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Covert CIA Drone Program in Mexico?; Will New York Governor Remove Eric Adams?; DOGE Continues Firing Federal Workers. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired February 18, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:33:03]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: This just into CNN.

At least 700 workers at the CDC have been fired since Friday. The cuts include jobs and crucial training programs for young scientists and health researchers.

Another departure at the Justice Department, meantime. Sources tell CNN that the head of the U.S. attorney's Criminal Division here in Washington has now quit.

CNN senior crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz joins us now.

And you have some new reporting about why this happened, Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Pamela, this is a clash between a longtime prosecutor here in Washington, D.C., and the political appointees of the Trump administration, the people at main Justice, as well as the man who is nominated to be the U.S. attorney in D.C., Ed Martin.

The departure this morning is Denise Cheung. She was leading the Criminal Division here in the U.S. attorney's office. And she did not want to open a grand jury investigation that she viewed to be premature, but that main Justice and her boss in the U.S. attorney's office wanted.

That's according to multiple sources speaking to us about what went down to prompt Denise Cheung's sudden departure today from that office. The other thing about this is the investigation. It was supposed to be over the D.C. U.S. attorney's office looking into Environmental Protection Agency money, something that the EPA administrator appointed by Trump has been talking quite a lot about and has even said he wanted to work with the Justice Department on looking at.

But that appears to be the thing that Denise Cheung at the U.S. attorney's office said, I'm not doing it, and it is not something that we should be doing at this time with a grand jury investigation, even if the political leadership wanted that. One thing too we heard from our sources is, when she announced her

farewell to the office in Washington, D.C., of prosecutors, she noted to them that she wanted them to continue conducting themselves with utmost integrity, not saying exactly why she was leaving, but making sure to underline the integrity of the department and the ethics that both she and the people that she worked with there for a long time want to uphold, as there are these ongoing fights within the Justice Department about their belief from the Trump side in weaponization, as well as clashes in other U.S. attorney's offices, like in New York, over what prosecutors are being asked to do -- Pamela.

[11:35:29]

BROWN: Katelyn Polantz, thank you.

Turning now to a legal setback for a large group of university students who get financial aid. They asked a Washington, D.C., court to block Elon Musk's DOGE from accessing their personal data, but the judge declined to intervene.

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig joins us now.

Elie, I want to get to this in a second, but I first just want to process what Katelyn just laid out and just what your view of this is and the significance of these prosecutors who have been resigning from their posts at DOJ.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Pam, there's nothing normal about this wave of resignations that we have seen.

Of course, we saw seven career nonpolitical prosecutors all resign around the Eric Adams case, and now here we have another person who's been a prosecutor for a long time, not a political appointee, who has resigned over an order she was given, apparently, to open up some sort of grand jury, meaning criminal investigation, of spending relating to the environment.

So, clearly, this person had strong principled objections to that order, and I don't think this is going to be the last of these resignations that we see over the coming days and weeks.

BROWN: Yes, it seems very unusual. We don't typically see this.

HONIG: No.

BROWN: So, bring us up to speed on this case that I introduced you with.

HONIG: Yes.

BROWN: What were the students' concerns and what was the legal basis for their lawsuit?

HONIG: So, really important to understand up front this case has nothing to do with whether it is wise or unwise or whether it is good government or bad government to have Elon Musk and DOGE do what they're doing.

This case is very specifically about whether any privacy laws were breached, and the judge has found that, no, he found no evidence that privacy laws were violated. Now, this relates to a series of DOGE employees working within the Department of Education. As part of their review, they had been given access to private student information.

However, what the judge found is that the record establishes that those employees, those DOGE employees, were complying with privacy restrictions, had not disseminated this information, this private information publicly, and were aware that, if they did so, they could be punished civilly or maybe even criminally.

And, therefore, the judge said, I don't find enough of a violation or any violation of the privacy rights, and, therefore, I'm not going to stop them from doing anything at this point.

BROWN: So, clearly, actually, that was good, that was enlightening information, right, in terms of, like, what they're actually doing with the information or not doing.

HONIG: Yes.

BROWN: And the judge found that the students did not show that they were irreparably harmed by DOGE's actions.

So, explain to us what the threshold for that would be.

HONIG: So, the key thing you have to show, if you're this group of students or any plaintiff who goes to a court and says, I want you to issue an injunction, I want you to block something from happening, you then bear the burden of establishing what we call irreparable harm, that something is happening or certainly will happen that will damage you in a serious way that you cannot recover from.

And the judge -- and I should mention, by the way, the judge is an Obama nominee, so he is not some pro-Trump person sort of by disposition, but the judge said -- he held hearings and he did fact- finding and he said, I cannot find that your information has been publicly disseminated and you have been hurt.

In fact, the judge said, to the contrary, all the evidence is that your private information has remained private, has remained within proper Department of Education standards. And, therefore, there is no irreversible harm. And, therefore, you don't get the injunction that you're asking for.

BROWN: And this is the third time in recent days that courts have sided with DOGE and against those filing lawsuits that have focused on privacy concerns.

What does that mean to you? What is the significance? What does that mean for those who hope to stop DOGE's activities in the future?

HONIG: Well, it tells me at least that DOGE has some sensibility and awareness of what some of these privacy restrictions are, that, while people might be uncomfortable with Elon Musk or others at DOGE accessing information within those departments, they are aware of what the limitations are and they have not publicly distributed private information.

