worked with. adam, when you and i first met at that diner with my wild punk hair, i mean, we just laughed, and we connected. and i knew that we were cinematic soul mates. like, hepburn and tracy. [ laughter ] >> i first thought of course when they told me i was getting this -- [ laughter ] prestigious mark twain honor, i was, like, wow, is twain going to be there? [ laughter ] no, said the kennedy center people, to which i replied, makes sense. [ laughter ] >> "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next, trump's hail mary. could an 11th hour witness, a lawyer trump's team put forth save the former president from

an indictment in the hush money case? plus, china's xi jinping cozies up to vladimir putin. ukrainian ambassador to the united states raising questions about whether it was staged. and tiktok, its parent company spying on american journalists. what could this mean for the 100 million americans on tiktok? let's go "outfront." good evening. i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, a game changer, it is the 11th hour. and at this moment, former president trump's team chose to call up a witness to testify before the manhattan grand jury investigating the hush money payment to adult film star stormy daniels. now, the hope is that this witness could save trump from being the first former president in united states history to be indicted. so who is this person this witness? well, his name is robert costello. he was a one-time legal adviser to trump's former fixer michael

cohen, who is the key witness. then emerged to tell reporters why he testified. >> the only thing i'm doing is trying to tell the truth to the grand jurors. listen, if they want to go after donald trump and they have solid evidence, so be it. but michael cohen is far from solid evidence. this guy, by any prosecutor standard, and i used to be deputy chief of the criminal division in the southern district of new york, i wouldn't have touched a guy like michael cohen, especially if he's a convicted perjur. >> he served time for that. he admitted to paying $130,000 to stormy daniels just before the 2016 election to stop her from going public about an alleged affair with trump. now, the payment itself is not illegal. what matters here is whether it was improperly classified or not. and trump's hope is that costello could turn around an impending indictment and get

alvin bragg, the manhattan district attorney, who's remain tight-lipped about the details of this investigation, to back off. so did costello deliver for trump? well, tonight the entire nation is on edge and waiting as trump stands by claims that he's hours away now from being arrested, and he is now calling on his supporters to protest in new york police setting up security cameras and barricades in washington officials tell cnn they are preparing for demonstrations that could erupt if trump is indicted on these charges. 12 agencies now currently on standby. we begin our coverage "outfront" live in new york outside the courthouse. and of course the former president has said, you know, that he could be arrested tomorrow. that's what he has been loud and clear about. what are you learning? >> reporter: the former president made that statement, one of his campaign officials kind of walked it back saying that he had not actually been informed of that, but that was based more on the speculation, the anticipation of what may be coming. now, as you said, costello went in before the grand jury today

for three hours. he told us that he initially contacted the man thattan d.a.' office. he said he had made the hush money payment at the direction of former president trump. that gets to the heart of this case of trying to prove trump's involvement and his knowledge and whether he intended to commit a crime. now, costello is saying that he provided 330 emails and documents to the d.a.'s office that he was asked questions in the grand jury, he felt that they were cherry-picking those questions. he didn't get into all of the details that he said he had. but the key thing that he was testifying to today, he said when he was working with cohen back in 2018 that cohen had said that he was unaware of trump having done anything wrong and that cohen had made these payments on his own. cohen was called back to the district attorney's office today. he was here for a couple of hours standing by to see if he would be a rebuttal witness, someone who would be brought

before the grand jury after costello's testimony. he said he does not think he's going to be called back. we've seen a number of these witnesses, everyone that has some kind of tangential piece to this hush money payment and the timing of it coming to go before the grand jury. so there are few witnesses left that could possibly come in. you also get the feeling that the security is ramping up, people are preparing for a decision. they have security cameras installed on light poles. they removed all of the trash cans. and they put up barricades all along the courthouse and the perimeter of the buildings around it. >> cara, thank you very much. let's go now to the former trump white house lawyer. ty, you've been watching all of this here, in these final moments, the drama, costello being brought in to contradict what cohen had said.

