giving sloan a run for his money, laura. handing it over to you,. now >> reporter: oh man, to be nine years old again and go toe-to-toe with sly stallone. >> somebody get him a deal. >> reporter: thanks abby, great show. bomb making materials, an i.s.i.s. flag, and a 16-year-old suspect. tonight on laura coates live. all right, there is a chilling story that just came out tonight about a potentially deadly terror plot that was foiled. it happened in las vegas, but the really frightening part, the suspect i'm talking about -- drivers license or about getting their -- or tiktok followers, the 16-year-old is in custody tonight. arrested for allegedly making a terrorism threat on social media. now, the cops say the suspect claimed he was beginning lone wolf terror attacks in las vegas in support of i.s.i.s.. >> we were able to identify the suspect and the location within hours of identifying the threat. the suspect is a 16-year-old juvenile, was local to the area, a recent convert islam. >> reporter: within hours, wow. and what police say they discovered at his home might just be the tip of the iceberg. he had a handmade ices flag, propaganda, components for building an improvised explosive device, but there is so much we don't know tonight. what would push a teenager, a 16 year old to allegedly make a threat just like this? what was the plan, by the way? was there a specific target and how did the cops athwart it in a matter of hours? we cannot, of course, put any of this in the vacuum. it's no coincidence what we are seeing with the rise on social media, the plot coming amid so many horrifying images online of the death, destruction in gaza. and as the war rages in the middle east, how do we deal with the threats right here at home? and what role does social media play in all of this? a question so many are asking again tonight, is it the symptom, the problem, or the cure? joining me now cnn chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst john miller. john, i, mean this is a 16 year old kid in vegas. how does someone that young get motivated to commit an act of terror? >> we're seeing more and more of that. i was out in las vegas, just in june, with sheriff kevin mayo from clark county sheriff's office. deputy chief dory corn, head of the counterterrorism bureau, and we are talking about just this, which is radicalization, propaganda, how slick it has become, how sophisticated it has become, and that was before there was a war going on between israel and gaza that was generating the kind of heart wrenching images on both sides of that battle that fit into this propaganda and can bring people to mobilization towards violence after being radicalized and then operationalize-ing that, which we saw here. radicalization online, mobilization of violence, and then taking those steps to get the bomb making components, the timing and power unit, the initiation systems, the studying for the chemicals to develop the explosives that would go without. what we don't know is what the target was, what we're not certain we had chosen one. yet based on what we had seen in the public documents. >> reporter: so how close was he to actually carrying any of this off? he had the target, and i do wonder about how they were able to thwart it. they said a matter of hours, our able to pick up on this? >> that is a combination of factors. in las vegas, they have the joint terrorism task force with the fbi, where they have their deputies and police officers. but they also have nevada counterterrorism fusion center, which is a scanning constantly for these threats. and then there is the site intelligence group, it is a profit we funded group that literally spent all day looking on message boards and chat rooms and places that are very hard to find your way into, where people believe that they are not being looked at by others, and they were able to flag this also. so you had this also coming from the las vegas metro investigation, people who are on the lookout for the stuff all the time, and his bold statement about, you know, i am going to strike in the name of i.s.i.s. and the scientists in this town, las vegas, are going to know about. it it gave it a sense of urgency. >> reporter: john, it's unbelievable to think about this happening in any place. i do wonder how broad the different structures you talk about, even outside of nevada. thank you for joining us tonight. i want to bring in cnn senior law enforcement analyst and former fbi deputy director, andrew mccabe, also here is julia kyan, former department of homeland security official and an international security analyst. amid a start with you here. juliet, this was the 16-year-old. alleged to be affiliated with i.s.i.s., of all things, talking about lone wolf scenarios. are these sort of scenarios the biggest threat right now when it comes to domestic terrorism? >> he is younger than the normal threat, we generally look at 20 to 25-year-olds, white males. we don't know his ethnicity, he is only described by our reporting as a recent convert to islam. so we don't know his background. this is young, but it's not young in terms of access and identification and growing a sense of community throw social media. we certainly see that in teenagers. so that is not surprising, i actually think that is youth is a sign of two things. one, he is affiliating with the last war. focusing on isakson's, honestly, a little dated now. so used to start to wonder if it's accessed information, is he just getting stuff from the internet. the other is that, as john miller reported, easily they were able to capture him. he was not sophisticated in hiding what his intentions were and they clearly have him on serious charges at this stage. >> reporter: andrew, when you think about that, it occurs to so many people, okay, they were able to, and thank goodness, thwart whatever attack this might have been. but you have been in law enforcement, look at the scope of the landscape of all the needles in the proverbial haystacks. . is there a way to try to strategically deter and prevent, or even identify these kinds of threats? >> sure. there are several ways to do that work, and it really takes you back to 2015. that to spring and summer of 2015 when i.s.i.s. was really at the peak of their effectiveness in terms of marketing and social media propaganda. and we had a wave of american who are responding very powerfully to that and attempting to join, attempting to travel to affiliate with the group, to fight for the group in syria and find