Growing Up in a Militia Household
CHETRY: Straight ahead on the Most News in the Morning, is the drug industry playing us for fools? They're supposed to be working with lawmakers and the president to slash prescription drug costs. So, why are prices right now going through the proverbial roof? Alina Cho with some answers in an A.M. original.</s>ROMANS: Militias and extremist groups are on the rise in this country, Kiran, but who's joining these groups? CNN's Jim Acosta has part two of our a.m. series "Patriots and Extremists." Jim went home with the leader of one militia to get to know him and his family.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I lived to tell the tale. That's right. Christine and Kiran, you know, one thing that we mentioned yesterday in part one is how difficult it is to talk to these groups. They don't want to necessarily talk to you. They don't do interviews very often but one thing is certain, the militia movement in America is growing and most of these groups are highly secretive. Their members rarely talk to reporters. But the leader of one is trying to change that, so he invited us into his home to get to know him and his family giving us an up-close look of what it's like to grow up in a militia.</s>LEE MIRACLE, LEADER, SE MICHIGAN VOLUNTEER MILITIA: And we only fight over the important things, baby. Spinach pie.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): It's dinner time, and Lee and Katrina Miracle have their hands full.</s>KATRINA MIRACLE, WIFE OF LEE MIRACLE: Do you want a lot of meat or a little bit?</s>ACOSTA: For starters, they have eight kids, ages 6 to 18. (on camera): With eight kids, you had combat experience.</s>L. MIRACLE: Oh. We've got more than combat experience with eight kids. We're practicing target acquisition.</s>ACOSTA: Then there's Lee's weekend hobby, leading training exercises once a month for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia.</s>L. MIRACLE: You know, the Lee and Kate Plus Eight plus the gun rack, I guess, I don't know. Thank you, Emily (ph).</s>ACOSTA: Are you normal guys?</s>L. MIRACLE: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we don't have barb wire or barricades or gun placements around the house. I mean, we're normal people. I love that sound.</s>ACOSTA: For the Miracle family, normal includes keeping more than 20 guns in the house. Not all of them under lock and key. (on camera): And this is one of how many in the house?</s>L. MIRACLE: Twenty-two I think.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): And they bring their children, like 13- year-old Megan on militia outings. And they use the weapons, they use the firearms?</s>L. MIRACLE: Yes. Yes.</s>K. MIRACLE: They have -- sure. They have all shot from the youngest to the oldest.</s>ACOSTA: And the youngest is how old?</s>K. MIRACLE: Six.</s>ACOSTA: Six-year-old.</s>L. MIRACLE: Yes.</s>ACOSTA: Even 6-year-old Morgana (ph).</s>K. MIRACLE: I do want to point out, though, that she's not using it by herself. She's being highly supervised.</s>ACOSTA: Are you raising them to be in the militia?</s>L. MIRACLE: No, that's their choice. Megan, of course, is already in as far as I'm concerned.</s>ACOSTA: The Miracle family is out to show there's more to the militia than what critics see, gun toting extremists venting their frustrations at the government. From Lee's YouTube page...</s>L. MIRACLE: When you hear a story about the militia in the media, this is probably the image that you get. A crazy guy with camouflage on and a wacky helmet holding a rifle. I'm here to show you a different picture.</s>ACOSTA: To his job as a postal worker. (on camera): Is there a little irony in that being in the militia and working for the federal government?</s>L. MIRACLE: Not at all.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): But this self-described happy warrior admits he's angry at the government, suspicious of the Obama administration's stance on gun rights, and even opposed to health care reform, which he deems unconstitutional.</s>L. MIRACLE: But I'm really angry when 300 million other people are not as angry as I am. So I blame -- a lot of my anger is directed at America as a whole because they are letting this happen.</s>ACOSTA: Lee Miracle believes a well-armed population is the best defense against government excess.</s>L. MIRACLE: What's one big thing about today?</s>ACOSTA: Growing up in a militia may not be everybody's idea of the all-American family. But it is to them.</s>K. MIRACLE: So what do you want for dinner tomorrow?</s>MIRACLE: Can we do some taco salad or something?</s>ACOSTA: They even have taco salad. Now, the Miracle family is not alone in its militia outings. Every year in the fall, the Michigan militia welcomes other families to its exercises on the first weekend after Halloween. Why after Halloween? They use the leftover pumpkins for target practice -- Christine.</s>ROMANS: Just getting together for some target practice.</s>ACOSTA: Exactly.</s>ROMANS: All right, can't wait to see some more tomorrow. Jim Acosta, the series "Patriots and Extremists" continues tomorrow with a look at the Oath Keepers. This is a new group that just had its first conference last month, made up of military personnel and law enforcement officials, basically say their oath is to uphold the constitution, not follow one specific leader. They have a list of 10 specific orders they will not obey; one is to confiscate weapons. Jim Acosta will be back to tell us the rest about that tomorrow. It is 31 minutes past the hour. Here are the morning's top stories. Reports say the Army is forming a panel to see if it missed signs of alleged Ft. Hood gunman Nadal Hasan could be a threat to his fellow soldiers. The Army's chief of staff will look at the psychiatrist's military career, including his six years at Washington's Walter Reed Medical Center. The Obama administration wants you to buckle up on the bus. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has proposed mandatory seat belts on commercial motor coaches as well as stronger floors, windows and roofs. Also in the plan a device to record when a bus is in operation to better track driver activity and fight driver fatigue. About 19 people die a year in commercial bus crashes. Costco and Coca-Cola are parting ways. America's largest wholesale club operator will no longer do business with America's largest soft drink maker. At issue a pricing dispute. Costco says Coca-Cola failed to offer competitive pricing. Coke has been mum, other than to say they were committed to working in the spirit of fairness. Costco reportedly operates more than 400 stores in America and Puerto Rico -- Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Christine, thanks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the self- professed mastermind of 9/11 as well as four suspected co-conspirators will soon face justice, just blocks from ground zero. Set off a political firestorm, the decision by the Obama administration to try these terror suspects in civilian Federal court, just here in New York, also controversy around the U.S. In fact, there's a new CNN Opinion Research poll showing that two-thirds of Americans disagree with the White House decision. Sixty four percent say that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in military court, just 34 percent believe that he should be tried in civilian court. David Kelly is a former U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York. This is where this trial will be taking place. He joins me now in studio. Thanks for being with us.