so how important could costello's testimony today be in the decision of whether bragg charges trump or not? >> i think it could be very consequential. robert costello is a highly respected, very experienced criminal defense attorney who was once a highly respected prosecutor in the southern district of new york. cohen also was once a lawyer, but when it comes to credibility, that's about as far as these guys can be compared because cohen has so routinely told different stories about how this hush money payment scheme was hatched and executed, and apparently including one to costello when costello represented him that is at flagrant odds with the story

that he has kept to the grand jury. >> so, look, which all could be very crucial if michael cohen, who obviously has admitted to lying, he's convicted of lying about other things and has served time for that. he really is the core of this, costello's reputation, credibility gravitas really could matter. costello spoke tonight after he left the courthouse. and i wanted to play more of what he said. >> sure, thank you. >> i've listened to michael cohen stand in front of the courthouse and say things that are directly contrary to what he said to us. now he's on the revenge tour. i understand it, but i don't condone it. and that's why i went in there today to tell these people the truth about who the real michael cohen is and what he was actually saying at that moment in tie. >> you heard cara reporting and say that he felt the questions today to him were cherry-picked. so do you think there is any way that alvin bragg uses costello to not charge trump, or are charges inevitable?

>> i think charges are inevitable. but costello does give bragg an off ramp from the decision to proceed in this case, which has been widely criticized by experienced lawyers no matter what their party affiliation. the decision to proceed in this case was initially in the hands of the united states attorney's office for the southern district. they made it very clear they were another going to proceed with this based on a foundation that was cohen because of his lack of credibility. they abandoned it and went to bragg's predecessor, cy vance. he concluded it was pointless. he consulted with a number of outside experts in addition to people internally. mark pomerantz, one of the attorneys who was working on the trump investigation for vance and then later for bragg, you

know, demeaned this particular case, the cohen-based case severely in his book and in his statements while explaining that he thought the better case was the financial improprieties. so, almost everybody who's looked at it except alvin bragg has decided that it doesn't pass the smell test, particularly because it rests so heavily on cohen, and at the end of the day, i think everybody understands that these particular charges as contrived as they may be, they wouldn't be brought against any american not named donald trump. and that's the part that as a former prosecutor and a lawyer troubles me the most because just because you have a bad man, a potentially bad man or somebody who's not well liked, you shouldn't distort the justice's decisions in order to get them. >> and here's the other part of

it. if what you say is the case, there are other obviously cases out there which -- >> yes -- >> legal scholars feel very differently of both parties, whether it be the investigations into january 6th, insurrection or what's happening in georgia where we understand trump's attorneys today asked a judge to basically quash the grand jury's final report and evidence as we are also awaiting what could be an imminent decision there from fony willis. and these cases all are very significant and meaningful is the point i'm making. in the case of this development in georgia, because i know this was once the case, as you and i have talked through, which you felt was the strongest and most important out there. what do you think of it now? >> so i never thought it was the most important. jack smith's case, i think, is the most important because it's the constitutionally most significant to the country. but i do think that the georgia

case as highlighted by the filing today, there have been a series of missteps. we know that fani willis was involved with political fundraiser she had, some of the statements that she made, and as you and i have discussed before, when the former of the grand jury is talking about shaking hands with rudy giuliani while holding her ninja turtle popsicle, grand jurors aren't supposed to party with the d.a. i think there's a little hair on that case. i think there will be some delays that make it impossible to get that to trial before the election. i think the only case that has the chance to go to trial is the bragg case. >> thank you for this perspective. i appreciate it. and next -- >> my pleasure, erin. nice to meet with you. breaking his silence about

trump's potential indictment. watch this. >> i don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. >> that's pretty direct, and trump's not happy about it. wait till you hear what he said. plus, a warrant now out for his arrest. this as china's xi jinping gives putin a boost. and speaking out about the suspicious death of his former classmate. he says he had nothing to do with it.

