tore through the south. the coroner in alabama telling cnn that officials are now searching for bodies. one tornado hit selma, causing significant damage according to the mayor there. and at least 24 tornadoes so far tonight have been reported across the south, according to the national weather service. the governor of alabama, kay ivey declaring a state of emergency in six counties already. this is broader than one state. georgia governor brian kemp also declaring a state of emergency. nearly 200,000 people are also without power in alabama, georgia, and tennessee, as the story develops tonight. thank you so much for joining us. you can watch us any time on cnn go, but it is time flow for "ac 360" with anderson cooper. good evening. there is breaking news tonight. new details on the first batch of obama era classified documents which were found back in november, but only acknowledged on monday. more on that shortly. this comes at the end of the day

that saw the naming of a special counsel to investigate president biden's handling of those and other classified documents found at a private office of the current president and his home in wilmington, delaware. the most recent this morning at the same residence according to merrick garland. this afternoon he named robert hur special counsel and laid out a timeline of the case. >> on the evening of november 4th, 2022, the national archives office of inspector general contacted a prosecutor at the department of justice. it informed him that the white house had notified the archives that documents bearing classification markings were identified at the office of the penn biden center for diplomacy and global engagement. on november 9th, the fbi commenced an assessment consistent with standard protocols to understand whether classified information had been mishandled in violation of federal law. on november 14th, pursuant to

section 600.2b of the special counsel regulations, i assigned u.s. tuition lausch to conduct an initial investigation to inform my decision whether to appoint a special counsel. on december 20th, president biden's personal counsel informed mr. lausch that additional documents bearing classification markings were identified in the garage of the president's private residence in wilmington, delaware. this morning, president biden's personal counsel called mr. lash was identified at the president's personal residence in wilmington, delaware. >> so lasch recommended a special counsel be named. now robert hur will have to answer many of the questions we have. for starters, how and why did the classified material from president biden's time as vice president end up where it did? an attorney to the vice president put out a statement saying we are confident that a thorough review will show these

documents were misplaced. keeping them honest, it's not like there has been a flood of information whose existence was first known on november 2nd. nothing was said back then nor on november 20th when additional items were found. on monday, when the administration did acknowledge the first batch, nothing was said about the second discovered nearly three weeks before. here is how press secretary karine jean-pierre explained that today. >> we have been working closely with the department of justice and coordinating a search that was still ongoing to ensure any additional documents were in the proper possession of the government. after that search -- after the search concluded last night, we released a statement disclosing the facts from that search. as you all know, this morning. >> so there is that. there is also the question of what exactly these items pertain to, what the president knew about them, and when. he says he doesn't know what's in the documents that were found.

>> i don't know what's in the documents. my lawyers have not suggested i ask what documents they were. i've turned over the boxes. they've turned over the boxes to the archives, and we're cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review which i hope will be finished soon and there will be more detail at that time. >> so he said he doesn't know what's in the documents. most of his team say they don't know what's in the documents. yet that same day, cnn reporter jeff zeleny said the white house convened a call with top allies, two people telling us none of the documents were, quote, particularly sensitive and were not of high interest to the intelligence community. which of course raises the question if they don't know what's in the documents, how can they say that? and if they do, someone does, did that person tell the president making that denial you just heard untrue? and lastly, but certainly not finally, there is a question of what the president now thinks of what he said just a few months back when asked about the former president's admittedly quite

different version of what he is now facing. >> when you saw the photograph of the top secret documents laid out on the floor at mar-a-lago, what did you think to yourself, looking at that image? >> how that could possibly happen. how anyone could be that irresponsible. and i thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? by that i mean names of people who helped or et cetera. and it just totally irresponsible. >> cnn special correspondent jamie gangel joins us with the breaking news. new reporting on the first batch of documents. what can you tell us? >> anderson, this information is regarding the ten classified documents that were found back on november 2nd in president biden's office at the penn biden center. we have learned among the documents were a memorandum from then vice president president biden to president obama, two

