[Carol Costello, Cnn Anchor:] Good morning, Soledad, and good morning to all of you. I am Carol Costello. Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Hawaii, iPods, and gift cards. New questions flying this morning about rampant spending at the GSA. Will Jeff Neely, the man behind the Vegas trip you paid for get up and walk out again today? Clearances yanked. The Secret Service hooker scandal widens this morning. We've got new information from the White House. Your money, your taxes. The Buffett Rule blasted. A mood that would boost taxes for the rich. Republicans rallying this morning calling it trickle down taxation. Pricey light. The new light bulb to replace regular incandescent hits stores this Sunday, Earth Day. This thing lasts for 20 years. It costs drum roll, please as much as 60 bucks. New home. Shuttle Discovery hitching a ride and heading up the East Coast right now. From Florida and Virginia, we're live on the historic flight. And spectacular sight. Amazing new pictures this hour from 93 million miles away. An eye-popping eruption you've just got to see. NEWSROOM begins right now. Taxpayer outrage this morning is growing over the millions of dollars seemingly squandered by anonymous bureaucrats. Well, today they're no longer anonymous. Right now current and former GSA officials are on Capitol Hill. It is their second hearing in two days. They're facing questions about their lavish convention in Las Vegas. A rewards program that gave employees iPods and gift cards worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And a Hawaii junket for some GSA leader, they spent up to a week there for a ribbon cutting that lasted a mere hour. Senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is on Capitol Hill. So, Dana, yesterday we saw some pretty outraged lawmakers and apologetic witnesses. Anything new coming out today?
[Dana Bash, Cnn Senior Congressional Correspondent:] We are already seeing some fire big-time in the hearing. It started already about a half an hour ago. I want you to listen to a very upset Republican chair of the House Transportation Committee Subcommittee.
[Rep. Jeff Denham , Chairman, Economic Development Subcommittee:] And I'm here to tell you the buck stops here. We're not going to hold up any longer. The American public demands to see the budget on the Public Buildings Funds the Federal Buildings Fund and how that money has been spent. This slush fund is no longer going to be used for personal uses.
[Bash:] Now, they're making clear already in this hearing this morning, Carol, that they are going to talk beyond that 2010 now infamous conference in Las Vegas and talk about what they say is excessive spending across the board. And but I just do want to focus on some of what we have been talking about because again this conference was pretty amazing. Take a look at this. $59,000 for an audiovisual firm to be hired for the conference, $75,000 for a bike building exercise to be done at the conference, and $9,000 for colored theme tags. And I should also mention that yesterday a big part of the discussion was why the person responsible for spending all this still got a $9,000 bonus of taxpayer money.
[Costello:] Yes, that would be Mr. Neely. Also for the first time lawmakers will hear from a so-called whistleblower. Tell us about her.
[Bash:] Her name is Susan British. She was the deputy commissioner at the GSA. In fact, they were just talking about her before you and I came on. She turns out used to actually work for the committee that she's going to appear before. She apparently was the first person to say, wait a minute, this is way too much spending on things that we shouldn't be spending on like a mind reader, a clown outfit, things that, you know, really this is this is how the government is spending the money at this conference? She wrote a memo saying that this should be investigated and apparently started the ball rolling on the inspector general investigation into all of this. So it will be very interesting to hear what she has to say later.
[Costello:] OK. Dana Bash, you're covering for us and we appreciate it. Now to another scandal rocking Washington and widening this morning. We're now learning that a Colombian brothel is the primary focus of the Secret Service prostitution investigation. Also new this morning, the Secret Service has stripped the security clearance of the 11 staffers accused of bringing prostitutes back to their hotel, you know, back from the brothel. That was just a couple of days before the president arrived in Colombia for a summit. A former CIA operative explained why this alleged breach could have endangered the president's life.
[Robert Baer, Former Cia Operative:] Well, you know, a Secret Service stays in a hotel. They keep, for instance, the call signs. They keep their encrypted radios. They keep their routes that the president is going to travel. If I was an assassin, that's precisely where I would want to be. Assassination these days all depends on intelligence. You've got to predict movements and these guys would have it there.
[Costello:] Brianna Keilar is at the White House for us. So, Brianna, tell us more about this brothel.
[Brianna Keilar, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Yes, this according to a source who's told CNN, Carol, is one of the primary focuses in terms of the locations that these Secret Service agents may have visited. Now let me stress, though, that this source says that would be among the venues because, while it's a primary focus in the investigation, there were several groups and stops at several venues according to this source. So let's catch you up on the latest today and what has changed overnight. These 11 Secret Service agents have been stripped of their security clearance. So personnel action has been taken at least preliminarily. And then we also learned from chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, that there were 11 prostitutes that these 11 agents allegedly brought 11 prostitutes back to the Hotel Caribe. And also we should mention that the numbers in terms of how many military personnel may have solicited prostitutes appears to be on the rise according to a spokesman indicating that there may be more than five. So we're looking perhaps, according to sources, between five and 10, but yes, this location, the brothel is really I think the headline today in terms of new details about piecing together perhaps how the evening went for these Secret Service agents. Remember it was Wednesday night into Thursday morning that this happened Carol.
