Inside the Cornell Investigation: New Police Video and Jane Doe Testimony | Trump's Comments on LA and San Diego & More.

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You know that feeling when too many things fall through the cracks? monday.com was built for that gap. The AI work platform where people and agents work side by side to deliver more together. Create your first Monday agent today at monday.com.

Jordan Berman (0:15)

Welcome back to UNBIASED Politics. It's Thursday, October 8th, and today we're talking about some Cornell updates, the botched execution in Tennessee, the case of the plague in Russia, Trump's comments about San Diego and LA, and more. So let's just jump right into it. We're going to start with Cornell. When we talked about Cornell on Tuesday, we talked about Governor Hockel removing the Tompkins County DA from the criminal investigation and appointing Attorney General Letitia James. We talked about more evidence that the DA's office allegedly chose not to review. We went through the specific punishments Cornell imposed on the seven men. We talked about those recorded phone calls between Jane Doe and two of the Fratt brothers, more text messages from Fratt members, and the response from Cornell's president. Well, since then, of course, there have been even more developments. We now have even more interviews conducted by Cornell Police back in 2024 We have parts of the transcripts from the 12-day disciplinary hearing Cornell held last year. We know who Cornell has hired to conduct the independent investigation into the school. We've learned about threats against Jane Doe, and we've learned more about those on-campus protests that are growing. So let's start with what came out Tuesday afternoon. Per usual, we'll take this in chronological order.

ABC News obtained records on Tuesday showing that one day after Cornell sent out a campus-wide alert about a reported rape at Chi Phi, Cornell Police received an anonymous tip saying fraternity leadership had asked a potential witness to stay quiet because if details about what happened got out, it would hurt the reputation of the people involved and the fraternity. A female student told investigators later during those interviews that Cornell Police conducted that, Chi Phi held a meeting essentially to get all of the men on the same page about what happened. I know for a fact there are group messages about the situation. She also said the Fratt brothers described the incident as a quote unquote consensual orgy, but were concerned that it would quote, be bad for their image, end quote. One of the Fratt brothers interviewed by police disputed the girl's claim. He told police that there wasn't a meeting called specifically to discuss that incident. He said the incident came up at one of their regular weekly chapter meetings. So they talked about it along with all of their other Fratt business. So there's a bit of a he said she said there.

Then yesterday, ABC News obtained video from some of the interviews that Cornell Police conducted with some of the Fratt brothers. And one of the videos shows Chi Phi members who were allegedly in the house that night, but not actually involved in the sexual activity. And they told Cornell Police that they heard it was all consensual. One Fratt brother told police in the video that quote, what people were saying was that there was like multiple consenting adults in this room, end quote. Another Fratt brother told investigators that quote, the general rumor that was going around was that it was a consensual thing, end quote. The investigator then questioned how the kids having sex with Jane Doe could have known the act was consensual. The officer said, quote, dude, I was a college kid. I get it. I'm like in college, I wouldn't have been like, oh, that was a sick consensual act last night. How did they know it was consensual? And the frat brother responded, quote, I can't recall exactly what was said, but yeah, I mean, they said that they had sex with her, I guess, end quote. When the officer asked the student who, who was all in the room that night, the student couldn't answer. And the officer pressed the student a bit. The officer said, quote, I just get worried because you know how it looks. You're a brother, end quote. The student responded, quote, I can't recall exactly everyone who was in there. And like I said before, I don't want to make assumptions based on what I don't remember, end quote. Now, before we continue with all of these pieces of the transcripts and everything like that, just a quick call out. Keep in mind that we do not have the full transcripts at this point. These outlets are essentially getting a hold of this information and then making editorial decisions as to what they publish. So we don't have a comprehensive view of the facts. We don't have the full interview transcripts. We're just getting these snippets of conversations, which means then, right, that we don't have the full context. So just keep that in mind as we're going through this. I of course want to give you the updates as they're reported, but a lot of these updates, we don't, we just don't have the full picture.