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sensodyne sensitivity gum & enamel relieves sensitivity, helps restore gum health, and rehardens enamel. i'm a big advocate of recommending things that i know work. tonight, donald trump ramping up attacks on manhattan d.a. alvin bragg as he awaits a possible indictment, accusing bragg of everything from prosecutorial misconduct to election interference. so who is alvin bragg, the man who might be the first to hand an indictment to an ex-president. brynn gingras is "outfront." >> reporter: manhattan district attorney alvin bragg could argue he's recently had reasons to, well, brag. he's the first black person to lead that office. he won a major tax fraud case brought against the trump organization last year. >> this was a case about lying and cheating. >> reporter: but now in just his

second year of holding office, he may become the first prosecutor to indict an ex-president. for his role in a hush money scheme. >> the last thing i want to do is run afoul of any rules or in any way negatively impact our investigation. >> reporter: internally, bragg isn't backing down as the pressure in the case builds. he recently told his staff in a memo he would, quote, not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office as trump repeatedly calls him out by name on social media while also denying any wrongdoing. >> i imagine alvin to be putting his head down and just looking very carefully and methodically at all of the facts in the case. >> reporter: an indictment would be a culmination in a nearly five-yearlong investigation that began when bragg's predecessor cy vance held the office. it's been a rocky road getting to this point.

>> i bring hard cases when they are ready. >> reporter: to senior prosecutors in his office resigned last year when bragg signaled he wouldn't pursue criminal charges against trump. >> i think the evidence was there. this is not a personal issue or a fight. it's a disagreement about prosecution policy. >> reporter: bragg ramped up the trump investigation this year while continuing to weather major criticism about being soft on crime in new york city. last year, an internal memo surfaced, urging his team to not prosecute certain low-level offenses. it came the same week the city buried two police officers killed on duty. >> i know you are tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new d.a. >> reporter: harlem-raised harvard educated and while his current role thrusts him into the political spotlight, he maintains he is a lawyer at heart, once representing the

family of eric gardener. >> i've been advocating for changes to the law so that police can be held accountable. >> reporter: but no bigger battle than now as bragg may make history once again. part of bragg's resume also includes being an attorney where he helped sue the trump administration more than a hundred times. and he also head the team that sued the trump foundation. at the end of the day, he is going to make a decision in this case that rests on justice being served and not politics. >> brynn, thank you very much. "outfront" now, former nypd lieutenant, elie honig, and stephanie grisham, former trump press secretary. i want to play you something from trump's personal attorney that was just said this weekend. here it is. >> let's see if they arrest him. but i'll tell you what. if they choose to do so for a misdemeanor, which frankly he didn't even do, it is going to

cause mayhem. it's just a very scary time in our country. >> so, stephanie, obviously you resigned on january 6th. she uses the word mayhem to describe what may happen if trump is charged now. what do you think about that, of all these calls of people taking to the streets? >> i watched that interview, and i was very surprised, she's an officer of the court, and that was, you know, it felt like it was a threat. and immediately i thought to myself she's performing for an audience of one. she wanted one person to see that, donald trump, because he right now just wants to see everyone fighting for him. but i thought it was wildly irresponsible. again, we've got the specter of january 6th over us. and, right or wrong, we need to keep that in mind, people died that day. so i think people calling for protests or saying that it could be mayhem, that could be

telegraphing things that is just irresponsible, in my mind. >> you worked with alvin bragg. so bragg's predecessor did not move to charge trump in this investigation. so let's be clear. in fact the case was completely dead in the manhattan d.a.'s office until two people very publicly quit over the lack of charges in general for trump. so now here we are on the eve possibly of a huge monumental decision by alvin bragg. are you sure bragg will move to charge trump at this point? >> i'm not entirely sure. there are two ways that this would not result in an indictment, both of them very unlikely. bragg can decide not to move forward or he can present this case to a grand jury, and the grand jury might vote not to indict. that is extraordinarily rare, though. basically any prosecutor who wants to get an indictment can get an indictment because it's such a one-sided process. i think the strategy today in

