[Cooper:] While BP was continuing tests on its ruptured well today, a key federal hearing began in Louisiana. The panel is investigating the cause of the DeepWater Horizon explosion on April 20th, and it's headed up by the Coast Guard and an arm of the Department of the Interior. Right out of the gate today, some explosive testimony. Joe Johns joins us now Joe.
[Joe Johns, Cnn Correspondent:] Anderson, what we learned today was surprising. The headline, at the time of the DeepWater Horizon explosion, the rig was in need of nearly 400 repairs andor maintenance work that would have taken an estimated 3,500 hours of work. And here's a surprise. The chief engineer on the rig has no idea if that work was ever completed. The chief engineer for the rig actually works for TransOcean, not BP. This is the guy who was responsible for maintaining the power and electrical systems on this rig. In testimony today, confirming the rig had amassed a huge list of apparently unfinished maintenance projects. The other company on the rig, BP, had actually conducted an audit of needed repairs and maintenance that TransOcean was responsible for. But TransOcean's chief engineer, Stephen Bertone, couldn't even offer a guess on how much of that work actually had been done before the explosion.
[Unidentified Male:] You recall that on page two of the BP audit dated September 2009, that you were informed that, quote, "overdue planned maintenance considered excessive. Three hundred and ninety jobs, amounting to 3,545 man-hours," end quote. Do you recall that?
[Stephen Bertone, Transocean Chief Engineer:] Yes, I recall that.
[Unidentified Male:] All right. How many of those 390 jobs, amounting to 3,545 man-hours, were undertaken and completed between September 2009, the date of the rig assurance audit, conducted by BP and April 20, 2010?
[Bertone:] I do not have that number.
[Cooper:] So Bertone made previous statements about what happened on the rig back in April. Those statements were controversial, and today what happened?
[Johns:] Well, the truth is, we don't know everything, because the entire statement previous statements were not released. But later the panel asked Bertone questions about the rig's captain, what he did and what he didn't do in the moments after this explosion. They asked Bertone about that earlier statement he'd given to the Coast Guard, that Captain Curt Kuchta was upset with a crew member for pushing an emergency distress button and that the captain also ordered another rig worker to leave an injured worker, a man on a gurney, behind on the deck. Bertone says that injured man survived. Now, this line of questioning got heated, because a few weeks ago, Captain Kuchta himself testified before the commission, but a TransOcean lawyer complained bitterly that no one asked him about those allegations then and he was not there today to defend himself.
[Ned Kohnke, Transocean Lawyer:] If your mission is to include the competency of the captain, then why didn't you ask the captain that question when he was on the stand? Why didn't one single member of the board ask the question of the captain? You had his statement. You had it the day after, but no one in this room asked the question of the captain as to what were the circumstances that would have caused him to say what he said, if in fact, he said it? You're going at this through the back door. That's my objection.
[Unidentified Male:] It is not through the back door.
[Kohnke:] Why didn't you ask him that question when he was here under oath? Can you answer that for me?
[Johns:] And Anderson, we're also following what will happen with two BP employees who were on the witness list but are now not expected to testify. Both are BP managers, the two highest-ranking BP officials who were on the rig. One of them, Robert Kaluza, today told the commission he will invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify tomorrow. The other top BP official who the commission wants to hear from tomorrow is Donald Vedrene. His name was actually removed from the witness list without explanation Two interesting things. These officials were expected to testify the last time the panel convened. And Vedrene called in sick. Kaluza did plead the Fifth, Anderson.
[Cooper:] Interesting. Joe thanks. As Joe said, both these men had senior positions at BP, were chief decision makers on the DeepWater Horizon rig. It's obvious why the panel wants to hear their version of events. Senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins us now. Jeffrey, I think most Americans would find it, you know, surprising that these two BP officials would twice now find a way to avoid the investigative panel. But they certainly can, under I mean, everybody can take the Fifth Amendment, right?