briefing memos preparing him, vice president biden, for phone calls. those calls, one was with the british prime minister. the second was with donald tusk of poland, who was the president of the european council from 2014 to 2019. for clarity, anderson, these were classified documents, but it's unclear how much of this material remains sensitive. over time, classified material becomes perishable. sometimes because it's made public or sometimes because it's just no longer relevant. >> and even though president biden has said he doesn't know what's in the documents, there may be a way for him to find out. >> yeah. one of the things people don't understand is even though the fbi and the justice department have these documents, they have copies of the documents, at least those that were in the first batch at the penn biden center. so even though president biden has said he doesn't know what's in the documents, he could have

access to those documents. those ten classified documents from november 2nd are actually sitting at the national archives. and i'm told according to the guidelines, a source familiar told me if the president wanted to send a trustee over, they could go over to the archives, even though it's part of the investigation and see what they are. >> so what more do we know about the special counsel who is appointed by attorney general garland? >> so as you mentioned, attorney general garland announced the special counsel will be robert hur. he was appointed to two positions by former president trump. he was the u.s. attorney in maryland and also had a very high level position in the trump justice department, working with former deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. in addition to that, hur got his start as a clerk for the former chief justice to the united states, william rehnquist. bottom line, this is someone with impeccable conservative

credentials. >> all right. jamie gangel, appreciate it. >> sure. >> new details on classified documents. appreciate it. i want to bring in jeff zeleny from the white house whose reporting i mentioned earlier. senior law enforcement analyst andy mccabe. cnn political commentator and top obama adviser david axelrod. andrew, you know special counsel robert hur. you worked with him. what should we know about him? >> well, i think jamie summed it up well. rob has an extraordinary background. he is a hardworking guy, a straight shooter. i knew him when he was the assistant, the principle assistant deputy attorney general, as we refer to them, as the pay-dag for rod rosenstein. he was a key member of that leadership team at the department at the time. attorney general jeff session and rod rosenstein being his bosses. yeah, he is a straight forward guy with the right background and the right reputation. obviously, deeply connected on the republican side of things, which should protect him for a

very short period of time. >> andrew, this large issue now encompasses the sitting president and his immediate predecessor. do you think there would be interesting inside the justice department of finding out whether there are classified documents that got removed after other presidencies? >> there's always an interest in returning classified documents back to the authorized storage places where they belong. i think what you -- the fact that we haven't seen issues like this with other president sis, we didn't see it from the obama administration. we didn't see it from the clinton and the others is really a testament to the professionalism and the training of their staff. it becomes much more of a staff issue than it is an issue that the principle themselves actually deals with when it comes to the packing of the office, the moving of those materials that are going to go with the former president and how that stuff is stored, wherever they end up. so i think -- i'm not surprised

at all that president biden's position so far in this thing is that he doesn't actually -- he's not familiar with the documents. says he doesn't know what's in them, and may never have actually even seen them in his office or his residence. >> david, what do you think about how the white house has handled this since the first revelation? >> suboptimal, anderson. look, when you face what is essentially crisis communications, you have to recognize that this is at the least awkward given his comments on what president trump had done. you know, you'd want to gather everything at once and be as open as you possibly can so as not to create the impression of ferr furtiveness. i have no doubt that this argument of inadv vvertence is true, and that will be the end result of this. but because of the way they've

handled it, i think it makes it easier for republicans to do what they want to do which is to create a sense, i think a false sense of equivalency with what happened with trump. and just one point i want to make. president trump never denied that he wanted to take these documents. in fact, he claimed that he made some sort of vulcan mind exercise and made them all unclassified without telling anyone. so there was no even pretense at inadvertence. i should say he hadn't made that argument in court. so this is quite a different situation, but it's enough for republicans in congress and his partisans to say why is he being treated differently. >> jeff, in terms of what president biden knew or didn't know or still doesn't know, how does it all square with your reporting about what other people inside the white house appear to know? >> anderson, look, the president said he was surprised by the finding of this, and he doesn't know the specifics of this. but that's what i am told is the difference here. the specifics being the central thing. he has not seen these documents,

at least since he had them initially when he was the vice president. he has not seen them recently. but i am told that there was a conversation among white house officials and some top level allies in washington in the hours after this story broke essentially downplaying it and saying these documents were not particularly sensitive or of high interest to the intelligence community. so i'm told while the specifics of the classified documents haven't been seen by the president or others, the general topics have become known through the course of the investigation. and now, of course, through jamie gangel's reporting. and as she was saying, someone simply can go over to the archives and look at this. but i think in the context of this, as i've been talking to many people and former presidencies, the offices of the former presidents and vice presidents, vice presidential material is handled in a very different way. the presidential records act really purchase tains to the president. but the vice president's staff largely is left on its own in