calling this lawyer robert costello is to try to sort of a hail mary but to poke a hole in the key element of this case, which is did donald trump not know about the hush money payments, that's not illegal, but did he know about the false accounting of these hush money payments. it seems that that may rest entirely on the word of michael cohen, who is a very problematic witness. and if costello can cast more doubt on cohen's credibility, that could result in the grand jury declining to return an indictment. but i think the chances are in the high 90s that we see an indictment. >> bragg still could choose not to. and you hear those close to him saying he's going to do what's right. obviously though law enforcement in new york city, d.c. as well, when you hear about mayhem and protests in the streets, they are on high alert. can you take us inside their preparations? >> sure. the teachable moments would be january 6th when we had the riots on the capitol.

the nypd is going to extract the intelligence from the incidents that occurred that day and present that to the fortification of security in the downtown area. we've developed a series of cameras and high-visibility posts of police officers in uniform that present a level of omnipresence. these components would ensure that the downtown area is safe. we go back to 9/11. we erected numerous cameras in that downtown area after the attack on the world trade center that allows police officers a bird's eye view as to what's happening. so i can guarantee you that what happened on january 6th will not happen if trump is possibly indicted as it relates to this particular incident. >> at least in new york. so one of the lawyers who quit because cy vance did not indict trump, wrote a book about it.

that book came out recently. and mark pomerantz wrote it about bragg. he says, at one point, alvin bragg commented that he could not see a world in which we would indict trump and call cohen as a prosecution witness. >> to stake a case solely on the word of michael cohen on the key issue of did donald trump know about and authorize the false booking. if you base that solely on michael cohen, you are asking for trouble. there is one example that we just he did from mark pomerantz. but if you go beyond that, cohen has been convicted of perjury. he was convicted of financial fraud and tax fraud for himself. he also said the exact opposite back in 2018. he told the fec these payments were entirely nonpolitical, entirely legal. so, he is going to be a very problematic witness.

>> absolutely. now, stephanie, look, you've got lawyers casting doubt on this. but that's in the legal scheme. obviously politically here this is a whole 'nother thing. you got voted in d.a. to office and you've got politicians swirling around. republicans are accusing bragg of pursuing this for political purposes. the "new york times" is reporting the trump team had been pressuring ron desantis to weigh in, which is obviously interesting. he's got power, but he's obviously likely to challenge trump in 2024. so today desantis did break his silence today, and, well, he didn't say what trump expected. here he is. >> i don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. i can't speak to that. but what i can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many,

many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that's an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office. >> so, stephanie, trump has lashed out in response to that, attacking desantis' poll numbers and desanctimonious, all of that. desantis, that's a unique kind of slapping somebody as you smile at them. >> yeah, shots fired by desantis. i think that it was pitch-perfect, though. he managed to say the words porn star and hush money twice. but while also calling into question this elected d.a. and if it's weaponizing the government, et cetera. so i thought it was pitch-perfect. donald trump the way he lashed back so quickly and as childishly as he did, told me that he was angry but also bigger picture, he's really

nervous about desantis. that's the only reason he has focused on him so much. you haven't seen him talking about nikki haley or pompeo. i know he's not in the race yet or pence even as much as he was for a while there. so he's very, very nervous about desantis and what he did today desantis i'm sure is getting a lot of rage at mar-a-lago right now. >> talk about desantis having his cake and eating it too, as they say. thank you all very much. next, china's xi jinping meeting with vladimir putin singing his praises. can ukraine trust china in any possible deal? the ambassador to the united states speaks out next and raises questions about whether this putin visit to ukraine was staged. plus, the bbc ordering its staff to delete tiktok from work phones. the latest company to crack down on the app over security concerns. i'm going to talk to a reporter who has evidence that tiktok's parent company spied on her, and she has a warning tonight. when other guyss were charging four to five-hundred bucks.