these people across the country. many different ages, backgrounds, a different religious experiences, different educational backgrounds, they really look like a complete cross section. it is incredibly hard to stay in front of these threats as they start to develop, but it should also say, laura, this really proves the thing that we were all concerned about in the immediate aftermath of the hostilities breaking out between israel and hamas. that a moment like that provides incredible inspiration for like-minded people around the world, for extremists who are moving down, as john talked about, that path of radicalization. seeing those images and, of course, identifying with the plight of the palestinian people is something that is a traditionally as been a theme that motivated bin laden to start al-qaeda, it was a significant motivation for the leaders of i.s.i.s., so this is not new. it is something that we should expect to see more of. >> reporter: juliet, when you think about that, for many people they might not know that correlation and that history, or what was the impetus for a number of different movements. but they are, as you talk, about reading what is happening now. one of the places that they're gaining information from, and i use the term information at times very generously here, the role of social media is playing in disseminating whatever information is actually coming. out whether incorrect or just plain false or far more sinister, not just by default. we talk about the role of social media. what could be done, or is there enough being done to try to warn about these kinds of threats? >> so, the short answer is no. we know this and not all social media is the same. so the data and polling shows that most young people are getting their information about the war on tiktok, and so most of us of a certain age are probably not on tiktok, so they're to getting that information, filtering in tiktok is not vigorous. so they're going through information not validated information, imagery that may be fake, actually, and some of it is not clearly in terms of what it is that they are capturing and seeing and therefore getting radicalized on it. at the same, time some of the legacies social media platforms like twitter, x, have really stopped filtering. so they are sort of a cesspool of hate. and we look for rational explanations of, well, they believe this, they believe that, and this person does this. the truth is that these just become cesspools of hate and there is no sort of clear delineation between this group or that group. and somebody who would have a propensity towards, say, hate or is isolated and finds a community on social media that is egging them on and saying, yes, what you believe is right, go do this, that becomes the issue that is very hard to track and eliminating filters really don't exist on most social media platforms. >> reporter: when you look at, that thinking of those filters or the absence of, them is that a role that law enforcement, to get ahead of this, embedding themselves in these places continuously watching this? because obviously you've got the first amendment issue that we are talking about, with a free speech. we use the term loosely in terms of not being in the government, but what is present in the information. our law enforcement beginning to start to embed themselves? a starting to survey and patrol these areas to try to figure out, could there be a part of a kind of echo chamber? >> reporter: sure, law enforcement works in that realm. it is an open source, it is available to anybody who wants to look at it so long enforcement can look at the same way anyone else can. the question is what actions can lot enforcement take based upon what they're seeing on social media, which is purely protected speech. so, that is where it gets a little more dicey. you can't instigate investigated activity based simply on the exercise of first amendment rights. so that is where the legal challenges come in. but i should say that we used to have some degree of success when we were to see content like that online, we could bring it to the social media companies, not tell them to take it off, we had no authority over that, but we could say that we believe that this content violates your terms of service agreements, we want you to review it and take whatever actions you think are appropriate. nowadays, law enforcement is in a much tougher position and cannot take actions like that, cannot have those sorts of interactions with social media companies because of recent court decisions and the fifth circuit and other places that have really cut against the intelligence community's ability to be proactive in pointing out some of this horrible terrorist content to the social media companies. that has been a big step back forwards. >> reporter: it was this conundrum whether we want law enforcement to be proactive or reactive, and what we can do about it in between. andrew mccabe, juliette kayyem, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> reporter: suffice to say there's a lot going on tonight and, as, always a lot going on with our former president. here at home, donald trump facing a plethora of legal woes and we knew about all of those, right? but what about the floodgates? are they getting ready to open for him on the civil side? including the case that my next guest is bringing. , so, the former president donald trump had legal troubles. they may be about to get a whole lot worse. why? well a federal appeals court right here in d.c., will say that he can be sued over january six. , so that rejected trump's claim of presidential immunity which is good news for my next guest. attorney representing congressman eric sol well who is part of the lawsuit by democratic lawmakers and inter capitol police officers against trump. phil. good to see you here my friend. the floodgates may be opening, because we know about the criminal cases against donald trump and not the idea of being able to be sued civilly means it could just be in his mind, pandora's box or for those willing to soothe, the floodgates opening. what was behind this decision, and what are you going to do about it? >> well you know it was a really important decision. it was a unanimous decision by an ideologically, politically diverse panel of the second highest court in the country rejecting donald trump's assertion of immunity for conduct in speech that he engaged in while he was in office. like you said, it opened a lot of floodgates for liability. and