David Gura hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Much. I want to dig into this more. Josh and lynn is joining me. Lynn, let me start with you. Geoff bennett mentioning the 27 district in new york and this is a district that sort of hugs buffalo, it is in upstate new york. And donald trump won that district by almost 25 points back in 2016. You look at the electoral record for the congressman who has announced he is suspending his campaign. Chris collins won that district 67 of the vote back in 2016. Let me put the same question to you as i put to jeff, what is the import of this as you look ahead to the midterms . It depends if he gets his name off the ballot. That is the next question we have to ask. Local authority determine the rules for elections. If his name stays on the ballot, then it might make it improbable that a democrat would be elected. After all, a long time ago when
release of the book. What do you make of the white house approach to this book coming out this week . Well, i think the white house is trying to knock it down the way that they have other books that have been critical, other Insider Tales or tales based on special access to the white house. But i think the omarosa book is of particular concern because there have been persistent reports that she was taping people inside the white house, taping private conversations with staffers. It is unclear i dont think she said she taped this alleged comments by the president , she was going to get in a frthat fr somebody else. But you have somebody inside the white house brace for 11 months or so who may have been recording conversations, i think even a tightly managed white house, which this one is not, would be concerned about what might be on those sorts of recordings. So definitely in Damage Control mode. I would think probably the credibility of the woodward book
would probably be more significant, so it could pose another kind of danger to the white house perhaps with a broader audience. Lynn, where did she fit into President Trumps universe . She claimed that she was fired. The white house disputing her allegation of that happening. Of course we know of the association that omarosa had with President Trump going back to The Apprentice i think season one. She was the original Reality Tv Villain i think you could say. What role did she play when she was in that Public Liaison Office . She had a role that was different than a job description. She was a wild card. In the early days of the trump white house, there were not strict lines of authority, job and portfolio responsibilities. So she was in on meetings, had time to see President Trump than in the days now where where john kelly is running a tighter ship. But she had really no operational responsibility which gave her time just to in a sense be a wild card. Or she had limited operational responsibility. Office of Public Engagement that she worked this is supposed to do events, do outreach depending how it is organized, you are dealing with special Interest Groups as well as outreach to state and local officials. I dont think she was from what we saw at the time, She Wasnt Working In The Trenches of Helping Connect policy and people in politics. She has always been a force of nature. She is somebody with an enormous knack of attracting attention to herself. And one of the things she did, she tried to use the white house as a place to get per wedding photos staged. So one of the things we do know, that starting tomorrow on Meet The Press, she will be getting a lot of attention just because she is very good at being provocative. And josh, i know youve been paying close attention to the trial involving Paul Manafort in alexandria. Were reaching the point at which the prosecution is going
to rest. We heard from rick gates in week. Your sob serve vaobservations o seen and what we can expect from the defense. There is really a mountain of paper evidence, Documentary Evidence against Paul Manafort showing that he had control over more than a dozen Bank Accounts overseas, showing that those accounts were being used to pay millions and millions of dollars in expenses the government says over 15 m 15 million in Persona Expenses like Designer Suits as well as Home Renovations and real estate purchases here in the u. S. Rick gates was the star witness, but many people say even without gates that there really was an overwhelming amount of evidence that manafort engaged in bank fraud, had control of accounts that he didnt report on his taxes and had massive income that he didnt report on his taxes. So it will be interesting to see how the defense chooses to
respond to that. They have tried to undercut gates credibility, but i think that has only put a limited dent into the prosecution case. We may see some experts to challenge i think some chof the tax issues, but it will be an uphill battle i think for them to try to he prevent conviction on the charges that manafort is facing. Thanks to josh and lynn. We turn now from washington, d. C. To Washington State where the fbi is now sifting through the wreckage of a plane that crashed last night, a plane essentially stolen by a horizon air employee. That employee died in the crash only after doing stunts midair, a flight people on the ground saw and recorded. Extraordinary footage there. Hans nichols is joining us. What is the latest on what happened here, what do we know about the individual who took that plane and crashed it into that island . Well, they know takes mystis
