springs. check him out at the bottom of this cheerleading pyramid as well. that's it for "the lead." i'm jake tapper. i leave you now in the capable hands of one mr. wolf blitzer. he's in "the situation room." >> jake, thanks. happening now, president obama vows to hold the irs accountable for any targeting of conservative groups. but angry lawmakers -- and they are angry on both sides of the aisle -- demand a full investigation. the president also scoffs at gop outrage over those benghazi talking points as a political, in his words, sideshow. the house oversight chairman darrell issa has been leading the charge. he's standing by and joins us live here in "the situation room". and giant waves of ice 30 feet high in some places pushing ashore with a terrifying roar. and crushing lakefront homes. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room."

president obama today got a chance to answer his critics on ben gaughazi to join those criticizing the irs for scrutinizing conservative groups. he dug in his heels on libya, dismissing gop allegations of a cover-up and accusing republicans of using the deaths of americans there for political gain. on the irss, the president seems ready to join lawmakers of both parties in piling on, saying any intentional targeting of conservative groups is outrageous. let's go straight to our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin. she's watching the stories for us. jessica, the president seems to be getting increasingly fr frustra frustrated. >> hi, wolf. yes, especially on benghazi. the president views the talking points controversy as a manufactured political issue. here's what he said just hours ago. >> the whole issue of talking points frankly throughout this

process has been a sideshow. >> two reasons, wolf, he says there's no "there" there. one, he says his administration told the public what it believed to be true in realtime after the benghazi attack as the administration got the information. and, two, he said congress had these talking points and viewed the e-mails about them months ago. so he's questioning why congress is expressing outrage now. but you know, wolf, nothing the president said today answers his critics or keeps this from being a top concern in the house of representatives for a long time to come. >> on the irs jessica, this is obviously a bad situation, but how bad is it specifically for the white house? >> well, aides tell me the president is concerned about what happened at the irs. look, he made clear today that there will be consequences once this internal audit does come out, the irs is doing their own audit. here's what the president said. >> then that is outrageous, it is contrary to our traditions,

and people have to be held accountable and it's got to be fixed. so we'll wait and see what exactly all the details and the facts are. >> so the white house won't say what the president will do once the audit comes out, but remember there was a corruption scandal at the gsa, pat of this government, and people went to vegas and partied on the government's dime and the head of the gsa was forced to resign. we'll see what happens here and how quickly the president takes action and if it's enough. he put himself in a box today and signaled he's going to do something. if he doesn't, wolf, he'll pay a political price. >> he certainly will. thanks very much, jessica. the irs controversy is centering around the activities of a little-known division which deals with requests from groups seeking tax exempt status. we asked our brian todd to take a closer look at this division within the irs. what are you finding out, brian? >> this is the first story many of us have done about the so-called exempt organizations

division of the irs. it is buried in the bureaucracy but now at the center of the latest political fight between republican leaders and the white house. it's one of those obscured government offices that you may never hear of if it wasn't at the center of a political storm. just what is the exempt organizations division of the irs? now accuse of unfairly scrutinizing conservative groups. marcus owen ran the division for close to a decade. >> the part of the irs that focuses on organizations that are otherwise exempt from federal income tax just the way there is a component that focuses on individuals. >> owens says part of the problem with the division is it's not even here in washington. a key office of the division is in cincinnati. not that being part of the d.c. bureaucratic monolith is a great thing, but owens said part of the problem with it not being here is the office isn't always attuned to issues that could become politically charged. like what's causing the furor now, that this irs branch allegedly used political search teach of terms while reviewing

the application for tax exempt status for 501c-4 groups. those groups have mushrooms since the 2010 citizen zens united decision which allows groups to get the tax exempt status and raise money as long as their main purpose is not targeting candidates. >> there are some of these that are excedeceptive, direct? >> there are actually many. the vast majority of 501c-4s are legitimate. we're talking about now several hundred of these organizations that have just sprung up ever since the citizens united decision, and are primarily involved in elections. >> craig holman monitors public citizen. he says the irss should scrutinize these groups because many, like the conservative crossroads gps and the liberal group priorities usa, portray themselves as social welfare organizations but spend billions on ads like this. >> but president obama has a

plan to help. >> but marcus owen says the exempt organizations division at the irs isn't as transparent about scrutinizing those groups as it used to be. >> for approximately 25 years, leading up to the irs reorganization in about the year 2000, there were a series of steps, procedural steps, in place that were recorded, available for public review, transparency in the common parlance, that permitted the irs to identify organizations' applications that needed more sophisticated review. >> owens says those so-called trip wires were eliminated in the early 2000s in the name of efficiency when the irs reorgani reorganized. we called and e-mailed the officeis lerner to get response, we didn't hear back. >> that same office, though, is being criticized for not doing

enough to police the various groups. >> right. the analyst for public citizen craig holman said what the irs should be apologizing for is not doing enough to take away the tax exempt status of the groups that mask themselves as educational but who really run political ads. on the contrary there, marcus owens says that's not true, that they have often revoked that status, that they have an active auditing process. that's again part of the controversy. >> and the controversy is not going away. brian, thanks very, very much. coming up, he's part watchdog, part pit bull, congressman darrell issa is leading the gop criticism of the way president obama has handled the benghazi attacks. he's standing by to join us in "the situation room" live. like a frozen stew namtsuna wall of ice pushes into lakefront homes. ♪

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this just in, calling it a quote massive and unprecedented intrusion, the associated press now saying the justice department secretly obtained two months of phone records of its reporters and editors. according to the ap report, the government hasn't even said why it wanted the records. u.s. officials have said in the past that the u.s. attorney is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information to the associated press for a may 2012 story about a foiled al qaeda plot to blow up an airliner. the u.s. attorney's office has just issued a lengthy statement responding in part i'll read it to you, we take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and department of justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations. those regulations require us to

make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media. that statement just coming in from the u.s. attorney's office. let's talk about this, benghazi, the irs scandal going on right now. the republican congressman darrell issa of california is joining us, the chairman of the house oversight and gocht government reform committee. mr. chairman, thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me on. i think leading off with this very disturbing revelation that this sneak and peek kind of approach was done, you can imagine if congress wanted to know about leaks that obviously came out of the administration that ended up in the press, they would be outraged if we tried to get that information. but that's exactly what they're doing. they're looking at what is considered to be confidential. people wanted the pentagon papers, too, but it didn't mean you could look behind the doors broadly the way they're doing. >> are you going to be

