurer in the country. Wait. You have a real motorcycle . And real insurance, with 24hour customer support. Arcade game wipeout oh well. His insult came out this afternoon when he was meeting with bikers for trump. Lets go to Boris Sanchez in new jersey. A reporter asking about omarosa. What happened there. Hey there, ana. President trump was asked about his former aide Omarosa Manigault with up in accusations about the president. Cnn obtained a copy of the book. Many allegations are unverifiable. But two stand out, alleging the president is a racist and suggesting the white house offered her hush money to keep stories about the president from going public as you noted. The president was at an event with bikers. He was shouted a question about omarosa. He kept his answer shopper. Its the first time we have heard about the allegations. Listen to this. I better not go any further. Low life. Smes she is a low life. She is a low life. Ana we should point out the white house pushed back on allegations from omarosa. Sources tell cnn this is a strategy to try to poke holes in her credibility. Similar to what we saw after michael wolf published his explosive book, we will likely hear more from the white house attempting to poke holes again in omarosas arguments. In the meantime President Trump slamming his own Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions in of an afternoon tweet storm. Thats right, President Trump taking to twitter to voice displeasure with his own Department Of Justice, with his own fbi. Here are the tweets from President Trump. He writes, quote, The Big Story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is low life Christopher Steeles many meeting
with Attorney General bruce orr and his wife. It was steele that was hired to write the phoney dossier paid for crooked Hillary Clinton do you believe nellie and her husband still works for the Department Of Justice in quotation marks. Ive never seen anything so rigged in my life. Our Attorney General is erred scared stiff and missing in action. Ig report soon. Witch hunt. A number of things to fact check with the tweets, ana i will keep it simple. Bruce orr was never the Deputy Attorney general. He did work in the office. He was demoted after news came out of his meeting was christopher steele. We should point out the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein that orr had nothing to do with the russia investigation. And beyond that we also have to point out the underlying argue the president is making here that the russia investigation which he calls a witch hunt was based on that steele dossier. We know thats not the case
because of documents put out by the Department Of Justice which show that that russia investigation was launched after george papadopoulos, a trump aide had a drunken conversation with officials in london saying he knew that russians hacked the dnc servers and had Hillary Clinton emails. Thank you for thats fact chekt. Out west, california governor jerry brown declaring a State Of Emergency as the massive holy fire rages in Southern California right now. Scorching more than 21,000 acres. Thats a huge amount. Its only 29 contained. The man who is charged with starting this fire appeared in court friday. There he is at one point exclaiming its a lie. This fire is one of one hundred massive wildfires consuming more than 1. 5 million acres in the western u. S. The smoke from the california fires stretching from 3,000 miles all the way to new york city. Stephanie elam joins us now in
california. How bad are the Weather Conditions facing firefighters . Reporter well there is one thing starting to happen every afternoon the winds pick up ana. You can see it now. Right now you heard it over me thats a helicopter. And its going in to drop some you know water or Fire Retardant on part of the blaze behind the mountain here. They have really done some amazing work on this holy fire where we stand. Because yesterday standing here you couldnt even see the mountain. Sometimes you see through the smoke the blaze. It seemed the area was on fire. They did quick work. From one day to the next it went from 10 containment to 30 containment thats a big deal in fire containment land. A lot of people dont know about this but its a big deal. The issues are its approaching 100 degrees and dry and the winds pick up in the afternoon and that can swirl around the fire and move the embers in
different directions. These are some of the conditions here that you see in other parts of the state as well. And to give an idea overall over the last few weeks we have seen more than 670,000 acres burned here in california. That is greater than the size, the land mass size of the state of rhode island. Thats how much has been torched the last couple weeks here ana. Its incredible. Thank you stephanie for the reporting. The flames are putting people feet away from the disaster. Check out this video showing the holy fire. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, god, please, lord. Unbelievably this home was not burned down. You can see why with the firefighters right here there on the pool deck. The work is so critical not just on the ground but in the air. In many cases these planes dropping Fire Retardant is the last line of defense for home owners in this region. And that brings me to the next guest tom porter is chief of the Southern Region for the California Department of forestry and fire protection. Tom, what a Fight You Guys have. I know youve been with calfire nearly 20 years. Help us understand. Put it in perspective all the fires that your state is facing right now. Have you ever seen it this severe. Ana, what i first want to do is thank the firefighters from across the nation. No doubt. Throughout california, all the different agencies, outside the nation we have firefighters from australia and new zealand. And they have come to help us with this fight. This is a huge fire fight we are in the middle of this summer. We have a long season to go. The resources are helping us. But also we have been seeing this kind of increase in size and damaging large wildfires in california for about the last 15 years. And were starting to the new normal that the governor has coined for us in california is really becoming the normal. And its a very difficult situation that we find ourselves in. 29 containment for the holy fire. So some progress. Thank goodness. Tell us whats happening right now in the fire fight. You know, ana, what we are doing now is the fire is starting to burn out of kind of more remote areas where there are individual structures and very small groups of homes into densely populated communities and subdivisions. We are working hard to make sure that those those subdivisions are reinforced with aerial