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tonight, one of russia's top propagandists issuing a stark warning to anyone trying to follow through on the international criminal court's arrest warrant of vladimir putin. >> translator: let them know any attempt to carry it out is a declaration of war with an immediate nuclear strike against that country. >> i mean, that's remarkable. and it comes amidst a remarkable four and a half hour meeting in moscow between vladimir putin and xi jinping as the chinese president tries to play the role of peace broker even though, you know, who's he going to see in person, who's he spending days

with? china is coming to putin's defense calling on the icc to, quote, avoid politicization and double standards over the arrest warrant. matthew chance is "outfront" in moscow. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: it's a crucial state visit, the first by a chinese leader since russia invaded ukraine last year. and just days after the kremlin's strongman was indicted for war crimes. now, one of the world's most isolated leaders gets to sit at the side of one of its most powerful. it's a potent alliance. >> translator: it is true that both of our countries share the same or similar goals. we have exerted efforts for the prosperity of our respective countries. we can cooperate and work together to achieve our goals.

>> reporter: but china has so far drawn the line at military aid for russia's war. there are concerns that may change, but right now it's only chinese diplomacy on the table. kremlin-leaning peace plan calling for talks but stopping short of demanding a russian withdrawal, a key ukrainian demand. >> translator: we have carefully studied your proposals on settling the acute crisis in ukraine. of course, we will have an opportunity to discuss these issues. >> reporter: but there's little sign putin's open to compromise. this was the russian leader on sunday driving through the captured and devastated city of mariupol. local residents, according to state media, are shown thanking him and asking to shake hands when a heckler briefly makes her

voice heard. none of this is true, is the cry. it's all for show. but the russian leader seems undisturbed. and now with one of the world's most powerful leaders at his side in moscow, president putin may increasingly feel he can afford to ignore his critics. >> matthew, it is pretty incredible to have xi jinping there, to have this in moscow, the significance of that clear to anyone. the other question, though, is china's peace proposals. are they serious, as you see them, understanding all sides of this so well? >> yeah, well, i mean, look, the chinese definitely take it seriously. they've recently forged a diplomatic agreement between saudi arabia and iran, and off the back of that success, they see themselves as peacemakers in this conflict as well. the russians say they take it

seriously, and why wouldn't they? the peace plan does not call for russia to withdraw from the territories it's conquered. it's only when you get to ukraine and its western backers like the united states that you start hearing a bit more skepticism, the idea that china is not an honest broker in this conflict. a good illustration of that, they visited each other, xi and putin, more than 40 times. they've met face to face. and there hasn't been one phone call yet between president xi and his ukrainian counterpart, zelenskyy. >> matthew chance, thank you very much. i appreciate it. and "outfront" now, ukraine's ambassador to the united states. ambassador, i so much appreciate your time tonight. today the chinese president xi began his trip to russia, a three-day trip as his foreign ministry spokesman said, and i quote, the icc should take an impartial stance and avoid politicization and double standards specifically referring to the international criminal

court charging vladimir putin with war crimes. do you trust president xi, or is he all in behind putin? >> well, first of all, let me comment on the icc. i think they have taken very impartial stance as an independent, free and fair judiciary body, analyze the facts and made very, i think, independent decision which supports of course the facts. with regard to the visit, of course we are looking -- we are watching the visit with a great interest. and we just hope that everything that china publicly says about sovereignty and territorial integrity, that all the discussions will start from that, and they will clearly tell mr. putin that violating sovereign territory is a time. >> president xi has indicated he would speak with president zelenskyy. and of course john kirby, the adviser to the national security council in washington, has

encouraged that as early as this morning. have there been any plans made for a call or virtual meeting or anything between president zelenskyy and xi? >> well, not that i'm aware of at the moment. and i'm sure we'll hear about it when the time will come. but president zelenskyy has been very open about speaking to our friends, our strategic advisers, but also everyone, essentially, about the fact that nobody wants peace more than ukraine. first russia has to get out from our country and has to stop this war because nobody but russia started this war. >> you know, vladimir putin did something that surprised many this weekend. he visited mariupol, obviously occupied by the russians right now. and while he was there, he allegedly met with ukrainian residents. and then he got heckled by somebody off camera, his security services seemed to abruptly turn. let me just play it for you.