investigating this justice department -- what the ap says was a secret intrusion obtaining two months of phone records from reporters and aeditors? are you adding this now to your list of items on your agenda? >> wolf, i have a fairly full plate. >> i know you do. >> i serve on the judiciary committee. from a constitutional standpoint, the first amendment, it's very clear that the judiciary will have the lead on this and chairman good lat and i will work together. a lot of times that's where it belongs. this is a constitutional question and a question of doj once again. >> if, in fact, they suspected the justice department that there were leaks going to the ap, were they justify nd going ahead and secretly monitoring phone calls that the ap reporters and editors were engaged in? >> you know, one of the amazing things is they haved way to listen very transparently to all the government phones and government activities. again, you said it in it your opening, they had an obligation to look for every other way to gets it before they in fact intruded on the freedom of the

press. >> the ap issued a statement, there could be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the associated press and its reporters xs these records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across awful the news gathering activities under taken by the ap during a two-month period provide a road map to ap's news gathering operations and disclose information about ap's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know. we regard this action by the department of justice as a serious interference with ap's constitutional rights to gather and report the news. pretty tough statement. eric holder, you're no great fan of the attorney general, as a lot of our viewers know. he is the attorney general, in charge of the justice department. would you want to question him as far as this decision to secretly record phone conversations, monitor phone conversations of ap reporters and editors? >> if this question went to the attorney general, then he's responsible and he should be

held accountable for what i think is wrong. on the other hand, if it didn't go to him, the question is, whe is the justice department going to take responsibility for what it does, whether it's tom perez and the scandal in st. paul, or this or quite frankly the fact they're still standing behind the courts trying not to deliver the answer in the case of fast and furious to the cover-up of how they lied to congress and deceived the american people for months. there are serious problems at doj. this is the latest one. >> i know there will be more on this story coming in. once again, ap disclosing their phone records were monitored for a couple of months secretly by the justice department. as journalists we don't like this stuff. >> it has a chilling effect on the ability for you to get information from people who don't want to be public. >> let's talk about benghazi now. the president was very blunt today, as you saw. i'll play a couple of clips of what the president had to say about your investigation. >> the whole issue of this -- of

talking points frankly throughout this process has been a sideshow. the e-mails that you allude to were provided by us to congressional committees. they reviewed them several months ago, concluded that, in fact, there was nothing afoul in terms of the process that we had used, and suddenly three days ago this gets spun up as if there's something new to the story. there's no "there" there. >> there's no "there" there. he couldn't be more blunt. >> he couldn't be more blunt and more inaccurate. he received the plural. -- they received it a question of what did the cia know in it their talking points? more importantly, had we received this, we would have recognized immediately that there was a progression from truth to lie in 12 changes. >> the talking points that

eventually were released to susan rice, the u.s. ambassador to the yubted nations, when she went out a few days later after september 11th, attack in benghazi. when she suggested it was the result of this angry reaction to this youtube anti-muslim video as opposed to an al qaeda affiliated attack. >> exactly, wolf. i think the important thing for the american people to understand, we're working with a fledgling country we just helped save, and we managed to have on "face the nation," the president of libya calling it what it was, a premeditated september 11th attack on america and our ambassador to the u.n. saying that he either didn't know what he was talki ining about osh he lying by saying just the opposite. nothing could be diplomat cli dumber when we need to work with the libyans to get the investigation. the fact is, you have a backdrop of a picture and your own people picked up evidence that the fbi never got. they never got because they weren't allowed in for three

weeks. they weren't allowed in for three weeks according to the acting ambassador in no small part because of strained relations. >> strained relations between the u.s. and libya because of ambassador rice suggesting the president of libya didn't know what he was talking about. >> he said so under oath. >> i'll play another clip of what the president said. >> so the whole thing defies logic, and the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations. they've used it for fund-raising and, frankly, if anybody out there wants to actually focus on how we make sure something like this does not happen again, i am happy to get their advice and information and counsel. >> so the accusation is that this is just political

motivation on your part, you trying to embarrass the president. >> wolf, the election's over. we had a serious hearing with serious career state department officials. i opened up that hearing by asking gregory hicks, a 22-year veteran and the man who took the last phone call from the ambassador in which ambassador stephens said, greg, we're under attack. he relaid that and his impression that it was a premeditated aattack to the operations center at the state department within minutes. those kinds of statements aren't political. these people that were in front of our committee are not political. at some point, claiming politics is simply the wrong approach. there were three problems in benghazi. they asked for more security. they got less. they asked for relief for seven hours and there was not an effective relief plan from outside of tripoli or outside libya. and afterwards the american people got false statements before they got the truth.

you can't rewrite any of that. what you can do is say, let's fix it so it never happens again. >> do you know why the ambassador, chris stephens, was even in benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11, knowing security there was limited, knowing the british had pulled out, the red cross had pulled out? what was he doing there to begin with? who made that decision for him to go to benghazi? >> well, ambassador stephens was a very brave man and he had been in benghazi. they loved and respected him. but he was there, according to gregory hicks, in no small part because secretary clinton planned on making benghazi a permanent consulate facility, planned on announcing that potentially with a trip to libya in december. the ambassador was doing the work he had to do, even though there had been reports that things were getting worse, not better, and so on. we may never know everything that the ambassador hoped to accomplish in a day or two basically in benghazi. what we know is that he took

four additional people with him. he had more security, not less security. had he not been there and the same attack had occurred, they would have simply gotten through the walls faster and we still could have lost many lives. >> mr. chairman, hold on a minute. i want to talk about the irs scandal that's unfolding right now as well. president obama's vowing to hold the irs accountable for the targeting of conservative group groups. congressman issa is standing by to weigh in on that when we come back. is more reliable, secure, and agile. as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true. ...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios

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welcome back. we're joined once again by darrell issa, the chairman of the house oversight and

government reform committee. let's talk about the irs scandal. the president of the united states himself said today this is outrageous, should never have happened. he only found out about it friday through the press reports. here's the question, do you believe him? >> i take him at his word. none of us would have gotten to this if jim jordan, one of the subcommittee chairman, hadn't come to me and demanded we get to the bottom of this. we wrote. we asked. we called in the ig, asked him to investigate. he didn't think there was anything there but did the investigation. what he's discovered is far more than what you already know. the scandal here includes the fact that this was once fixed. once fixed. they went to cincinnati, they said, you have to stop doing that. they left, reinstituted the same search points. >> they were looking for groups with tea party our patriot, words like that. >> constitution. >> you're saying they had stopped it but renewed it. >> they renewed it.