some respects. so yes, the classified material was being taken out for months, but it seems like a few random papers were sort of caught up in the mix as he was in a flurry, a whirlwind of activity in the final week of his vice presidency. so he is saying he was surprised by the finding of it, and he doesn't know. but that's not necessarily the fact that people don't know the topics, the general topics of these memos. >> and jamie, we're learning that the doj has started interviewing some of president biden's former aides as part of the investigation. anything on that? >> i think they're interested in talking to anyone who may have been involved in packing the boxes, specifically we're told that kathy chung, who was his executive assistant, biden's executive assistant when he was vice president, has been interviewed. she is now the deputy director of protocol at the pentagon, and so anyone who may be able to shed some light on what was happening in those final days,

the fbi's going to want to talk to. just as a side note, anderson, you know, it is unprecedented to have a president and a former president with these two special counsels being investigated at the same time. i do think it's important, as david axelrod said, the way they've handled it has been not the greatest damage control in the world, but they are very different. the key here, i have been told by sources at the archives is cooperation, and i'm told that they really believe that this was just a mistake. >> andrew, can you explain exactly how the fbi works with special counsel on an investigation like this. >> sure. certainly in the mueller special counsel example, which i was deeply involved in building that team for special counsel mueller, the way it typically works is those fbi agents and

analysts and support staff, administrative staff that are necessary to stand up that effort are essentially sent over to the special counsel's office and told to report only to the special counsel and the attorneys working with them. you want to have a very clean break between those resources and their prior reporting structures back at fbi headquarters or any field offices they may have come from. so the special counsel really has a completely independent fbi workforce to deploy, to do interviews, to work on search warrants, to review evidence, that sort of thing. it's completely at their unilateral control. >> and david, when you look at the timeline of what we know so far about when things were found, when things were announced, what questions are unanswered that remain in your mind? >> well, i think there will be questions about the timeline and why there were these gaps between the discovery of these documents, why they were

announced when they were announced. and i think that makes -- it's made the situation more complicated politically. again, the substance is the substance. this probe may end up being the president's friend here because it may confirm exactly what jamie said she's heard from the people at the archives. but from a political standpoint, you know, it wasn't exactly ideal crisis communication. >> david axelrod, andrew mccabe, jamie gangel, jeff zeleny, thank you. coming up, george santos, who can note tell the truth tells an interviewer a friend line "i've lived a friendly life." we'll show you what happened when manu tries to get some answers, ahead. a massachusetts mom missing, what a newly uncovered report has to say about her husband, who is now in custody. and effortrtlessly responds to both of you. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep peper night.

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republican congressman george santos under growing pressure to step down for his serial dishonesty, said again today he is staying put. speaking on a podcast for congressman matt gaietz. he said he'll only leave if he is voted out of office two years from now. gaetz also gently asked him about where he got all the money he put into his campaign. >> one of the principle critiques i've heard is that a lot of money was donated to your campaign by you, 700,000, i believe. where did it come from? >> i'll tell you where it didn't come from. it didn't come from china,

ukraine or bury burisma. i've worked my entire life. i've never been accused of any bad doings. so it's my -- it's the equity of my hard-working self. >> i've lived an honest life, he says. what number of lie is that? george santos says he has lived an honest life. he's never been accused toe, quote, to do any bad doing. that makes no sense both grammatically and factually. the guy who has lied about his career, religion, heritage, fictitious college, athletic prowess is under check fraud in brazil. he says, quote, i've lived an honest life, never been accuse of anything. cnn's manu raju tried to talk with mr. santos. >> mr. santos, why did you lie to your voters about your qualifications, your past, being jewish, why did you lie to them? don't the voters deserve an

explanation about your widespread lies about your past? how can you be trusted with sensitive security information, mr. santos? >> how can you say your voters elected you if they didn't know who they were electing? >> the fraud charges you're fact, mr. santos? aren't you staying in congress because you're afraid about losing the seat, about democrats picking up the seat? what has the speaker said to you, mr. santos? has he told you to stay in office? have you got insurance to be on any committee assignments, mr. santos? mr. santos? why do you say your family fled the holocaust? is that true? how can you be trusted to have classified security clearances, mr. santos?