for the accountability that we and others are seeking for his terrible actions on january six. >> it's important to know this because when people think about presidential action, they may make the submission that because it was the president, no matter what he did while he was the president, that was enough. not actually true. in the courts, essentially said and i'm reading here for a moment what they had to say about this that the president does not spend every minute of every day exercising official responsibilities. and, when he acts outside the functions of his office he does not continue to adroitly munich deep from damages, liability, just because he happens to be the president. that means that the legal argument for this court that he tried to raise and said, look, the president, look what i could do while on the president. all that was out of the water. >> that's right, his argument was anything that i say and anything that i do at any point in time is going to be a matter of public concern. and therefore the official acts, therefore it's recovered. and the d.c. circuit said with the district court said the opinion that they affirm that there is a line that you cross into solely personal private activity. and that happened when there is a seeker not as an office holder and that's what we alleged are complete that all relevant, times what donald trump was doing is acting as a political candidate. that is a lot of things. it's not official conduct of the president of the united states. >> he's going to appeal the supreme court, likely, we already know this. do you think the likely take it and if they do, do you think they're on the side on this issue? >> well, obviously, i don't want to speculate. certainly i think it's safe to say that any avenue or delay, anything that he can do to install things might try to take advantage of. a three judge panel that unanimous and that politically, ideologically diverse like this panel from the d.c. circuit is probably gonna get a lot of difference to the supreme court. so we'll just have to wait and see. but for right now we're feeling very confident and very well reason, legally sounded with the issue. >> not that you won this legal battle, what do you do now? does the case pick up right where left, of where the lawsuit continues? >> we are still waiting. he has some time to petition the full d.c. circuit, to revisit the opinion, as he could appeal to the supreme court we just have to wait for the procedural pieces to work themselves out but we are eager and ready to get going and see it again. >> i'll tell you what, while you're thinking about that, waiting for him to have those couple of days, we're thinking, hold on a second. i may have been impacted to and maybe those floodgates will open. and what impact will have on the criminal cases will also have to wait and see. nice to see you. thank you for coming. >> thanks for having me laura. >> what would you do is the big question. if your father confessed that he's not who you think he is. well that actually happened. and wait till you hear the rest of the story. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. one of the largest and most mysterious bank heist in ohio history. while it's not been solved. but the man who robbed the bank, theodore conrad, he was never actually caught. that's because more than 50, years he was living in suburban boston under an assumed name as a guy named thomas randolph. his daughter ashley, tells the story of when the whole thing started to unravel. >> my mom, that, and i were watching and see i. s&p looked over at us and really calmly said, ladies just in case anything ever came up i had to change my name when i moved here. the authorities are probably still looking for me. i don't want to talk about it but just so you, know in case it ever comes up you are not blindsided. and then we went back to ncis. we >> what? i mean it wasn't until the next day that ashley then pressed her father for details that she found out in july of 1969, her father walked out of the bank where he worked with $250,000 in cash in a paperback. and then he vanished. now that would be the equivalent of one point $6 million today. now, well randall had been living his new life, a pair of u.s. marshals, a father, and son were looking for a bank robber theodore ted conrad. and until an obituary, for a thomas randall appeared online, peter elliott won a decent marshals who side joins me now. and began to put the clues together. thank you so much for being here. peter, first of all, this obituary, i can't believe the story and csis component. you had been looking for 50 years, really, for this particular individual you and your father. and you saw an obituary. why would that have led due to believe that this was the person under the assumed name anyway? >> well, when people lie they live close to home and in the obituary ted condon was born on july 10th of 1949. he used the date of july 10th 1947. he listed the printouts to move about the obituary, the real -- he said he went to school at the colored work on a goes to school. we also said he was born in denver colorado. and that's where conrad was born. so, there's all these similarities, and the obituary for rondo and the real life to -- >> so you have been looking through obituaries, coincidentally. or you did it as a part of the matter of course to figure out where the person may or may not be? >> i had to look through every arbitrary, i would be -- so we were led to that obituary of the individual to take a look at that and that's what we did. we took a look at an obituary. and, then from there, we started the process. i was for 2015 we put those records from randall. and then my dad, in 1960, 71 randhawa court a color he had a signature with conrad on. it and i red nile signature. >> unbelievable, i've been thinking about putting those things together. and having such tenacity to follow this story to the very end. and tiller it's an obituary. this person has now died. and you end up having to go to the home. what happened when he got there? >> yes and then kathy, ashley for the first time i look, they didn't know that we were coming. myself, and the u.s. marshal and knocked on the, door introduce themselves and told her that we were not there for her. we think your husband to someone else and not really thomas randall. and so we sat down, had a conversation, and they both told the truth. >> you know when you have been following, this i mean this has already taken you to hawaii, texas