>> here's the question, why? >> obviously they thought this was an effective tool. the amazing thing is, as far as we know today, many of these groups -- and we want to hear from them -- still don't have their tax exempt status. groups on the left were running right through. remember there's only one place in america, you apply for the stature us, it goes to cincinnati. people say it was isolated, no. this was america's place to get the status. those who wanted to advocate the bill of rights, the constitution, patriotism, smaller government found themselves delayed or denied while other groups apparently found themselves rushing through. wolf, there's a bigger issue here. this could have been martin luther king a generation ago. this could have been the left during the vietnam war. we have to make sure that the control systems that are not in place when we're done, when ways and means, the committee of primary jurisdiction, we have to make sure this can't happen again. right now the ig's report is going to say in no uncertain terms the control systems are

not there to protect the american people. >> so will your committee investigate, ways and means? who is going to investigate, do the oversight in the house of representatives? >> we're going to do it with ways and means. they have specific jurisdiction, including the ability to look at these applications in realtime. as a matter of fact, they've had many applications fort a while. we requested the inspectors general to do his report, we work with him and the other igs regularly. you're intention is to continue working with them. we're the investigation and the organizational committee, but when it's all said and done, the constant oversight, the special role, will be the ways and means committee and dave camp. and it has to be. chairman camp has to take a role in reforming the irs. >> so bottom line as far as the irs situation is concerned, at this point, you don't know as far as how high this went, the decision to go after tea party groups or groups that had the word patriot or whatever in their name? >> we don't know how high it went. what we know -- and this is the

disturbing part -- is it was discovered and it continued. it was discovered and stopped and it continued. and the whole time that was going on, there were denials going on. but with hundreds of groups finding themselves delayed or denied, at least 72 apparently still denied, what we have is we have a situation in which, if you were conservative, you wanted smaller government, patriotism, you wanted perhaps to tell people what the meaning of the constitution is, you found yourself locked out, while if you wanted to advocate candidly for the president's party you were more likely to be approved. that's really disturbing and should be disturbing to people who don't want to some day have the shoe on the other foot. >> a lot of these investigations are going to explode i suspect the irs, benghazi, the justice department secretly taking a look at ap reporters and editors' phone conversations. the fast and furious investigation, i suspect you still have issues as far as that is concerned. >> we do, wolf. but there's a lesson here, which

is government is hard, it's big and hard to run. if you're going to get the bureaucracy, forgetting about polit politics, to behave, it takes the house, the senate, and the white house working together. that's been one of the problems, that this transparent government hasn't understood that we serve a constructive role if they'll let us, and that's one of the challenges for the second term of the president, can he understand that we want to work with him on real reform, we want to work with him on helping get the bureaucracy to deliver a better product that it currently does? >> darrell issa, the chairman of the oversight and government reform committee. thank you, chairman. >> thank you. ahead, a shocking twist in the grisly stabbing death of an 8-year-old inside her california home. also, giant waves of ice 30 feet high in some places pushing ashore and crushing lakefront homes. and how would you like to buy, yes, air force one? a plane that carried presidents? it's going up for auction.

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>> happening now, growing political backlash on both sides of the aisle against the irs for politically targeting various conservative groups. could there be some serious fallout for the white house? plus, sounds like something out of a asci-fi movie, tsunami-like waves of ice destroying homes. where it's actually happening. and they say they want him to rot in jail. cnn's exclusive interview with the brothers of the ohio kidnapping suspect ariel castro. that's coming up in our next hour. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room ". let's get back to the obama administration coming under serious fire right now for its response to benghazi, also the irs scrutiny of conservative groups and now suddenly the

seizure of phone records from the aasassociated press. joining us gloria borger and john king. quickly, let me start with you, john. you used to work with the associated press. when you heard about this, that the justice department secretly monitoring phone calls from reporters and editors of the ap supposedly looking into allegations someone is leaki ii information to them. will how did you react? >> if you work in our business and i worked at the associated press for 12 years thshgs is it very chilling. this is very chilling. the government gets angry about leaks of classified information. i understand that. and they have ways to investigate them. but did they cross a line here? did they do something inappropriate here, possibly something that went over legal barriers here? it's -- when this happens, however it happens, it sends a chilling message from the government to people in our business and i think the ap is justifiably outraged." >> i think all of us as

journalists react negatively. if you look it from the other side, if there was a serious leak about an al qaeda operation or whatever, they're trying to fiechbd out who may be leaking this information to the news media, do they occasion ll a have the right 0 to secretly monitor our phone calls? >> that's a matter up for discussion. i remember during the scooter libby stuff during the bush administration, there were phone records, there were e-mails, et cetera, et cetera. soshgs you kn so i think this is chilling for journalists because you have to have that kind of privacy in order to do your work. >> they wanted to get phone numbers, wanted to monitor the phone numbers to see who was making calls, how long the calls were. it's stuff that will be investigated i'm sure down the road. gloria, you've got a strong piece on cnn.com about the benghazi uproar. >> right. >> and you refer to that famous line, the cover-up, is always worse than the original crime. a lot of us remember that from watergate. among other things you write, apply that cliche to benghazi

and questions about the motive for removing the terror link from talking points about the libya attack in the closing months of an election. maybe there's a corollary question we ought to be asking, in politics when did spin trump everything, even the truth? >> i don't know the answer to that question, but, if you look at it in terms of this particular case, you know, there are a couple of things going on. fist of all, this was in the heat of a fall election campaign heading up to the presidential campaign. benghazi was an issue. it's clear politically the democrats didn't want to make it more of an issue than it was. mitt romney had made some mistakes in talking about benghazi so they were happy to leave it there. secondarily, we also had some differences between the cia and the state department about how to best handle this. the cia put the information out there. it was very clear the state department wanted less information out there than the cia did. that's bureaucratic infighting. we're used to that in washington.

but it did affect the dissemination of the truth and we wound up with knowing something that actually turned out to be false. >> because those various iterations of those talking points, 12 different versions, wound up with susan rice, the u.s. ambassador to the united nations going out on the sunday show 0s and in effect telling the american people a story that was inaccurate. >> i'm paraphrasing your last guest, the chairman of the committee look noog this, but he said it was from the truth to a lie in 12 steps, meaning the 12 rewrites of the talking points. here's the question, wur they rewritten to protect people at the state department, to protect the president of the united states in a campaign where you don't want terrorism in there, to protect secretary clinton or rewritten because there was tension between the state department and cia because one of the less-told truth is that benghazi was essentially mostly a cia store front where you had some state department personnel and at the state department there was a great deal of resentment saying they were getting talking pointss from the cia saying, you were warned, you should have protected your

people. the state department are saying, wait a minute, most of those are your people. do we have two agencies fighting each other within the government or some people in the state department trying to politically protect the leadership of their department and perhaps the president. that is one of the questions that hopefully if we have are an investigation that goes after the truth and not partisanship we can answer. >> and we'll see what happens in the immediate days. neither of these subjects will go away. five guys, thanks very much. when we come back, a philadelphia abortion doctor accused in gruesome killings, the verdict is in. plus, a startling twist in the stabbing death of an 8-year-old girl. police make an arrest.