</s>DAVID KELLY, FMR U.S. ATTORNEY: Good morning.</s>CHETRY: You also prosecuted Ramzi Yousef in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and probably the closest example that we have to what is going to be happening. What is your take on what is about to happen?</s>KELLY: I think it was a good decision because we've been going eight years now with nothing happening and I think the Obama administration has made a decision. I think they've carefully gone through the evidence, parsed out the evidence and the information they have, and determined that they do, in fact, have admissible evidence that will work in a criminal court and they've gone forward. I think what's going to happen is, when they get the defendants here, when they indict them, we're talking about a series of pretrial and ultimately trial proceedings that will take about two years.</s>CHETRY: This is what I hear from a lot of people. When I first heard this decision, it just didn't feel right to me, thinking that we're going to bring the person who claims he was the person who masterminded 9/11 to a courthouse just blocks where you can still see an empty hole where the twin towers used to be. What do you say to people who say it's just not right?</s>KELLY: It's been done before. It was done in '93. The courthouse was only blocks away from the first attack. It was done in '95 when Sheikh Rachman was tried and all the landmarks in the city surrounded the courthouse that he was tried in. So it's been done before. Don't forget that Congress long ago enacted legislation that say the use of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction such as planes into a building is a Federal offense that should be tried in a Federal court.</s>CHETRY: Let me ask you a couple of the other questions and criticisms that people who are against this decision have brought up and you can sort of tell me what you think in terms of whether or not they have a point. One is the concern that this case could just get thrown out, depending on what judge they get to oversee this case, based on the allegations of terror -- of rather torture, water boarding, et cetera at Guantanamo Bay.</s>KELLY: There's an application that's been known to be made in very rare cases about dismissal of the indictment for outrageous government misconduct. I don't believe it's ever been granted. It's extraordinarily rare. And I think that under the circumstances here, I think it's unlikely that a judge will grant that, but certainly an application that defendants will make. If they lose that, then there's no saying that they couldn't be brought back into a military tribunal, but that remains to be seen. I think subsequent applications will be made by the defendants, for example, not to use any sort of statements or evidence that were the product of any sort of coercion or misconduct, and frankly I think the Justice Department has already worked that into their calculus because it's an obvious argument.</s>CHETRY: So you think there's no way they would have said we're going to go forward if they thought that that was likely to happen.</s>KELLY: I think that's right.</s>CHETRY: Another question that people have, does this compromise future terror investigations and national security in that a lot of the information and evidence is obviously going to be needed to be disclosed to the defense.</s>KELLY: Again, I think that the Justice Department has looked and parsed through the information they have, which information can we make to be admissible in a criminal court and which of that is going to compromise national security? Lots of times you can clean up classified information so that in the form that it is seen in public, does not compromise national security.</s>CHETRY: They're going to redact parts of it that could...</s>KELLY: They can redact parts of it and classified information procedures act that deals with lots of these issues. I think a lot of people are jumping on this, saying you're going to let out sort of battlefield secrets. First of all, I don't know that battlefield secrets really have a place in a courtroom and I don't think they're going to get there. And secondly, I think that we don't yet know what evidence the Justice Department has carefully calculated will be part of this trial, so people are I think jumping the gun in their criticism of this.</s>CHETRY: What about the concerns this is -- that this provides a forum for people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to spew hate, to spew rhetoric and in some cases perhaps incite other radicals to take up the cause?</s>KELLY: Remember, it wasn't too long ago that we saw on the front page of the New York papers and I think papers across the country, statements made by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others up when they were in the military tribunals and trying to plead guilty and make other statements, so either way you can't have it both ways. I don't really buy that argument.</s>CHETRY: And what about finally the possibility that there's a not guilty verdict in this case? What happens? Does Khalid Sheikh Mohammed then just walk away a free man on the streets of New York?</s>KELLY: I don't think that will happen. The southern district in New York has an extremely successful track record in prosecuting these cases. No one has ever walked out of that courtroom and I think that given the compelling evidence that they're likely to put together in this case that that's not going to happen here.</s>CHETRY: If so, can they kick it back to a military tribunal or not?</s>KELLY: I don't know the answer to that, but my guess is that they've already kind of anticipated that and likely they could.</s>CHETRY: Very interesting to talk to you because you were there firsthand and you know what it's like back in 1993. David Kelly, thanks so much. Appreciate it -- Christine.</s>ROMANS: Kiran, why are drug prices going up at a time we're talking about trying to control spiraling costs in health care? The White House and the drug industry did agree that there would be a multi-billions in savings, so where are those savings? Why are drug prices rising ahead of health care reform? Alina Cho has that story.