mr. santos, why won't you respond to any of these questions about your past? >> wow. that was awkward. who is the other guy there too? what is his job? hard-working manu raju joins us now. so what is the latest house republicans are saying about him? >> well, we're hearing more republicans calling for his resignation. in fact, max millner ohio, a republican freshman called on george santos to resign and specifically raised the issue of him, santos claiming he was jewish and claiming that his family had fled the holocaust. neither of which were true, saying in a statement that this is -- that it's not okay to fabricate or lie for political gain. this is especially true when the lies seeks benefit from the murder of millions of jewish people. now there are five others from the new york delegation also calling on him to resign, but very significantly, kevin mccarthy, the house republican, the house speaker is not doing so. he says that it's up to voters in his district to decide.

he said there is a process by which things can get determined in the house, the house ethics committee reviewing it and then they can decide any resource. but the very real issue here for republican leaders, anderson, he comes from a district that joe biden carried by eight points in 2020. if he were to resign, this would open up a seat that could very well flip to the democrats, and kevin mccarthy right now would hold his razor thin majority does not want to make his margins tighter. so he is willing to see santos stay in office, despite all these concerns about his credibility even santos himself admitting about all those mistruths, lies from his past. >> i spoke, and yet today says he says he's lived an honest life. i spoke with seth mouton last night about concerns. many republicans, do they seem to share that concern? i know mccarthy obviously has other reasons not to. >> i actually asked a bunch of republicans about that today. they're not really echoing those

concerns. many of them -- the ones who are calling on him to step aside are concerned about the other aspects of his lies. even some concerned about him like congressman don bacon would not go as far as saying he has concerns about the national security aspect of it. but that was a question i put directly to kevin mccarthy at his press conference today. i said well, the fact that you have someone here who is potentially facing fraud charges in brazil, who fabricated major portions of his life, how can you trust him to have classified briefings, get access to the nation's secrets? and he said initially i don't think -- he said i don't see any way he is going to have top secret -- and then he caught himself because he will have access to classified briefings. then he went on to say he has a long way to earn trust. the voters of his district have elected him. he is seated. he is part of the republican conference. right now republican leaders standing behind him. but anderson, if more revelations come out, he is facing serious investigations right now. if things turn worse early, we'll see if that tone changes.

>> appreciate it. coming up, even with russia's desperation signs of trouble in ukraine. the fight in the east, why a ukrainian soldier telling cnn why he is feeling abandoned. with a view of the war tonight, that's next. get refunds.com powered by innovation refunds can help your business get a payroll tax refund, even iyou got ppp and it only takes eight minutes to qualify. i went on their website, uploaded everything, and i was blown away by what they could do. getrefunds.com has helped businesses get over a billion dollars and we can help your business too.

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breaking news tonight in the ana walshe mystery. her husband is charged with misleading police as they search for her. our national correspondent jason carroll is in cohasset tonight with brand-new information about their past. jason, this is no doubt going to be of interest to investigators. what are you learning? >> that's for sure, arnd. it's another disturbing development. there has been so many in this particular case. now another one emerging tonight. according to a public incident report from 2014, this was before the couple got married, ana apparently told police in washington, d.c. -- and remember, d.c. is where she works at that real estate firm -- she told police that brian walshe at the time made a statement over the telephone that he was going to kill her and her friend.

i'm going to repeat that, made a statement over the telephone that he was going to kill her and her friend. this, again, back in 2014, making a threat like that of course is a felony. but again, according to this incident report, it says that the victim refused to cooperate in the prosecution, which is why that never went forward. so, again, anderson, yet another disturbing detail in a case that has been filled with them. meanwhile, out here in cohasset, just earlier tonight, there was a candlelight vigil for ana and her three small children. we spoke to a number of people out here who basically said they stopped watching the news because there have been so many horrific details. so tonight those that we spoke to say that their prayers are for ana and their three children. anderson? >> and jason, her three children are still in the custody of the state, is that right? >> that is correct. the youngest two, the oldest