a philadelphia abortion doctor accused in the gruesome killing of babies has been found guilty. 72-year-old kermit gosnell was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient. there are also additional charges involving abortions done on babies 24 weeks or older. the high-profile case now moves to the penalty phase where jurors will consider the death penalty. a stunning twist in the grisly stabbing death of an 8-year-old in her home. her 12-year-old brother who told police he saw an intruder in the house has been arrested. what do we know? >> reporter: investigators, wolf, are not telling us that much today about the evidenced they have, about the motive that they have. what we do know is that the person who is in custody for the murder of this little girl,

8-year-old lila fowler, is her 12-year-old brother. investigators believe that her brother weaved a tale that he told them a lie when he said on april 27th he was home alone with his sister, his parents at a little league game, when a long-haired man broke into the house and stabbed his sister. police now say that the person who is their suspect is the 12-year-old boy. this boy and his family had generated a tremendous amount of sympathy from this small town of 7,500 people. they had attended a candlelight vigil where the boy was present. he went back to middle school and generated sympathy. here's what one parent who is the parent of a girl who knows the suspect, she attends the middle school with the suspect, here's what this parent told us. >> it's unreal how somebody at 12 years old can have a mind-set to do something like that, especially to his own sister, you know, and not to just -- to

think of what that poor little thing went through. >> reporter: just to give you a sense of what in community went through, that initial happened april 27th, although the next two to three weeks there was a massive manhunt in this area, a community that doesn't even lock their doors ordinarily. so this was a stunning turn for this community. we are also hearing, wolf, that the family of lila fowler as well as this 12-year-old boy will be having a press conference tomorrow. so we hope to learn more details. >> thanks very much, what a horrific story. just ahead, 30 feet high in some places, giant waves of ice pushing ashore and crushing lakefront homes. and how would you like to buy air force one?

looks and sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie but it's all too real. giant tsunami-like ice waves creeping onshore as high as 30 feet slamming into homes and destroying them. lisa sill vest tylvester joins unbelievable details. >> wolf, typically when you think of snow and ice you think of it coming down, you don't think of it as moving across as in moving across the lake, across your backyard and through your home. but for dozens of families, that is exactly what happened. take a look at this very bizarre video. a menacing slow moving wall of ice. you can hear the ice crackling as it gets closer, it sounds more like the chugging of a train rolling in.

>> it's crawling up the walls of the house. >> and roll in, it did. >> oh, my god, their door is in! >> darla johnson shot this video as it approached this row of townhouses. >> i got pretty scared this might not stop. >> high winds helped push massive ice floes off lake ma lox and into the homes of worried neighbors. everyone is calling it an ice tsunami, but -- >> it's not an ice tsunami. it's actually an ice shove. an ice shove is a surge of ice that's moved onshore, whether it be a lake body or an ocean body, on to a coastal shoreline, typically caused by wind conditions like it was in this case. >> the ice is semi melted. it starts pushing from the center out, as it builds it creates its own sail. the wind picks it up, and the momentum carries it ashore. minnesota was not the only area impacted. further north in canada in

manitoba, the same weather system destroyed or damaged more than two dozen homes and cabins. donna bill lows has lived here for 23 years. >> the bang, the ice came right through the grab your purse, grab whatever you can. get the keys. we've got to get out of here. >> this is what's left of miles renovated cabin. he was just getting ready to light his barbecue when he saw a sight he's never seen before. >> i've never been in a tornado, but i'm going to assume it sounds something like that. it's just a big roar and you can see it coming and you keep thinking, oh, it's not coming any farther, it's going to stop, but it just kept on coming. >> reporter: a freaky weather phenomenon that's common? alaska, but not minnesota. the bad news for home owners, many insurance policies don't cover the damage. >> no one was hurt physically, but is going to hurt financially for those home owners, and it's

also hurting the local economies. saturday was the start of the walleye fishing season in minnesota, typically a busy season for reports, but instead of fish, they are pulling up chunks of ice, wolf? >> amazing pictures, lisa, thanks for sharing. >> yeah, i've never seen anything quite like that, wolf. you sort of see the snow that keeps chugging along and you can actually hear it. it does, a lot of people said it sounded like a freight train and that's what it sounded like as it got closer and closer. nothing that they could do about it, wolf, very sad. >> scary. indeed, thank you. air force one goes on the auction block this week. we're not making this up. a plane that carried presidents could be yours for the right price. our pentagon correspondent barbara starr has this story for us. explain, barbara, what is going on. >> well, it's unbelievable, wolf, but if you can get friends together and come up with $50,000, air force one just might be yours. as this plane goes down,

president james marshall is rescued from terrorists. now this becomes air force one. >> mr. president, welcome aboard, sir! >> okay, it was harrison ford in the 1997 thriller, but the concept is the same. any air force plane carrying the president is air force one. now the federal government is auctioning off this aging dc-9 that flew presidents and first ladies throughout the ford, carter, reagan, george h.w. bush, and clinton years. the bidding will open at $50,000. this was one of nancy reagan's favorite planes. president clinton was the last commander in chief to ride it to buffalo, new york, in 1999. today, president obama mainly flies this 747, a symbol recognized around the world says air force historian robert spires. >> it's an extension of the office of the presidency, the

head office of the united states and the people of the united states. and it's often known as the flying white house or the flying oval office. >> john king was on board when president george w. bush took a secret trip to baghdad in 2006. the secret service wanted the president to fly in on an armed military plane due to the threat of being shot down. >> he said, no. we'll go in in secret, but i want the picture of the united states of america, the flagship, big flag on the tail on the ground. >> wolf blitzer interviewed colonel mark tilghman who flew president bush over the devastation of hurricane katrina, a flight that put the plane in the international crosshairs because the president did not land. >> there was no way i couldn't land. i had to stay well above the helicopters providing relief efforts. i stayed above them and out of their way. >> now, the call sign for air force one actually began back in

the eisenhower administration, and it is continued to be a real part of american history. of course, it brought the body of president kennedy home from dallas and as you know, wolf, on 9/11 president bush used it to get back to washington. >> a lot of history. i spent seven years covering president clinton. i spent a lot of time on air force one. i was excited and thrilled every time i was on that plane. >> i can only imagine. >> thank you. just ahead in our next hour, they say they want him to rot in jail. they want the world to know their story. the brothers of the ohio kidnapping suspect ariel castro speak out in an exclusive interview with cnn. plus, an extraordinary rendition of "space odyssey" from space. ♪ [ female announcer ] what if the next big thing, isn't a thing at all?