mystery in the air and on the ground. On the ground, how this individual was able to take the aircraft. And the question of what he was doing in the air. You mentioned stunts. There is a question here on whether or not he was actually performing stunts or whether or not he was just trying to figure out the controls. Trying to learn about an aircraft. As he was having those conversations with air Traffic Control, he seemed to be indicating that this is his first time flying. Now, there was a briefing here by the ntsb, they made it very clear of just how unusual this entire situation is, but they also made it clear as they sift through the wreckage that they think that they will get to the bottom of this mystery. Im sure over the next few days they will be able to determine exactly what his process was, where the aircraft was going, where it was there. He is ground support, you know. So they have access to aircraft. Reporter one thing about a potential black box, what they hope to learn is whether or not there is any internal conversation that the hijacker was having with himself. We know there is a lot of audio of him going back and forth with control, but whether it was off at any point and just muttering to himself. But in some of those conversations with air Traffic Control which was trying to bring him in safely, you can really hear what is going through his mind. I got a lot of people inthat ca about me. And it will disappoint them to hear that i did this. I would like to apologize to each and every he one of them. Just a broken guy. Got a few screws loose. Never knew it until now. Reporter it is extremely lucky that he crashed where he crashed. Basically a remote island, not
very populated, but in a very populated part of the country. Full of military bases. You have army, air force, navy bases. That may be one reason why they were able to scramble the jets so quickly. But again, those pilots, those fighter jet pilots, some of them witnessed the crash and they couldnt bring him in safely as he was trying to potentially figure out how to fly this airplane on his first go. Hans, thank you very much for the update. A State Of Emergency is now in effect in charlottesville, virginia one year after violent clashes left one woman dead and dozens injured. How the citys new police chief says things have changed and what they are doing to keep people safe this weekend. What will you discover with a lens made by essilor . Together in a single lens. Essilor ultimate lens package. Purchase the Essilor Ultimate Lens Package and get a second pair of qualifying lenses free. Essilor. Better sight. Better life. Ive been Making Blades here at gillette for 20 years. Theres a lot of innovation that goes into making americas 1 shave. Precision machinery and highquality materials from around the world. Nobody else even comes close. Now starting at 7. 99. Gillette. The best a man can get. This street and if you swing around here, they are about to change shifts here at the check point. So were talking about 1,000 Police Officers in and around a very small area and eight or nine block raise yus hdius has closed down. It feels like you would at a Major Political convention or inauguration except there is a somewhat jovial atmosphere. People are out having lunch and that is all by design. The officials here want to make sure that nothing like what happened last year happens again this year. They are doing it not only by denying permits, but these check poin points. And they have con physicfis points. And they have Con Physicficated items, brass knuckle, aerosol cans. An interesting conversation is about guns. They are still allowed to be open cared, and something that the State Legislature has struggled to deal with, a point
of stress that we see across the country. But really the headline here, these officers out in force, sending a message that at least this weekend nothing like what happened last year is going to happen in this town. And there are a lot of people there from out of town, ive been to charlottesville in the summertime, Thomas Jeffersons academic village tends to be less populated when the students are gone. Do you get the sense that people are coming back either to commemorate what happened and to stage protests . Does it feel like the town is swelling in any way . Reporter the town is not swelling, but lots are out, a lot of people taking photos because it is an incredible sight to see. If i spin you 360 degrees, there are police car in the middle of the ped Ped Areestrian area. Charlottesville is a blue dot within the sea of red. You have the university of virginia, liberal thinking going on, a student body that will start as to return. So you do have another stress point here which is that people
want this town back, and weve had a couple people come up and say we understand why youre here, but we want to get back on your feet. And what is your sense of the degree to which this resonates on a day to day basis . Yes, were approaching this anniversary. As you have talked to folks, what are they saying about how this has changed the town over the last year . Reporter there is a concern amongst the people that live here that it is starting to define the town, that in the same way newtown is defined by that horrible mass shooting and same way now that when you think about las vegas, you think about the shooting that happened there. People here are very concerned, the people who live here, that when americans and people who live overseas, when they think of charlottesville, they think of that march and the Horrible Vir Lens that took Plaviolence K place and the death of that young girl. Uva was What Charlottesville was known for and their football and now people are concerned that it will be remember fod what