six, still in the custody of the state. and one of ana's supporters who was out here earlier tonight was saying that her hope is that the three children can be kept together and not separated, because you can imagine all that they're going through, missing their mother, trying to sort out what has happened with their family. so the hope at this point is that the children can be kept together. >> jason carroll, appreciate it. thank you. i want to bring in martha coakley, the former massachusetts attorney general. thank you so much for being with us. you heard jason's reporting. what do you make of where this investigation stands tonight? >> so it's making progress, obviously, and there is a lot that we can't see. i will say i think it's pretty likely those three kids will be kept together in the short-run, but on the latest evidence, anderson, one of the things i'd be concerned about as far as the case goes is that it's very old. it's almost ten years old. anybody looking at that in terms of a trial would have to say what's the evidentiary value of

it? it really doesn't go to intent or motive in 2023. having said that, it starts to complete a bigger picture of who he was, how he behaved, what their relationship may have been like, and that is all important for investigators as they move forward, looking for evidence, both testimonial, real, including dna, and circumstantial evidence that all goes to whether they can and will indict and ultimately what a jury would do with this case. >> so evidence of a past threat from that far long ago, a threat before they were married, obviously they ended up staying together and getting married, that would not be allowed in court, you don't think? >> at this stage i'd say it's unlikely. it doesn't have much evidentiary value, and it is inflammatory. it could be presidential. but it is helpful to investigators to take a look at what was the relationship past between these two, and does it help them now. that's different from what could be admitted before a jury, if it were ever to go to trial. >> this investigation obviously

spans several jurisdictions. how difficult does that make it for law enforcement, also for prosecutors who may eventually have to stitch all these pieces together? >> well, interestingly, most of this is happening in massachusetts. and so although there is local district attorneys, one of the things viewers may not know, in massachusetts by and large, every district attorney has jurisdiction over the homicide, investigation into a homicide, and they work with state and local police. so state jurisdiction shouldn't be an issue, but they would also get cooperation if they needed to work with d.c. police, for instance, or other jurisdictions. that's not going to be a big issue for them. there are a lot of crime scenes, and there is a lot of work to be done. but this is where a d.a. and an assistant d.a. who is working on the search warrants, the investigators who can work with crime scene investigators as a team to see what they need to get, how they need to cross their t's and dot their i's on these warrants to make sure they're seizing evidence properly, and to make sure, and

in this case i think you can see that because he is being held on that charge of misleading investigators, it gives them a little more breathing room to make sure they're doing it right, and that if there is a charge, if this is brought to trial and there is a conviction, that it would be upheld. >> just going back to the children, in a case like this, who determines what happens to them? obviously i assume an effort would be made for, you know, relatives, friends of the family, or something who main either be able to care for them in the short-term, or longer term, but who obviously decides that kind of thing? >> they are within and rightfully so right now with a mother missing, a father in custody, they are in the custody of our department of children and families. and they may end up, depending on where this goes, making that decision. the first effort is always going to be to place them with family members if possible who are able to care for them.

but as we know, you know, ana walshe's family, mother does not live in this country. and he -- the father is an only child. so that will remain to be seen. but that is up to the state in these very unfortunate circumstances. >> when it comes to forensic evidence that may have been disposed of in the trash or something else, what sort of clock are authorities up against to find those sorts of leads can grow cold quickly, can't they? >> well, actually, dna is pretty resistant. they can find any kind of clothing, anything that may have dna on it. we know there is some weapons potentially or articles that were used in the house. if they find articles of clothing or other -- any kind of matter that they think they can get samples from, they are fine right now. really, the clock is ticking in some respects, but again,

because he is in custody, they can take their time, do the tests they need to, and make sure they're gathering the evidence properly, thoroughly so that it can be used if there is to be an indictment. and i'm sure they feel that getting it done right so it can withstand appeal down the road is more important right now than getting it done quickly. >> yeah. >> remember, this is still a missing persons case. and we have a person of interest. what the d.a. has to decide with his investigative team is was there a murder and who did it. and so that's what they are working on now, determining circumstantially with other evidence was there a homicide that took place here or not, and if so, who is responsible for that? and you can see where circumstantial evidence is going to play a big role in this case. >> martha coakley, we really appreciate talking to you. thank you. >> thank you. ahead we're going to ukraine

with our clarissa ward who is on the ground there for the fight in the east. ukrainian soldiers hanging on in the face of a russian onslaught, and how the ukrainian people are referring to the cold winter as the war grinds on. we hope you like your work. (♪ ♪) [ music playing ] when we first arrived at st. jude, it was just claire and i. she was still recovering from her brain surgery. and side effects of that surgery meant that she had to rearn how to walk and how to speak. ♪ [ male announcer ] you can join the battle to save lives by supporting st. jude children's research hospital. two months after we arrived, my three-year-old came to visit, and claire lit up. she was quiet before. and i thought it was just because cancer's hard, but she was really missing her siblings,