And, again, keep in mind, these lawsuits are not about, they are not proxies for, do you like DOGE or not, do you like Elon Musk or not? These are always going to be decided on very narrow, specific legal basis like we see in this case.

BROWN: All right, Elie Honig, as always, thank you.

HONIG: Thanks, Pam.

BROWN: Up next: finding a path forward, state and local leaders, and what could be make-or-break meetings about New York Mayor Eric Adams' future, as the governor considers an extraordinary and rare move.

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[11:44:28]

BROWN: A legal battle that won't let up and a political career hanging in the balance.

Today, New York Governor Kathy Hochul is expected to hold meetings about New York Mayor Eric Adams' future. And this comes just days after the Department of Justice ordered the criminal corruption charges against him to be dropped. The judge in that case has ordered a hearing tomorrow to discuss it.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is in New York.

So, Gloria, talk to us about this new hearing and what you are learning about Governor Hochul's meetings today.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, first, we should start with Governor Kathy Hochul, who is in a really difficult political position here.

[11:45:04]

She is really stuck between a rock and a hard place. She has several lawmakers here in New York calling on her to use her executive power to remove the mayor from office. This is after last week we learned of the Department of Justice memo directing prosecutors here in New York to drop the corruption charges against the mayor.

Now, were she to make that choice, it would not come without several political consequences for the governor. So she's in a really difficult position. She has acknowledged that much. And she has said that she is looking to meet with several key leaders, including Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Gregory Meeks, as well as the Reverend Al Sharpton and other city lawmakers, to sort of go over the possibilities and determine a next path, to quote her directly.

That's what's happening today at the governor's office in Manhattan. She has said that she's taking a serious look at this option, given the recent developments in the last several days. In the meantime, the mayor has said over and over that he has no plans to resign. He struck a pretty defiant tone speaking at churches over the weekend, saying that people are -- quote -- "dancing on his grave" and that he has no intention of going anywhere.

And, in the meantime, we have also learned that we are going to hear directly from the judge that's been overseeing his federal corruption case tomorrow. Judge Dale Ho has called both parties to come into court tomorrow for a hearing, where we might finally get some information about what's going to happen next, given this DOJ memo directing the federal prosecutors here in New York to drop the charges.

We're starting to get at least an idea of what the mayor's defense team are going to say. I want to read just a portion of the letter that was sent by the attorney Alex Spiro, who has been representing the mayor in this case, responding to some briefs that have been filed in the last day or so.

And part of what he says was that: "What we never said or suggested to anyone was that Mayor Adams would do X in exchange for Y. And no one said or suggested to us that they would do Y in exchange for X. We are prepared to confirm these points under oath in sworn declarations."

Now, he's talking about the fact that the DOJ memo listed one of the reasons for the charges to be dropped as the need for the mayor to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. That's what people here in New York are calling evidence of a quid pro quo, something that the mayor's attorneys will try to argue against tomorrow.

BROWN: All right, Gloria Pazmino, thank you so much.

Still to come, CNN's new reporting about a covert CIA program, drones used to spy on drug cartels in Mexico.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:27]

BROWN: Now to new CNN reporting the CIA under President Trump has been covertly flying surveillance drones over Mexico to spy on drug cartels. That's according to officials familiar with the operation. And it's part of the administration's dramatic shift of national security resources to the southern border.

Let's bring in CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand.

Natasha, what more are you learning?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, current and former officials familiar with this program told us that the CIA under President Trump has been covertly flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Mexico to spy on drug cartels.

And, as you said, it's part of this dramatic reorientation of national security assets to the U.S. southern border. CNN has previously reported that the U.S. military was flying spy planes in international airspace to monitor these cartels, but these drones are actually flying over Mexico and inside Mexican airspace, which is a significant development here.

Now, these more recent flights of these drones, they were communicated to Congress by the Trump administration using a particular notification reserved for new or updated covert programs that the CIA intends either to conceal or deny. And this is all part of a broader strategy to kind of shift intelligence community resources towards combating cartels as well, which we know the administration is also preparing to designate as foreign terrorist organizations.

And this planning actually started even before Trump took office. We actually obtained a 30-page Trump transition planning document that called for treating counterdrug cartel work as a -- quote -- "form of counterterrorism" and using those authorities and resources appropriately, including by moving resources from other regions if necessary, so really kind of an all-hands-on-deck approach here.

Now, these MQ-9 drones that are being used for these missions, they're not currently armed, but they can be equipped with payloads to carry out precision airstrikes, which the U.S. pretty regularly does to target suspected terrorists in Syria, Iraq and Somalia.

Now, when we asked the CIA for comment, a spokesperson declined to comment specifically about these drone missions, but said that broadly -- quote -- "Countering drug cartels in Mexico and regionally is a priority for CIA as part of the Trump administration's broader efforts to end the grave threat from narcotrafficking. Director Ratcliffe is determined to put CIA's unique expertise to work against this multifaceted challenge."

Now, Pam, these drone missions, they also come, of course, amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and the Mexican government, especially as Mexican officials are already fielding questions about why the military spy planes have flown missions near their border in recent weeks.

[11:55:02]

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and other senior Mexican officials, they have also emphasized in recent days the importance of sovereignty, of intelligence sharing, and they have noted that the U.S. spy plane flights are occurring in international airspace to try to kind of appease the public there.

But, obviously, these drone missions are taking place in Mexican airspace itself. So we should also note that, when we asked Mexican officials for comment, they did not respond about whether they're aware of this at all, Pam.

BROWN: All right, Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much.

And thank you all for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok and X @PamelaBrownCNN. Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short

break.