happened last year. All right. Cal perry. And Breaking News from seattle, a Press Conference is under way on that stolen airliner taken by a horizon air employee. Lets listen in. Before i turn this over to gary, i want to acknowledge and express my deep gratitude to the faa air Traffic Controllers, to the washington and Oregon Air National guards and to the First Responders from Pierce County. They had a very strong and professional response to this incident. With us here today, we have as bobby said horizon air ceo gary beck, and also jay tabb who is leading the investigation for the fbi. And we have Director Of Operations for sea ta s fos for. They will speak and then well answer your questions. Thanks, brad. At 7 32 p. M. Local time, a mo
horizon air Ground Service agent departed in a horizon air q400 from seatac. The plane was taken from the Maintenance Position and was not scheduled for passenger flight. The aircraft crashed about an hour later in a wooded area on Ketron Island in rural Pierce County. No Ground Structures were involved at the crash site. Military jets were scrambled from portland, but it does not appear that the jets were involved in the crash of the horizon aircraft. And i really want to emphasize that we appreciate the militarys professionalism. Were working closely with the authorities and our safety teams to thoroughly understand this incident is. Ill turn it over to mike. Thank you, mr. Beck. And good morning. Seatac want to ensure that you know that were working fully with our partners at the ntsb, the faa, tsa and certainly our strong partners at horizon and alaska air. Immediately upon learning of the incident, we worked with our faa partners to institute a ground stop that prevented any departures from leaving seatac until the situation was stabilized. To clear the air space, it ended at 8 40 p. M. Local time last night when normal operations resumed. During the time of the incident, approximately 75 flights were delayed, 9 flights were diverted to other airports, five flights were canceled. We estimate that approximately 19 flights incurred delays over two hours and we apologize to our passengers and patrons of seatac. None exceeded the three hour tarmac rules instituted by
federal regulation. Moving forward, well certainly continue to work very closely with our stakeholders as well as Law Enforcement. And now id like to introduce mr. Tabb from the fbi. Im Special Agent in charge from the nooib in tfbi. First condolences for alaska and Horizon Airlines in this loss. And i also want to talk a little bit to the king county and Pierce County residents who im sure had a scare last night. We are diligently investigating this matter. We will get to the bottom of it. Were doing so with a long list of partners right now including Pierce County police department, Pierce County fire department, ntsb of course, and some fire rescue folks from the joint base lewismcchord who are assisting us out there. I have dozens of personnel out
at the crash site right now. I had 30 to 40 folks involved overnight out interviewing coworkers and family members. And i want everybody to understand this is going to take a little bit of time. So please be patient with the fbi. Were not prepared today to discuss a lot of details regarding this incident. Just because it is so nacent. With that, well turn it over to q and a. Well now take some questions. Brate operator, could you please open the call. And i want to apologize to Everybody Calling in. I know that we are having a few technical difficulties. So speakers may have to repeat yourself. We apologize for that. Lets take our first question in the room. Alan. I was going to ask you about the mental state. It is way too early to comment on that, im sorry. [ Inaudible Question ] i think at this time we believe he is the only one in the aircraft, of course we havent confirmed that at the crash site, if that is your question. And in terms of the access, that will best be answered by somebody else. [ Inaudible Question ] employee of the 5ir8, if recall, if you have any [ inaudible [. We realize there is information flowing out there. Weconfirming the identity at this time. It was a 3 1 2 year employee for horizon air. And he was background check,
there was a couple different criminal background checks that we run on our employees. He had a badge with the port. He worked his shift yesterday. We leave he wbelieve he was in. His job is to be around the aircrafts. There is a nonsecure time and secure side. He is meant to be on the secure side. That is part of the fulfillment of his job responsibilities. [ Inaudible Question ] this airplane was at cargo one, a spot on the north part of the airport. The airplane was not going to be used further last night and he did go up there without sort of a purpose other than this what he did do. Oug [ Inaudible Question ]. We dont know. [ Inaudible Question ] we dont have that
information. [ Inaudible Question ] is there any inf