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david bowie's classic as you've never heard it before. here's jeanne moos. ♪ gun control to major >> he will forever be known as the singing astronaut as he orbited the earth, then international space station commander chris hadfield sang a version of david bowie's 1969 hit "space oddity". ♪ >> it has folks on earth over the moon. ♪ that's really his voice and guitar playing recorded up there with more music mixed by producers on the ground. chris's son described it as -- >> unbelievably fun to do. it took six months. >> such a hit, even another

commander responded in cyber space, william shatner joked, i have two words for him, "show off." you know who else tweeted about the song? david bowie himself. chris hadfield sings "space oddity" in space. hello, space boy, which is the name of another bowie song. this is the canadian astronaut's grand finale before heading home after five months in space. ♪ though i've flown 100,000 miles ♪ even before he covered bowie, chris was winning fans demonstrating how astronauts use a barf bag, how they brush their teeth with no running water. >> what i do, just swallow the tooth paste. >> did a sing along with kids back on earth. in an effort to demonstrate the science of space and even poured water in his eye to show what

happens when astronauts cry. >> end up with a bigger and bigger ball of water. >> in between tweeting out pictures of earth, he sang the bowie song. he tweaked the lyrics tweaking them to fit the current mission. his one major change from bowie's version, gone is the part bowie sang about a major malfunction. ♪ here am i floating in my tin can ♪ >> there's something so touching about it, and if ground control makes you lose control, at least you'll shed a tear and not a water ball. jeanne moos, cnn. ♪ ♪ new york. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com happening now, the justice department accused of secretly obtaining phone records from the associated press. bipartisan outrage at

revelations the irs targeted conservative party groups. and an exclusive and extraordinary interview with the brothers of ariel castro speaking out about being swept up in the cleveland kidnappings, describing what they call a living nightmare. i'm wolf blitzer, we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. you're in "the situation room." the associated press calls it a massive and unprecedented intrusion into news gathering. the media giant says the justice department secretly obtained the phone records of some of its reporters, including their work and their personal phone numbers. and now the u.s. attorney's office is responding to these very, very serious allegations. cnn's brian todd is coming into "the situation room." brian, what is going on here? >> wolf, this is an extraordinary seizure of telephone records. the associated press says the justice department secretly obtained two months of telephone

records of reporters and editors of the a.p., incoming and outgoing calls, the duration of each call, and for the work and personal phone numbers of a.p. employees. a.p. says the seizure covered numbers for its employees in its new york, washington, and hea hartford, connecticut, offices and press gallery. a.p. says the justice department notified them of the seizure on friday. there is nothing to suggest the actual phone conversations were monitored, but the ceo of a.p. is furious. gary pruitt says, quote, there can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the associated press and its reporters. these records potentially include confidential sources across all of the news gathering agent sis undertaken by the a.p. over a two-month period, provide

a road map to gathering operations and activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know. we regard this action by the department of justice as a serious interference with a.p.'s constitutional rights to gather and report the news. now, pruitt wants justice to return all of those records and destroy the copies. this afternoon we got this response from the u.s. attorney's office, quote, regulations require us to make every responsible effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media. we must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation. now, the u.s. attorney's office is not specifically saying why it sought to obtain these phone records, wolf, and isn't notifying them in advance would have posed a specific threat or saying what that threat was. basically, this is what they are saying at this point.

giving very few details. >> a.p. has an idea what they were seeking? >> that's right. government officials have said in public testimony they are conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information obtained by a.p. or in an a.p. story from about a year ago this month. this was about a foiled terror plot. the story disclosed details of a cia operation in yemen that stopped an al qaeda plot to bomb an airplane and the a.p. says that is the reason -- they are hinting they believe that's the reason why the justice department went after these records and got them. >> brian todd, thanks very much. let's dig deeper with jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, how unusual is this? >> it's unusual, but it is consistent with how the obama administration has treated leaking. the obama administration, more than the bush administration, clinton, the first bush administration, has been extremely tough investigating and prosecuting alleged leakers

of classified information, and now they are going after the news organizations to try to find out who the leakers were, apparently, in this yemen story. >> there is the first amendment to the constitution, though, where does that fit? >> you know what, it doesn't fit in. i think a lot of people, certainly a lot of reporters, don't realize there is no federal privilege that reporters have. reporters are just like anyone else. you know, it's very interesting to read greg pruitt, the associated press's leader, his letter, this is outrageous, this is terrible, but he didn't say it's unlawful. under current law, there is no privilege that journalists have to protect their sources. and they can be -- they can be subpoenaed. their phone records can be subpoenaed, so it's just a matter of the justice department exercising discretion, which it usually does, but here they are being much tougher than they've been in the past. >> certainly are. jeffrey, thank you.

revelations about another government agency are sparking outrage, as well. the internal revenue service under fire for targeting tea party and other conservative groups. here's cnn's chief congressional correspondent dana bash. ♪ >> reporter: a tea party rally on april 15th, tax day 2010. >> the government doesn't have any money. that's our money and i'm taxed enough already. >> reporter: even as they protested high taxes and big government, the tax collecting irs was secretly targeting them. in march of 2010, irs agents in cincinnati, ohio, handling applications for tax-exempt status began singling out groups with names like tea party and patriots for special scrutiny. groups engaged primarily in political activity are not allowed tax-exempt status. according to a timeline obtained by cnn, by august of 2010, irs agents made tea party targeting

more formal, issuing an internal be on the look out or bolo listing for local organizations in the tea party movement. as a result, tea party activists reported feeling harassed when applying for tax-exempt status. cincinnati tea party founder justin bing thomas told carol costello lengthy questionnaires got personal, even mentioning his name. >> why, what is it being collected for, where is it being stored? >> reporter: it wasn't until this past friday, more than three years later, lois learner, director of the tax-exempt division, admitted her agents were inappropriately screening tea party groups. she apologized during an american bar association meeting. cnn obtained this audio. >> used names like tea party or patriots and selected cases simply because the application had those names in the title. that was wrong. that was absolutely incorrect. it was insensitive and it was

inappropriate. >> reporter: that admission resulted in condemnation, but what's making the irs's problems worse, it appears irs officials, even lernor herself, were not up front with congress. in 2011, her agents were targeting tea party groups, as well as others dealing with government spending, government debt, or taxes. cnn learned she disclosed to share what she knew both in letters and face-to-face meetings with congressional investigators. and in march of 2012, nine months after lerner was informed agents were singling out tea party groups, douglas shulman was asked about it in a hearing. >> can you give us assurances the irs is not targeting groups? >> shulman denied it. >> there's absolutely no targeting. this is the kind of back and forth that happens when people apply for 501-c-4 status.