and you can see there is the woman shouts, this is not true, it's all for show. the security services sort of turned their heads sharply. what was your reaction when you saw that, and what was your reaction, i guess, to begin with when you heard that putin was in mariupol? >> well, first of all, as our intelligence says, we can never be completely sure it was him, you know. it was during the nighttime. he visited what looks like mariupol. but it would not be surprising for him to visit something they attacked, they've visited crimea in the past. >> you mentioned if it was him or if he was there. i am curious what you thought about the fact that this happened at night, and of course the adviser to the minister of internal affairs in kyiv also

raised the question about whether it was even putin. so there were questions about whether it was putin, and then there were questions about whether he was actually there, and questions raised, in part, because of the time of day it was. there is a lot of speculation about this. do you have any doubt that it was putin or that he was actually there in mariupol? >> well, look, i don't know, i'm just telling you what our intelligence says that it's very difficult to confirm 100% that it was him. but it was during the nighttime. we all have seen pictures and satellite pictures from mariupol. the city is 90% destroyed, destroyed by russians who attacked it repeatedly since the beginning of this reinvasion on the 24th of february. even if during the night he was there and he visited a small portion of the city to pretend that there is something there, you know, they have destroyed the city and they have terrorized the city and killed

so many people and stolen so many children from mariupol. so, in any case, whether it is him in mariupol or it's not him in mariupol, but they are showing him visiting mariupol, it's another war crime in addition to what they have done to mariupol. >> as you talk about those children, those children taken from there and so many other places in ukraine are the reason that the icc has charged vladimir putin himself with war crimes. thank you so much, ambassador, i appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you. and, next, just who is tiktok spying on? i'm going to talk to a reporter who says the app's parent company spied on her to track down her sources. plus, the only surviving son of convicted murderer alex murdaugh speaking out tonight about what he calls the vicious rumor surrounding the unsolved death of his classmate. ♪ ♪

♪ fast. reliable. perfectly orchestrated. the united states postal service.

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tonight, the bbc, the latest to tell its staff to delete tiktok from work phones because of security concerns. this comes as the justice department and fbi have reportedly launched a criminal investigation into tiktok's parent company bytedance for spying on americans and gaining access to their personal information. this is according to a report in sh fors written by my next guest w . emily baker white is "outfront" now with me.

she of course is a tech reporter at "forbes." obviously i know you are going to be protecting your sources here. but you're working on a series basically at this time about what was happening, ties to china at the company, and then you found out that you were being spied on. how did you figure that out? >> yes, so it came to my attention from a source inside the company that there was a team at bytedance that was trying to figure out who was leaking information to me, and that that team wanted to pull my ip address-based location from my use of the tiktok app to try to figure out where i was to see if they could find any people who worked at tiktok or bytedance at the same place at the same time in order to figure out that those people might be sourcing me. >> right. >> and so i find that -- >> go ahead. >> and we reported a piece on this, but we had to keep things really vague in order to protect our source.

and so we didn't say who was being surveilled or why, but we said there was this plan to surveil american citizens. and after that bytedance launched an internal investigation to try to figure out what was going on and why we thought that. and they then learned that the team that we had written about, in fact, had pulled data from my tiktok account to try to figure out where i physically was in order to figure out who was talking to me. >> all right. so they were actually doing this. what i find interesting is so many parts of this, of course, that this isn't just, you know, people kind of fear mongering. this happened. it happened to you. you were being spied on by bytedance, which is the chinese company that owns tiktok. so i'm curious, emily, as to your point of view on what we are hearing now, which is president biden wants tiktok to be spun off into its own company. and that would theoretically separate it from bytedance. but is there anything to that? it seems like these companies essentially operate as one company regardless of whatever