[Jeffrey Toobin, Cnn Senior Legal Analyst:] You know, it doesn't have to be a criminal investigation for someone to take the Fifth Amendment. And certainly, given the fact that a criminal investigation is down the road or starting up, as well, it's really Criminal Defense Law 101 to advise the senior figures, take the Fifth, don't give them a chance to charge you with perjury, and that appears to be at least what one of these folks has done.
[Cooper:] Can you do that indefinitely? And can you keep just calling in sick?
[Toobin:] Well, sick is sick. And if the person is actually sick, they can't be forced to testify. Certainly, the panel can say, "Look, we want to get proof that you're sick, that you're not just dodging us." Now, in terms of taking the Fifth, looking ahead to the backside of the investigation to when the grand jury, criminal investigation starts, the government can get an immunity order, can say, "You have immunity. You have to testify. You don't have the Fifth Amendment right anymore." But then that person, as a practical matter, can't be prosecuted. So the government has very tough decisions to make about immunity. And certainly, at this early stage, they don't want to start deciding who's a target, who they're going to immunize. So at this point there really is nothing to do except just accept that they're taking the Fifth.
[Cooper:] Before they can start giving excuse me immunity to people, they have to have a sense of what actually happened before the explosion, to figure out who to give immunity to?
[Toobin:] Absolutely. That's the most important thing. If you give someone immunity, you can't take it back. And once they once they actually testify under a grant of immunity, it is effectively impossible to prosecute them. So prosecutors try to be very judicious and give immunity only in circumstances where they really need the testimony, and they really can accept that this person is going to escape prosecution. And that's a judgment you don't want to make at the beginning of an investigation; only towards the end.
[Cooper:] Right. All right. Jeff Toobin, definitely we're in the early days of this. Thanks, Jeff.
[Toobin:] Get better, Anderson.
[Cooper:] Joe following some other breaking news for us thanks in the "360 News and Business Bulletin". Joe, what have you got?
[Johns:] Well, Anderson, late word tonight that Shirley Sherrod, the USDA's Georgia director of rural development, has resigned after a YouTube video surfaced showing her describing to an NAACP audience how she withheld help to a white farmer.
[Shirley Sherrod, Former Georgia Director Of Rural Development, Usda:] But he had come to me for help. What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me, was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him. I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farm land. And here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do.
[Johns:] In a statement tonight, Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "There is zero tolerance for discrimination in USDA and I strongly condemn any acts of discrimination against any person." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today announced a major aid package for Pakistan, saying the two countries are making progress in overcoming their trust deficit. The U.S. is pledging hundreds of millions of dollars to build dams and power plants and to invest in small businesses. A new gel shows promise for preventing HIV infections. In a study of nearly 900 South African women, the vaginal gel cut the overall risk of contracting the HIV virus by 39 percent. Women who used the gel the most had even better results; their risk fell by more than half. Zsa Zsa Gabor is recovering from hip replacement surgery after a fall at her Bel Air home. According to her publicist, the 93-year-old actress is likely to remain in a Los Angeles hospital the rest of the week. And take a look at the UFO that shut down an airport in southeastern China for about an hour. The image is from YouKu.com. Whatever it is, it did not show up on radar, according to local reports. And I've got to tell you, if that's real, the first suspect I'd be looking for is the Chinese military. But that's just me.
[Cooper:] Yes, no doubt about it. Joe thanks. Next on the program: allegations that BP is trying to bankroll scientists. Is the company courting experts and paying them to conceal the truth about the disaster? Also tonight: some of the first responders to the Gulf disaster. What did the mayday call say? What did it say?
[Bradley Shivers, Fisherman:] It said you know, we heard, "This is DeepWater Horizon, DeepWater Horizon. Mayday, mayday. We're abandoning rig."
[Cooper:] From that mayday call to the mission to save lives, the men who raced to the doomed rig, the exclusive interview and what, if anything, it can tell us about what happened that day, coming up on 360.