>> wolf, i was just told by an aide to senator or enhatch that they were briefed today, told that shulman and his successor both knew about this targeting in the spring of 2012 and again this is raising anger over in the house, because the house ways and means committee, according to this timeline that i obtained, says that the predecessor, miller, he told congress in june of 2012 that he didn't know anything about it. this, again, proves to house republicans they haven't been getting the straight story from the irs, but it's not just republicans angry about it, it's bipartisan democrats in the senate. just sort of big picture, tea party groups who were founded on the idea that you can't trust government, they are saying that this absolutely, all of this, proves their point. >> dana, what a story. thanks very much. up next, the irs scandal

comes on top of a congressional probe into the benghazi terror attack, bringing the second term blues to the white house. we'll talk about the benghazi attack with the cochair of the independent board that issued a scathing review, but now itself is under scathing criticism. [ female announcer ] a classic meatloaf recipe from stouffer's starts with ground beef, onions and peppers baked in a ketchup glaze with savory gravy and mashed russet potatoes. what makes stouffer's meatloaf best of all? that moment you enjoy it at home. stouffer's. made with care, for you or your family. how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed much is the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪

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difficult days in the white house facing pressure over the irs scandal and the benghazi probe. our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin reports. >> reporter: if it's the second-term blues, it's starting awfully early. just four months after inaugurati inauguration, president obama fending off questions about alleged wrong doing in his administration on two fronts. first, charges that irs staff targeted conservative groups before the last election. if true -- >> then that is outrageous, it is contrary to our traditions, and people have to be held accountable and it's got to be fixed. >> reporter: that isn't enough

to satisfy republican critics. on twitter, the rnc chairman slammed the president for failing to apologize or offer a plan to hold anyone accountable. the irs is set to release its own internal audit later this week, and it's classic obama to wait for that report before acting. >> we'll make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this. >> reporter: in the meantime, outrage grows. as does a second controversy, newly public revelations that the administration changed talking points about the attack that led to the death of four americans in benghazi. >> the whole issue of this talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a side show. >> reporter: the president sounding frustrated, even defiant, over what he seems to view as a manufactured controversy. >> suddenly, three days ago this gets spun up as if there's

something new to the story. there's no there there. >> reporter: house republicans don't agree. the next hearing on benghazi is already in the works. if there's any doubt the president's agenda is being thrown off course, just look. >> i still do not understand cricket. >> reporter: this visit with british prime minister david cameron was meant to focus on foreign affairs. >> the long suffering syrian people -- >> reporter: but clearly it was overtaken by other matters. right now, president obama is in new york attending fundraisers, and there he told an audience of supporters that he takes a long view of his second term. he views that hyperpartisanship is working as a roadblock right now, but he's persistent, he told his audience, wolf, so are his critics. >> thank you very much, jessica, over at the white house. in a minute i'll ask one of the men who edited the official state department review about what went wrong in benghazi and

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congressional investigators now want to speak with the men who oversaw the state department's investigation into what went wrong before, during, and after the terrorist attack on the u.s. post in benghazi, libya. that congressional hearing state department officials testified they think the report is, quote, incomplete, and it let senior

officials off the hook. ambassador thomas pickering is joining us right now. you reviewed the whole situation, knowing, mr. ambassador, what you know now, what should you have done differently, what would you have done differently, questions you might have raised that you didn't raise? >> wolf, it's a very interesting question, i hadn't thought about it from that perspective. what i have been hearing are startling new developmentings, what i've been seeing are questions we reviewed. i'm very open to the idea that nobody can do in two months the absolutely perfect job that nothing new will arise. so far i have, with all honesty, not seen any development related to the report and the mandated scope, which is in the law of that report. essenti essentially, the security focus of the report that would cause me to change my view on the conclusions we reached or recommendations we made. >> some of the biggest criticism you're getting from darryl issa

and others is that you didn't grill hillary clinton the secretary of state. why didn't you? >> very simply, we did not because at the time we met with her to discuss the report, we felt we had fully developed the answer to the question of where the decisions were made, where the failures and performance had taken place, where those decisions were reviewed, and they did not touch on her. >> but gregory hicks, in his testimony the other day before congress, he said he was on the phone with her during that critical night. i'll play a little clip. this is what he said about his conversation with the secretary of state. >> i think about 2:00 p.m. the -- 2:00 a.m., sorry, the secretary of state, clinton, called me. along with her senior staff, we're all on the phone. and she asked me what was going

on, and i briefed her on developments. most of the conversation was about the search for ambassador stevens. it was also about what we were going to do with our personnel in benghazi. and i told her that we would need to evacuate. and that was -- she said that was the right thing to do. >> with hindsight, don't you think it would have been important to ask her about that conversation and other decisions she made that night? because she was intimately involved. >> we did. we interviewed the senior staff members -- >> but why not her? >> -- that greg referred to, wolf, and felt that everything that we saw was fully and competently taken care of. we didn't have a reason in any way at all to suggest there was anything that she might have known that was not already relayed to us. it was straightforward. we thought they did an excellent

job the night of. there were many different pieces of testimony we put together with respect to that. >> because the criticism is you were trying to protect her. >> the criticism may be the criticism. we'll have to live with that, but the truth is that we didn't feel there was a need to do that on the basis of all the evidence we had accumulated to date. >> knowing what you know now, was that the right decision? >> of course it was the right decision. >> to avoid any serious questioning with the secretary of state? >> if we started down that line, where would it end? she made it very clear, but the act was passed precisely to avoid that conundrum. the act was passed and the debate on the acts said we don't want anymore reports. it said that the secretary of x, y, and z has taken full responsibility. it's all taken care of. we want reports to know where

the decisions were made and who carried them out. >> because some of the recommendations you made resulted in career-ending decisions for four senior officials. >> certainly, our decision and our recommendation was two of them leave the jobs in which they were engaged. those were tough decisions, wolf. it took us a long time to go through the evidence, to find that decision. >> ambassador thomas pickering speaking to us earlier, not backing away from his conclusions and defending his decision not to question the secretary of state about the benghazi attack. up next, an exclusive interview with the brothers of ariel castro accused of holding three women captive in his home for a decade. we're going to hear some of the methods he allegedly used to keep his family from discovering his horrifying secret. >> could you hear anything in the home? >> no, the radio was playing all the time. >> he would play music all the time? >> yeah. if not the radio, the tv.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] nothing gets you going quite like the power of quaker oats. today is going to be epic. quaker up. all right. this just in to "the situation room." dr. joyce brothers has died today at the age of 85. in her own way, she was a television pioneer. she was a frequent guest on tv talk shows starting back in the 1950s. she was a psychologist who had a keen knack of explaining things