their former corporate structure will be. >> so that's definitely what our reporting has shown over the past year. so i've talked to a lot of employees at both tiktok and bytedance who describe them internally as really one in the same. and i think that's part of the reason why the biden administration is skeptical that tiktok can operate independently from bytedance while bytedance still owns it. and that's been the question as the biden administration has been negotiating with tiktok. tiktok has been arguing, we can put in place all sorts of data management systems that will limit foreign access to u.s. user data. and the question has been, can they do that in a way that's satisfactory if bytedance is still owning and controlling tiktok. and it seems like the biden administration has decided in recent weeks that the answer to that question is no. >> well, it certainly seems, and what they can do and what they actually will do, right. i guess a lot of this would come

down to trust, as crazy as that may sound. thank you so much. emily, i really appreciate your time in sharing this story. , and next, alex murdaugh's son breaking his silence and addressing the growing questions about the unsolved death of his classmate. what's your emergency? >> hello. -- plus, one of the most famous cities in the world burning as police in riot gear clash with protesters. or a few years old we want to buy your carr so go to carvana enter your license plate answer a few questions and our techno wizardry calculates your car's value and gives you a real offer in seconds when you're ready we'll come to you pay you on the spot and pick up your car that's it so ditch the old way of selling your car and say hello to the new way at carvana

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tonight vicious rumors. alex murdoch's son speaking out denying claims he was involved in the serious death of a former classmate. saying he had nothing to do with the body of 19-year-old steven smith. the investigation into the murders of his mother and brother, for which his father was found guilty, prompting law enforcement to revisit this cold case. diane gallagher is out front. >> what is your emergency? >> i just going down the road and i seen somebody laying out.

>> reporter: it's been nearly eight years since the body of 19-year-old steven smith was found in the middle of this country road in hampton county, south carolina. the teen's death gained national attention in june 250021, nearl six years after he was killed, when the state law enforcement division said it was opening an invest investigation. >> verdict, guilty. >> reporter: alec murdoch was sentenced to life in prison. >> for the rest of your natural life. >> reporter: and investigators have never revealed what information they gleaned from the murdoch investigation that resulted in this being opened. today new private efforts to uncover the evidence. the first goal, exhuming smith's body. >> it kind of has to start with

a fresh, new look at the body. >> reporter: initial reports that the nursing student died on july 8th, to 18, from blunt force head trauma originally said to be the result of a hit and run but the accident report cited, quote, no vehicle debris, skid marks or injuries consistent with someone being struck by a vehicle. >> i love my son. since i couldn't protect him, i'm going to fight for him. >> smith's mother said she worried he may have been targeted because he was gay. according to police files, the murdoch name kept coming up but no suspect has ever been named and authorities have never connected anyone in the murdoch family to smith's death. still rumors and innuendo kept going often with buster murdoch at the center of the speculation. he broke his silence in a statement provided to cnn this morning saying in part, i have tried my best to ignore the vicious rumors about my

involvement in steven smith's tragic death that continue to be published as i grieve over the brutal murders of my mother and my brother. these rumors of steven and his death are false. i unequivocally deny any involvement. they caution the public, this is not about the murdochs. >> this is not an alex murdoch 2.0, this is steven smith 2.0. it's all about steven. >> and it's all about a mother who at the heart of this for nearly eight years has simply wanted to find out what happened to her son and who did it to him. sandy smith started a go fund me. she's raised roughly $25,000 to pay to exhume the body of her son if a judge signs off allowing it. we asked sled about the investigation into stephen smith's death. they said it is ak tich and ongoing and they have made

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and finally tonight, police in riot gear squaring off with protestors in paris as fires are set across that city. this is the fifth night of demonstrations as people take to the streets outraged by the french president, emmanuel macron, to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. the that would still be less than what it is in the united states which is 67 for anyone born after 1960. ment many strikes on top of a walkout by sanitation workers which has left paris buried under 10,000 tons of garbage. thanks for joining us. "ac 360" begins right now. the twice impeached 45th president of the united states may become the first former president as well as first major presidential candidate indicted on a criminal charge. when that may happen, if i