Charleston Shooter Bought Gun Illegally.
HARLOW: You're looking at live pictures out of Phoenix, Arizona, where we are waiting, hearing from Donald Trump, who will be making a speech at that rally where his team says 10,000 to 12,000 people have gathered. We earlier heard from Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County. We will bring you Trump's remarks as soon as they begin. I also do want to focus -- I do want us to focus on another very important story right now, because the man who confessed to shooting nine people and killing them in that church in Charleston, South Carolina, was never supposed to have a gun. Dylann Roof was never supposed to be able to buy a gun. The FBI says they made a mistake. There was a clerical error that allowed him to buy that gun. Dylann Roof has a prior arrest record that would have kept him from legally buying a gun. But he managed to do it anyway because the process failed, the background check process failed. Let's talk about this with legal analyst, Mark Geragos, joining us from Los Angeles; and in New York, Danny Cevallos. Guys, we just obtained this statement from the attorney for Reverend and State Senator Clementa Pinckney, who perished in that horrible mass shooting. He spoke to our Sunny Hostin today, the attorney for the estate, and said the family is concerned about the FBI's revelations about the gun and what happened and that they made a mistake. Part of the statement reads this, quote, "The FBI says it's a glitch. But it's an error, but for this, nine people may be alive today. As the attorney for the estate, it is my fiduciary duty to explore all legal options available." Mark Geragos, to you first. It sounds like, potentially, they will sue. Do they have grounds?</s>MARK GERAGOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He's right. He's got a fiduciary duty to explore it. If you're talking about is he going to sue some clerk or the FBI and get anywhere with that, no, they're not. There's immunities for that and that's a fool's errand in terms of a lawsuit.</s>HARLOW: Why? Why is it a fool's errand?</s>GERAGOS: You're not going to get anywhere.</s>HARLOW: Why is it a fool's errand?</s>GERAGOS: Because the government has created -- the government has created all kinds of immunities and they claim they're qualified, but most federal district court judges will kick out cases like this or such as this and say that there's immunity and that you can't do this and that the government is not going to be held responsible. It's one of the things that drives you crazy as a lawyer, but that's the reality of it.</s>HARLOW: Danny?</s>DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He's absolutely right. Qualified immunity in the executive context will protect officials and clerks from performing their discretionary activities. Liability is theoretically possible if they violate some constitutional provision or clearly established law, but that is probably, in the vast majority of cases, as I'm sure Mark knows, that just doesn't happen. Interestingly enough, while somebody injured by or killed in a situation like this will find it exceedingly difficult to sue the government. In fact, prospective buyers can sue the government if they are denied a gun that they believe they are entitled to purchase. So in theory, Dylann Roof, had he been denied and believed that was done so improperly, there is actual federal law granting a prospective buyer the right to sue in federal district court and the federal government does not have immunity in that situation.</s>HARLOW: I'm interested, Mark, on this point, whether or not -- it's interesting that the FBI came out and said this openly. James Comey, director of the FBI, came out and said it was heartbreaking to discover that this was an error that they made. Are they legally obligated to do that, to come out and say this is what happened, or did they -- you would hope that any government agency would always say when we made a mistake but I don't think that's always the case.</s>GERAGOS: Yeah, I was going to say, it's that old joke with the government knocking on your door, "Hey, we're the government, we're here to help." They are not legally obligated to. I'm not the only one. Several of us commentators here on CNN, several, at least a couple days ago, maybe a week ago, said he shouldn't have had a gun. He had that arrest. That should have triggered something. So I think what they're doing now is they realize that people have done the research and are getting out ahead of it. You can either applaud them or not for at least owning up to it. But my experience with the federal government is that they rarely own up to anything unless they have been caught.</s>HARLOW: They certainly did in this case. And, Danny, just so people know, the clerical error here was that the person, the FBI sort of runs the background check program and the person who was doing the background check on Dylann Roof in that three-day waiting period did not find that he had been convicted of a drug offense in the county which he's within. Mistakes do happen but what can spur change?</s>CEVALLOS: People are always surprised when something like this happens. The reality is law enforcement is vulcanized by design. They are separated by many different agencies. And just, if you wondered how this can happen, pick up the phone, call Mark Geragos, call any defense attorney and ask them, has a clerical error, a semicolon in the wrong place by a judge, a court, a law enforcement agency or a prison, ever caused havoc for your clients or their families, and the answer will uniformly be yes. These agencies in communicating with each other, every communication creates the opportunity for some clerical error. It happens, all the time.</s>HARLOW: Yeah. So incredibly unfortunate in this situation. We'll see what happens. Again, the estate for Clementa Pinckney saying they are exploring their legal options. Danny Cevallos, Mark Geragos, thank you both so much. Coming up any moment, in front of a very large crowd, Donald Trump speaks in Phoenix. We will take you there as soon as it starts.