very, very clearly. she also wrote a syndicated column for many years, dr. joyce brothers dead at the age ever 85. an extraordinary interview with two men whose lives have been turned upsidedown. onil and pedro castro, whose brother ariel castro, is accused of holding three women captive for a decade. they spoke exclusively to cnn's martin savidge. >> you all went to your mom's for dinner. >> yeah, we went to mom's for dinner. >> the first sign of trouble for you when you were riding back in the car with ariel. the first indication of a problem was what? >> when he pulled in mcdonald's around the corner, not very far from mom's house, pulled in mcdonald's, why are you pulling in, in my mind, why are you pulling in here? we just ate. you have to go to the bathroom? no, he says, they pulled me

over, they are behind me. i didn't know because it was bright and sunny. i didn't see no flashing lights, didn't see a siren. >> police were behind you. >> he says, the cops are back here, pulled us over. what did you do, run a stop sign, red light or something? no, onil, no, i don't know. by that time, the officer was on his side asking for his i.d., and they took his i.d. and there was an officer next to me there. and he hadn't asked me for my i.d. yet, but i figured he was there, so i go like this and i go you want my i.d., too? and he went for his weapon. and held it, i gave him my i.d. and said what's going on, i haven't done anything, sir, what's going on here? he says, all i can tell you is you're in for some serious allegations. >> what is the first sign of trouble for you that day? >> i was -- i was sleeping.

and i don't remember the police in my room, and i was thinking because i had an open container warrant, so i didn't know what -- i thought they were taking me in because of that. >> let me walk you through a bit of this so that everyone clearly understands. when you were arrested on monday and brought in, were you told why you were under arrest? >> absolutely not. >> no. >> you had no idea? >> no. >> no. >> not for 48, maybe 36 to 48 hours later. >> pedro, when did you become aware? >> well, there was a inmate that didn't speak english, so i translated for her. so, then i asked her, now that i help you, can you help me? >> this is not officer.

>> yes. and she said, sure. what you want to know? i want to know what am i being charged for. she said, okay, i'll go see. so, she comes back and she's got a piece of paper written down whatever i was in for. and because i didn't have my reading glasses, i looked and i said, oh, open container. >> she said, no, read it again. >> and i said, kidnapping? what's this, kidnapping? >> could you talk? were the two of you able to talk to one another while in jail? >> no. >> couldn't communicate? >> no. >> you were in separate cells? >> they told us not to, so i didn't. >> where was ariel? >> ariel was in the front, more towards the front on suicide watch. >> he was in a cell what they call the bull pen. how do i know this? because i seen it. i seen them when they took me to

get my medication. >> did he ever go past you? did you ever see him? >> i did. because where he was at, there's no toilet, so across from my cell there was one open, so he came there, used it. that's when i seen him. and when he came out, he said "peace" to me. >> evidently, that happened with him over there. when he walked past me, he goes, onil, you're never going to see me again. i love you, bro, that's it. >> when did you become aware of what he did? >> shortly after that when the detective took me into the room and started asking me questions and showing me pictures of the girls. and when he showed me pictures of the girls, asked me do you know these girls, he showed me first -- i can't even tell you which one he showed me first,

but he said have you ever seen this girl? i said, no, i've never seen this girl. then he showed me the other one, have you ever seen this girl? no, i've never seen that girl. then he says, that's gina dejesus and amanda berry. and my heart fell. i just dropped. not physically, but just hit the ground. and after he said that's amanda berry and they were in your brother's house. >> you knew who these girls were? >> from the picture i couldn't recognize them. >> oh, i told him, they don't look like the girls that have been pinned up and posted up. yeah, that's how malnourished they are. >> you're in this interrogation room and the police officer is showing you these photos and said they are in your brother's home and you were expressing how you felt. it was just a physical feeling? >> it was just heart dropping. it was just terrible when they said that, when he said that. it's amanda berry and gina

dejesus and they were in your brother's house. i just couldn't believe it, because, you know, there was no signs of anything like that. i seen no signs. >> you had been to the house. you would go to the house. >> yes. >> how often? >> no, no. not how often. i didn't go to his house very much, but when i did, he would let me no past the kitchen. i would sit down and the reason why we go in the kitchen, because he had alcohol. he would take me in the kitchen, give me a shot. >> when you'd go in the house, he would be specific then to stay in the kitchen, or it just seemed that you stayed in the kitchen? >> yeah, i wasn't allowed past the kitchen. >> could you see anything beyond the kitchen? >> no. because there's curtains.

>> he had the house blocked up with curtains? he told me it was wintertime and he said he wanted to keep the heat in the kitchen, because the gas bill. >> what about could you hear anything in the home? >> no, the radio was playing all the time. >> he would play music all the time? >> yeah. if not the radio, the tv. something had to be on at all times in the kitchen. so i couldn't hear nothing else but the radio or the tv. >> didn't any of that strike you as unusual or strange? >> no, because ariel was, to me, he was a strange dude. i mean, it didn't faze me

nothing. and another thing, i seen ariel with a little girl at mcdonald's. and i asked him, who's that? and he said, this is a girlfriend's of mine. >> the daughter belonged to a girlfriend of his? >> yes. and i said, well, where's she at? she's at mitchell's. she's taking care of something at mitchell. okay, so i left it at that. and i left. because he's with this little girl and they are going to have breakfast. then about three weeks later i seen them -- seen his truck at burger king and again he's with this little girl. and then i question him, where's the mother? oh, she had to do something.

so i just let it go. >> you believed him? >> i believed it. but i had no idea that little girl was his or amanda's. >> cnn exclusive continues in just a moment. up next, the friendship between ariel castro and the father of one of the victims. >> and you got his daughter? and you go -- you go around like it's nothing? you even went to the vigils, you had posters? you give his mom a hug? and you got his daughter captive? are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.