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the russian war effort has placed a great emphasis on its siege of the eastern ukrainian town of soledar. a ukrainian soldier there tells cnn, quote, we are just

abandoned. the soldier, who we're not identifying for security reasons says they tried to withdraw on their own. if they wait for an order to go, the soldier says, they likely won't have time to get out. he warned the troops are out of food, low on water and struggling to help wounded comrades. our chief international correspondent clarissa ward joins us from kyiv. clarissa, thanks for being with us. what are things like in ukraine tonight? >> i think, anderson, if i had to describe the mood, i would say it's sort of grim determination, but really, with an emphasis on grim. we are now deep in the winter. it is bitterly cold. there are rolling blackouts. there are regular bombings. the fighting in the donbas region is kind of grinding on. it's sort of at a stalemate. and so i think there is a growing realization for many ukrainians that this isn't going to end necessarily in the next few weeks or even few months. and so people take it day by day. there is some optimism about the

flow of weapons, the type of weapons coming in, the fact that we're going to see up to 100 ukrainians traveling to the u.s. next week to get trained on how to use that patriot missile, the fact that air defenses are improving, but it's a grind and it's a slog and it is tough. >> one of ukraine's top generals predicted that russia could make another attempt to attack kyiv with ground forces, probably as soon as the end of january. that obviously has to be a huge concern. >> this is something you hear a lot, and particularly last month in the run-up to president zelenskyy's visit to the u.s., you heard a lot of top ukrainian leaders and military leaders talking about this much vaunted sort of spring offensive that they believe the russians are planning for. and the reason they give behind believing this or fearing that it's going to happen makes a lot of sense. putin mobilized 300,000 troops, anderson. roughly half of those are still in training.

that training will come to an end some time probably in february or in the springtime. so the theory is, or the logical supposition is that they will then push to make another big offensive. whether that's in donbas, whether that's in the south, whether that's in kyiv as the commander in chief of armed forces has suggested, nobody knows. but it's definitely a big fees, and that's part of the reason that you're seeing the ukrainians really trying to keep their foot on the gas, keep the pressure going and keep international support coming in. >> we've also been covering this week some of the fiercest fighting of this war just in the past few weeks in the eastern ukraine near soledar, bakhmut, how do ukrainian authorities think about the tempo of the conflict? >> so i mean, there is no two ways about it. the situation is very difficult for ukrainian forces right now in bakhmut and in soledar. cnn actually spoke to ukrainian soldier in soledar who said --

wanting to keep anonymous, but he said the situation is dire. we're running out of food. we're running low on water, and the ukrainians themselves, even the leadership acknowledged that this is a very difficult situation. from soledar potentially you're looking at bakhmut. it's six miles away. and really, this area is seen, anderson, as being the kind of gateway to the donbas region. so strategically, it is important for the ukrainians to try to hold on to it. but they are getting hammered, and they are getting hammered hard. they have managed to stand their ground thus far, but it remains an open question how long they can keep that up. >> there is also -- russia is just now appointed a new general to oversee the war. the previous one i think lasted just three months. is -- how is that interpreted on the ukrainians side? >> well, i think obviously, you know, primarily it's interpreted as some kind of a failure, right. this is the fourth leader they've had in one year. so clearly something's not going right that they keep shifting and changing tactics.

i think for people who are really watching the minutia of why would he change leader now and why would he choose gerasimov, this general who is basically the de facto leader of all of russia's armed forces, and people have come up with different conclusions as to why that may be. it may be that putin is looking for a fall guy ultimately if things don't go right, that he would be the one to take full responsibility for it. it may also be a kind of declaration of intent that not only are we going to slow things down, we're going to maximize things. we're going get the navy more involved. we're going get the air force more involved. we're going to actually try to increase the pressure and the scale of this operation. so different people have different perspectives on why this may be, but certainly a lot of people saying that it doesn't really bode well for the russians that they have such a high turnover, anderson. >> clarissa ward from kyiv tonight, thank you. so just ahead, more breaking news. at least six deaths in alabama