retardant, the red material or the red liquid you see dropped out of planes and sometimes helicopters. Also helicopters. And then getting resources on the ground to ensure that we are protecting as many homes as we absolutely can. We saw just how close the fire is coming to that one house in the video before our interview, where the flames are right up against the pool. That was outside that door. The homes that are not burning down right now, is there any rhyme or reason for Certain Homes being spared, like maybe the home owners reduced brush on the properties, that sort of thing. Thats a very good point. Our Land Use Planning in california has really increased over the last several years to put things like pool decks and nonburnable material between the house and the wild lands and then also some Fuel Reduction beyond that. So all of those practices help
to protect a home if a fire is advancing from that side of the of the house. There are cases, though, where just a slight change in weather will spare a house next door to a house thats been burned. And often we have firefighters at those homes. But not always. Some houses stand alone without any firefighter actually being at the site. And that really comes back to sometimes chance but also the Land Use Planning that we have done. Tom porter, thank you for taking the time. Our very best thoughts and energy and everything with your firefighters on the ground and those who have flown in from across the world as you pointed out and also with the community there affected. Were back in just a moment. Ana, thank you. What will you discover with a lens made by essilor . And get a second pair of qualifying lenses free. Essilor. Better sight. Better life. Reporter prosecutors expect to finish laying out the governments case early next week. This after a week of damaging revelations, many coming from rick gates, the governments star witness in the trial. Marchs long time partner pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to investigators and is cooperating with the government as it tries to convict his former boss on 18 counts of bank and tax fraud. While the trial is not about the president are or his Campaign Trump as shadow looms over the proceedings. This is the first of two trials his former Campaign Chairman faces in virginia and washington, d. C. The virginia case presenting the first big test for Special CounselRobert Mueller. Who is investigating russian meddling in the 2016 Election Machine Manafort spent six months on the campaign. He won the primary process with a Record Number of votes. Before leaving amid Question Base his lobbying work for prorussian government. Which and payments which prosecutors say totaled more
than 60 million. They allege he hid millions lied about his income and failed to fay epay taxes while spending big. For real estate and New York Yankees season tickets. While serving as manaforts righthand man for a decade gates whose three days on the Witness Stand began monday, testified that he and mafrpt had 15 foreign accounts that they didnt report to the government even though they knew it was illegal. He said manafort instructed him not to submit the required forms. Gates also testified that manafort recommended a banker who had loaned him money for a position in the trump administration. And he admitted he cheated on his wife and had embezzled several hundred thousand dollars from manafort by submitting false expense reports. Revelations manaforts Defense Team Hope to use to undermine his credibility. The government presented email was photos and financial records to prove the case. Employees from the fbi and irs testified about the Money Manafort from political work in
ukraine and his failure to report some of it on his tax returns. The president played down his relationship with manafort in recent months. Paul manafort worked for me for a very short period of time. But he has been watching the trial closely taking to twitter on to express sympathy for manafort. Comparing his treatment to prohibition era alka pony and call on Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions to end the probe immediately. A describe as an opinion not an order. Lets take a Deep Dive Wour expert on the law. Michael zeldin joins us, special assistant to Robert Mueller at the justice department. This week the first time prosecutors showed how manafort used his Trump Campaign ties to obtain millions in bank loans. Could this be of value to muellers team beyond this trial do you think. Im not so sure, ana. I think what we have here are is a trial with two parts. Part one was when manafort was
flush with his ukrainian money he was hiding it from the irs so as not to pay taxes. Then when that money dried up he had no money and he had a lot of debt and sew engaged in bank fraud in order to obtain the money to live the lifestyle he was accustomed to. Yes he did say to the banker i can help you get a job in the administration if you help me with in bank fraud application. But i dont think that ties back to the president himself. Really its more a matter of manaforts own corruption. What do you make of that moment that happened this week in which there was sort of a secret conversation with the judge and the attorneys at the bench, and then later was asked to keep that conversation secret or sealed because of the ongoing mueller probe. Doesnt that suggest that gates may come into play in some other capacity in the broader
investigation . It would seem so. The facts there were that the prosecutor the Defense Attorney asked gates essentially how many times did he interview with the Special Counsel. They said about 20 times. They approached the bench to talk about what was included within the 20 interviews. And that is what was sealed at the prosecutions request because the prosecutor said that relates to ongoing inves