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more now of martin savidge's exclusive interview of the brothers of the man holding three women captive in his cleveland home for a decade. onil and pedro castro were arrested along with ariel castro, but cleared and released within days, but now they are haunted by the stigma of this notorious crime. >> did you in any way know, help, assist your brother in the horrible things he's accused of doing? >> absolutely not. no idea that this horrific crime was going on. >> pedro? >> no. >> you know there are people who will say you had to know. how's it possible for so long in

that home, your brother, you couldn't know? >> for those people out there, i'm going to tell you something, i had nothing to do with this, and i don't know how my brother got away with it for so many years, because that would never cross my mind. >> he fooled you. >> he fooled me, because i used to go there more than he did to work on cars, clean the yard, you know, help him out and stuff, but never go beyond the kitchen. >> onil, there was nothing? >> absolutely nothing that i can see that was unusual in that backyard. i can't say in the house, because i haven't been in the house in years. >> do you worry now that people will always suspect that you actually did have a role? >> absolutely. >> yes. and the people out there that

know me, they know that onil castro is not that person. has nothing to do with that. >> same. i couldn't ever think of doing anything like that. if i knew that my brother was doing this, i would not be -- i would not -- in a minute, i would call the cops. because that ain't right. but yeah, it's going to haunt me down, because people going to think, yeah, pedro got something to do with this. pedro don't have nothing to do with this. if i knew, i would have reported it, brother or no brother. >> what is your brother to you now? >> monster, a hateful, i hope he rots in that jail. i don't even want them to take his life like that. i want him to suffer in that jail. to the last extent.

i don't care if they even feed him, what he has done to my life and my family's. >> i feel the same way. >> to the both of you he no longer exists? >> yeah. >> he's gone. >> he's goner. >> almost as if he's dead. >> monster's a goner. i'm glad that he left the door unlocked or whatever he did, whether he did it on purpose, whether he wanted to get caught, whether he was inside too much, if he wanted to get caught. either way, he shouldn't have went to mom's house and put me in the car if he knew that was going to happen. >> if you could talk to gina, if you could talk to michelle, if you could talk to amanda, and in a way you are, i guess, what would you say? >> i would tell her -- i would tell them that i'm sorry that you had to go through this, that i always thinking about these

girls being missing, and i'm just grateful that they are home and, you know, out of that horrible house. i'd just tell them that i'm sorry for what ariel done. because not much -- felix, i know him for a long time, and when i find out that ariel had gina, i just broke. i just broke down. because it's shocking. ariel, we know this guy for a long time, felix, and you got his -- >> this is gina's father? >> felix, felix, and you've got his daughter, like nothing, you

even went to the vigils, you had posters, you give his mom a hug, and you got his daughter captive? and do what people are saying or the police or whatever? >> who does that? >> yeah, who does that? >> monsters. >> people that have no heart. they feel no heart. no feelings. dead. >> onil, same thing? >> same thing. i just want, also, the families to get the justice to the fullest extent and i don't want ever, ever to see anything like that happen to anybody in this world. i know that it's happening and we have no control over it, but if i can do something about it,

i will. to stop something like that, i would never let anything like that happen, go on to my worst enemy, this has tore my heart apart. this has killed me. i'm a walking corpse right now. and there's god up there that knows. god's up there that knows me and pedro are innocent on this, we didn't have the slightest idea of this going on. up next, the brothers reveal why they granted this exclusive interview to cnn. (announcer) born with a natural

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. ariel castro's brothers compare it to a nightmare from which they cannot wake up. here is part three of the interview. >> why are you talking to me? >> i want the world to know that i did nothing such. i am innocent. like i said, if i had known anything, i would not keep my mouth shut. i would have done something. because i can't believe that ariel was committing such a hateful crime for this long amount of time, acting like nothing happened in this, you know, no worries. i want the world to know that

o'neal and paedro, me, had nothing to do with this. it was a shock to me to learn that my brother ariel was doing this. >> i can see that this is sort of stressing you. i can see that this is something you're physically enduring. >> yeah. it hurts. it hurts a lot. like i said earlier, i woke up out of a nightmare last night. i want to wake up out of this one and i just can't. >> no. >> i didn't want to see today. >> i want to thank you both for talking to us, for sharing with us and opening up to us. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. i hope the world listen to us and -- >> we want our lives back.

we want back to normal. i want -- i don't want -- i want this erased out of my mind like it never happened. i don't want to know this. i don't want this to be true. like i said earlier, i want to wake up out of this nightmare. >> i want to say that i don't want to be hunted down like a dog for a crime that i did not commit. i don't want to be locked up in my house because somebody out there is going to do harm to me. i want to be free like i was. now i feel trapped for what somebody else did. and it's a family member. that shouldn't -- they should not take it out on the family. threats of burning up the houses, killing pedro, that's not right.

he already got your -- your monster. please give us our freedom. i want the world to know this. >> thank you. thank you both. >> and up next, martin joins us live and we'll talk about his exclusive interview with these two castro brothers. ♪ (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us.

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...and we inspected his brakes for free. -free is good. -free is very good. [ male announcer ] now get 50% off brake pads and shoes at meineke. excellent interview, martin. there were some reports, though, of some supposedly suicidal writings from ariel castro years ago. did they discuss -- did you discuss this with the two brothers at all? did they know anything about these notes? >> we did talk about that. there was an issue they wanted to address off camera. and we talked about the note and this is something that's been eluded to by authorities that in it there was writing in which it appears that ariel castro says that he was abused. i discussed this with a number of family members, not just the two brothers. they all said they don't know what he's talking about. they really could not think of any time or anyone for which he makes this reference. they deny or say that they don't

know any way that this could have happened or did happen if his life. >> they've seen the two brothers pretty credible. you spent quality time with them. what was your bottom line assessment? >> i do believe them. i believe them because, one, as you listen to that and the way they speak and perhaps it's not always, you know, the most grammatically eloquent, but it's sincere. i think that you see in them there is a fear, for one thing. they're anxious. most of all, they did want to say that they're very sorry and they're glad that these women are free. and they want to do -- they have nothing to do with their detainment. but i think it's genuine the way it comes across. and in that room, i mean, i know you don't sense it so much on television. but in that room, the air was filled with this kind of anxious emotion. these are not people accustomed to talking to television and not speaking to the world. yet, they found the words. they found the courage. they staired the camera downment they took all of my questions.

and they answered every one as best they could. so i think that they are telling the truth. >> good work. excellent work, martin in cleveland for us. thank you. later tonight, 8:00 p.m. eastern on ac 3606, an exclusive look inside castro's backyard, dozens of photographs obtained by cnn. show what he was allegedly trying to hide from the outside world. that's it for me. erin burnett "outfront" starts right now. >> "outfront" next, the latest from the investigation in cleveland, the fbi has run ariel castro's dna across the national data base and we'll tell what you they found. and what we're learning about the suspect himself from the man who blew up around him. more of our exclusive interview ariel castro's brothers is "outfront." and first, the irs is accused of targeting groups depending on their politics and now the justice department is accused of a massivd