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. more breaking news tonight. at least six people are dead in alabama after at least 24 tornados hit the southeast, part of a much larger storm system that struck the region. so, where's the greatest threat right now? >> reporter: anderson, this is still a powerful storm system. we still have a tornado watch in effect across southern portions of georgia. that's going to be an area of concern over the next couple of hours. if we zoom in even closer, you can see a severe thunderstorm warning that includes raleigh. these storms could produce winds and large hail. we could see a brief tornado or

two still to come. you can see the thunderstorm warnings across southern georgia as well. as we go into the rest of the evening, we could see a few tornados, damaging winds, and large hail primarily in those areas shaded in yellow and green, anderson. >> will there still be a threat of major storms into the overnight hours. >> the overnight hours, we are going to see potential for severe storms as the storms march to the east. they are going to quickly make it off the coast. these storms are traveling about 55 miles per hour. so, very fast moving. so, by the time we get into tomorrow morning, things do look much better. however, there is still a threat during the overnight hours for the potential for strong storms. we'll see about an inch of rain potentially across the southeast. could see snow for portions of the mid-atlantic. but this was a powerful system. 34 tornado reports. 114 wind reports. we had hail reports. and you can really see across alabama, you can see three streaks right here. those are really the three

significant tornados. one of them, the one that went through selma, possibly was on the ground, anderson, for about 15 miles. so, these were definitely significant storms that rolled through the south. >> appreciate it. thank you. we're learning more about what caused the faa ground stoppage yesterday. pete, what can you tell us? >> anderson, we're learning more about this all the time. the federal aviation administration has been in the cross hairs of critics since yesterday. 10,000 flights delayed, another 1,300 cancelled. and we were the first to report that the computer system that crashed, which stores critical safety information for pilots was 30 years old. now the faa says it knows the cause of the failure, not the age of the system but rather who was working on it. in a just released statement, the faa says it determined that a data file was damaged by personnel who failed to follow procedures. government sources tell us the

faa first noticed tuesday night. the notam database crashed because of that damaged file. and the file also impacted the backup system. the faa tried to reset, plugging in again, but the restart failed, triggering a nationwide ground stop for 90 minutes. all air traffic paralyzed, anderson, something we have not seen since the 9/11 attacks. another government official tells me the computer system was not slated to be updated by the faa for at least another six years. that caught the attention of transportation secretary pete buttigieg. the faa falls under the transportation department, remember. the source tells us the buttigieg is not happy with how this update was planned, and he wants that system that caused these cascading cancellations fixed fast so this does not happen again, anderson. >> does it seem like this was done on purpose, or was it accidental? >> the f, aa has ruled out a cyber attack here. we do not think it was caused on purpose. this seems like it was something

accidental. the faa initially says the damaged database file may have been something simply uploaded to the system during the routine uploading of notams, the critical safety alerts for pilots. not totally clear what caused this all to come down, although the faa does say now that it was really personnel, human error. >> pete muntean, appreciate it. coming up, more on the breaking news about the classified documents prompting a new special counsel to investigate president biden and his handling of them. big wireles are busy spending billions on advertising. at m mint we're not into wastining money. so we bought this spiffy stock footage for $500. our footage also came with another hand, so we can let you know if you switch to mint, you'll get three months free on all of our plans. even unlimited. feels like that deserves an exclamation point. whoa. easy, easy. to finally lose 80 pounds and keep it off with golo

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a special counsel, pursuant to department of justice regulations governing such matters. this appointment underscores for the public, the department's commitment to independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters and to making decisions indisputably died guided by the facts and the law. >> david axelrod called the white house handling of this situation, the white house now, to use his word, suboptimal. others have put it more bluntly, raising more direct questions about transparency, including cnn's phil mattingly. how is the white house reacting to the appointment of a special counsel. >> officially the white house counsel says they believe the investigation will have full cooperation from white house officials and biden's attorneys. and it will show that in the end this was a mistake, an inadvertent mistake at that. when the attorney general made this appointme