[Costello:] Brianna Keilar reporting live for us from the White House. Coming up at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, inside Colombia with Colombian reporter Miriam Wells who said Colombia is known for sex tourism and she puts a very and of course this whole scandal puts a very public eye on prostitution there. We're going to talk about her live to see what she knows about this problem. Again the country wait in the 10:00 a.m. Eastern hour of NEWSROOM. Crews in Chile this morning are assessing the aftermath of a strong earthquake that caused mudslides and minor damage. This is video of the quake with a magnitude of 6.7 as it rattled a newscast on our sister network CNN Chile. The quake was felt in the capital less than 70 miles from the epicenter. It knocked out power and phone lines in the region. A key U.S. ally is making plans to pull out of Afghanistan sooner than expected. Australia's prime minister seen here meeting with troops in Afghanistan in 2010, says the withdrawal could begin in months. Nearly all 1500 Australian troops could be out by the end of 2013, nearly a full year ahead of schedule. Australia says the accelerated timeline is due to the progress made by Afghan troops. If you haven't filed your taxes, I don't need to tell you this. The clock is ticking, for goodness sake. Americans have until midnight tonight to file their federal returns and a new CNN poll takes the pulse of the American taxpayer. Forty-five percent say the amount they pay Uncle Sam is too high. You might be surprised that slightly more, 50 percent say the amount they pay is just right. And 3 percent say they actually should be paying more in taxes. Go figure. This afternoon NASCAR champ Tony Stewart makes a pit stop at the White House. President Obama will welcome Stewart and other drivers and recognize their efforts to give back to the community. The University of Alabama's football championship trophy has been shattered into little tiny pieces. It happened at a university event on Saturday. A player's father got his foot caught on a rug under the trophy display. The BCS title trophy is valued at $30,000. University official says they will replace it. The father is off the hook for that one. Retired space shuttle Discovery arrives in the nation's capital in the next hour from the Kennedy Space Center. Discovery left Florida just about two hours ago. It's attached to this Boeing 747. It will replace the test shuttle Enterprise at the Smithsonian. John Zarrella is at the Kennedy Space Center. So, John, there was a pomp and circumstance. There were lots of people waving farewell?
[John Zarrella, Cnn Correspondent:] Yes, absolutely. They had busloads of NASA employees, many who had worked for, you know, years in the space shuttle program who were here to watch Discovery head off to Dulles. And of course, you know, the final crew that flew Discovery back in February 14, months ago, they as well were on hand to say, you know, good-bye. And it was a spectacular, spectacular moment. Discovery lifting off here. It flew down the coast along the beach in Bravard County, then circled back up. It flew over launch pad 39-A where it lifted off so many times in the past and then made one last flyover right behind us. Literally just a couple hundred feet off the deck on the back of that 747 and headed due north into just clear, blue skies. You know, and it's interesting, Carol, because as Discovery is exiting and the other two shuttles not far behind it, you know, in a couple of weeks just to our south, SpaceX, a commercial company, is going to try to take that next step into space. They're going to be launching their Dragon rocket in an attempt to rendezvous and birth with the International Space Station. It would be the first time in history that any commercial company has been able to accomplish such a feat. Shortly after that they hope to start taking cargo to the space station and within two or three years SpaceX and other commercial companies believe that by 2016 they will be taking astronauts filling the void left behind as Discovery and the other vehicles retire to their new homes in various parts of the country. So the end of one era and perhaps the early stages of the beginnings of another era of commercial space travel Carol.
[Costello:] You know, this just kind of a I mean it's a spectacular sight to see the space shuttle on board on top of that Boeing 747. But it I don't know, it's sad, too, because we won't see it again. The final destination is Chantilly, Virginia. Supposedly that plane is supposed to land, what at 10:00 Eastern, and then what happens?
[Zarrella:] Yes, a little bit after 10:00, you know, they left here earlier than we thought about 10 minutes earlier but sometime between 10:00 and 10:30 there will be a ceremony there as well. And you know then very quickly they are going to get it inside the building there at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and they have to move Enterprise out. Now Enterprise was a test shuttle. It never flew into space. They used it to test the aerodynamics. They dropped it from a 747 back in the days before the very first shuttle actually flew into space. They've got to move it out. Put it on top of the 747 and ferry it up to New York because it will eventually, when their museum housing is ready, it will end up in the intrepid museum in New York. So Enterprise go on up there. So a lot of work to be done in the next in the next few days Carol.
[Costello:] John Zarrella reporting live for us. And when that thing lands in Chantilly, Virginia, we'll take you there live. That'll happen in the 10:00 a.m. Eastern hour of NEWSROOM. Thanks, John. Still to come behold the new light bulb. It lasts for 20 years. It uses a fraction of the energy. But boy, it will cost you a lot. Sixty bucks. So will you buy it? Plus, Buffett world battle plan. A new fight for fairness. We're talking your money and your taxes with Jon Avlon and why he thinks tax reform talk is dead. And the voice and the holy book of the bible. In a new translation. But here's the hook. You will not find the words Christ, angel or apostle in the book. We'll talk to the man behind it. You're watching NEWSROOM. We're back in two.