Madoff Caught on Tape; Hurricane Fred Fizzles
COLLINS: Congress is reopening its investigation today into the SEC failure to detect Bernie Madoff's multibillion-dollar fraud scheme. Now this comes as an embarrassing audiotape and transcript are released. We're going to have more on that from CNN's Christine Romans right now. So, wow, this is pretty explosive.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: This is released by the Secretary of State's Office in Massachusetts. Essentially, this is part of their investigation into what went wrong here and they have this audiotape of Bernard Madoff. It sounds like he's coaching someone who's about to sit down with the SEC and answer some questions about Mr. Madoff's, what we now know, is a big Ponzi scheme. And what we know here is that Bernard Madoff, at least in this 2005 phone call, did not hold SEC examiners to a very high regard.</s>BERNARD MADOFF, CONVICTED PONZI SCHEMER: You know, you don't have to be too brilliant with these guys, because you don't have to be, you're not supposed to have that knowledge. And, you know, you wind up saying something which is either wrong or -- you know, it's just not something you have to do. You don't them to think that you are concerned about anything. With them you should -- you're best off you just be, you know, casual.</s>ROMANS: You know, be casual, don't tell them anything that they're not asking about. You know these guys are just going to after five years turn around and go to work for a hedge fund or for proprietary trading debts, you know? So they're part-timers at the SEC, really. Don't worry about it. And as we know, Bernard Madoff, Heidi, essentially, in 1992 was the very first time that there was a red flag about this guy at the</s>SEC. COLLINS: Yes.</s>ROMANS: And his scam went on until 2008.</s>COLLINS: Unbelievable. For such a big scheme, though, obviously, there have been few prosecutions.</s>ROMANS: That's right.</s>COLLINS: So what does all that mean?</s>ROMANS: A lot of people say this guy couldn't have done this alone, you know? I mean could there be more people? We know that his accountant has been arrested. We don't know if this is the end of the prosecution, you're absolutely right, but what these tapes tend to show us is that he was out there kind of, you know, coaching people along the way about what not to tell or how to deal with the</s>SEC. COLLINS: Yes, which is pretty good, you know, legal advice if you're not Bernie Madoff.</s>ROMANS: Yes, exactly.</s>COLLINS: Yes. Interesting. All right. So we will continue to follow that story.</s>ROMANS: Sure.</s>COLLINS: CNN's Christine Romans with me on the set. Thank you, Christine. Later on this afternoon, we are expecting to hear the call to go out again for South Carolina governor Mark Sanford to resign. CNN has learned a group of state Republicans is expected to seek a party resolution during a conference call set up for 5:00 today. Now the governor says he's staying. All of this follows Sanford's admission in June of an extramarital affair with an Argentinean woman. Let's get you over to the hurricane headquarters now. Rob Marciano joining us to give us the very latest on what is going on, swirling and whirling. What's the latest, Rob? Good morning.</s>MARCIANO: Let's talk Fred, Heidi. Hurricane Fred yesterday became a major storm, the second one of the season. And also became the first -- the strongest storm ever recorded that far east and that far south in the Atlantic basin. So, a historic storm. You know, those kind of records kind of go back towards -- figure around 1960, because before that we didn't have satellites.</s>COLLINS: Wow.</s>MARCIANO: All right. West of the Cape Verde is where this thing is. It has weakened to a Category 2 storm. You can kind of see its track is towards the northwest. It's expected to head north and then eventually just kind of hang out in this area. Probably dies running into colder waters and drier air. But what it does after that, we still don't know. Can't completely write Fred off, but at the moment, you certainly don't have to worry about Fred anytime soon. So we'll keep you...</s>COLLINS: OK.</s>MARCIANO: ... up to date as to what that guy's doing.</s>COLLINS: Yes, no kidding. All right, Rob. We'll check back a little later on. Thank you.</s>MARCIANO: All right.</s>COLLINS: They're putting their lives on the line to save other lives. We go inside the 24/7 operations of an elite Medevac unit operating in Afghanistan.