in a huge win for the justice department, a jury just found four members of the proud boys guilty of seditious conspiracy including the group's leader enrique tarrio. all of this related to their roles in the january 6th insurrection. baseless lies, the biden

administration is blasting moscow's claim that the u.s. is somehow tied to yesterday's drone explosion near the kremlin. now russia is seeking revenge, even using drones itself to attack ukraine with the words for moscow written on them. we're live from the battlefield. and a mysterious illness, a detroit public school forced to shut down after reports of a spike in illnesses among young students stricken with flu-like symptoms. we're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to cnn "news central." ♪ from insurrection to conviction, a major day for justice, coming two years and three months after the attack on the nation's capitol. some of the most serious offenders charged with the most serious violations were just found guilty. these four members of the far right group the proud boys are

guilty of seditious conspiracy for trying to forcibly stop the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. after deliberating for more than seven days, the federal jury convicted ethan nordine joseph bigs, and most notably enrique tarrio of the charge. he was considered the ring leader of the group and was not in washington the day extremists invaded the capitol, incited by former president trump's lies that the election was stolen from him. cnn's sara sidner has been following this trial since it started several months ago. this capitol riot investigation has been huge with more than a thousand arrests. help us put these guilty verdicts into perspective today out of everything that's happened since that january 6th. >> this is a really big moment, particularly for the doj, but also for the country and those that experienced this fear of having their lives put in

jeopardy during the riot that was the attack on the capitol on january 6th. there are five members of the proud boys who are on trial, four of them a jury decided they were guilty of seditious conspiracy, and remember what seditious conspiracy means? it means that they were trying to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power by going in and trying to stop congress from doing its due diligence and its duty. they wanted to keep president donald trump at the time in power and keep president-elect biden out of power at the time on january 6th, 2021. the jurors, though, interestingly in this case, they failed to reach a decision on a seditious conspiracy charge for one of the defendants, and they were working on that, and we're just getting new information coming in. the only person that was not found guilty for seditious conspiracy was one of the defendants whose name is dominic

pezzola. he has also been convicted of other counts that are very serious, but the most serious charge is the seditious conspiracy charge. the jury was having a very hard time with that particular charge, and i will tell you, you see his picture there, but he is going to be remembered as the person who broke through the window of the capitol, the first to do so that let a flood of people in through that broken window. we have all seen the video over and over again over these many, many months. you see that video there taken by a live streamer who was right there getting it. that is pezzola, and he is holding a police officer's shield that he grabbed from an officer at some point and then is slamming it into the window, and then you see as people rush in. he has been convicted in some of the cases there are ten charges, but the jury is still struggling, has been struggling with some of those charges, and we now hear that on some of

those charges the jury has told the judge they're just basically at a deadlock. and so we will have to wait and see as to whether they have been able to come up with whether or not they find him guilty or not guilty of seditious conspiracy, but they have found him guilty of other things as well as the other four members there. >> and sara, i'm sorry to interrupt you but i'm being told we do have an update on that. i want to go to katelyn polantz, stand by for us. she is outside the courthouse, and kaitlyn, you've got new information. >> reporter: right, so the jury is in the room with the judge right now, and there are -- there is a discussion going on on what is going to be happening. now, what we do understand from two reporters we have there is that there is additional verdicts, at least one additional verdicts on some of those charges that the jury was not able to come to a conclusion on, although there are other things that the jury is now telling the judge they haven't been able to get a unanimous agreement on, and they probably

won't. that doesn't mean deliberations are over. the big picture here when you step back, when you look at this is that the justice department has locked up convictions. they have locked up finding four leaders of the proud boys guilty of seditious conspiracy and others guilty of other serious charges, conspiracy, obstruction, rioting on the capitol, assaulting police, taking a riot shield, those are all very, very serious counts put together, and it is quite a significant moment for the justice department to be able to bring this case to this conclusion after so many attempts by this defense team to get this case thrown out, to get a mistrial declared, or to get the jury somehow derailed from finding these men guilty. >> and katelyn, you alluded to this, but being found guilty of seditious conspiracy is such a rare thing.

we don't see that much. we don't see those charges much. help put into context how rare some of all of this is to see not only these charges being put forth but these men being found guilty of them? >> reporter: this is not something that you see, not even every day. you barely even see it every decade. in the past the justice department had tried to bring it against militia members. it had not survived in court, was tossed out on the law, but seditious conspiracy was something that the justice department decided that they thought they could prove, and they have proven with multiple juries now against members of the oath keeper, that right wing group of many former military police who came to the capitol on january 6th and were led by stewart rhodes, the leader there and then now with the proud boys, another right wing group, and they were able to prove with this seditious conspiracy case two things, that there was an

agreement among these four men at least that they did want to take part in violence, that they wanted to get people interested in politics and then were so angered by the result of the 2020 election that they wanted to then try and overthrow the u.s. government or block or hinder the laws of the u.s. government, a very, very significant accusation. at the end of the day, it carries a similar possibility of prison time to other counts that these men are charged with, but just the decision alone by the justice department to bring a seditious conspiracy case here and to be able to secure it, to secure the guilty convictions by this jury, that is a big deal. >> yes, it sure is. all right, katelyn stand by, thank you so much for that update. let's go back to sara sidner again. you've been covering these cases since they really began for months and months now. i want to get your reaction to what katelyn just updated us with, but also i would like you

to walk us through enrique tarrio who is the leader of the proud boys who was convicted. he wasn't even there that day, and that seems pretty extreme as well, pretty momentous. >> reporter: so it is momentous. he is no longer the president of the proud boys, and he had actually relinquished that role before he was charged in this case, but the fact that he wasn't there made no difference clearly to this jury and to the prosecutors who said this is about the planning and plotting, the conspiracy, if you will, to try and stop the peaceful transfer of power. and what they showed and the jury agreed with is enough evidence to show that that was true, that there was a plot or a plan to try and do this, to try and go into the capitol using some kind of force to keep the peaceful transfer of power, the presidential power from happening. and they used all sorts of things. they used any kind of communication between him and others.

they also used some of the communications that were public that were on his telegram channel or that were on his social media. some of the words that he used, they used against him, and they did that with each and every one of those five members of the proud boys. it is significant, though, that he was not there. he did not take part in the riots. he was actually banned from being in d.c. at the time because he had burned a black lives matter flag that was hanging on a church and was carrying some magazines that were -- some firearm magazines that were illegal in d.c. and so a judge told him that he was not allowed to come back into the city as that case preceded, and so here we are on january 6th, 2021, and what the prosecutors argued was that he was front and center telling people what to do, where to go, making plans, telling them to

wear, you know, all different colors. they usually wore black and red. they decided not to do that so they could, quote, fit in and look like, quote, antifa in case anything went down. so they used a lot of their words against them to show -- which is what they had to do -- to show their plan in this case. but it is a really historic moment. remember that the last time you saw this number of defendants together who were facing seditious conspiracy charges was the oath keeper's trial, another far right group that was there during all of this and who faced the same charges, some of them were convicted, others weren't. this case for the doj was extremely important as was the oath keeper's case, the first case that they made this charge to a large body, a large number of people, and it really might put a damper on some of these groups who are considered extreme when it comes to their actions and what they actually end up doing because there are

serious consequences now. we're talking just the seditious conspiracy charge alone is up to 20 years in prison if they are convicted. >> right, some very, very serious consequences. let's go back to katelyn polantz who's getting even more breaking details. katelyn, i want to get right to you. what are you learning? >> reporter: so we don't have the exact verdict yet that the jury has reached in three more hours of deliberating today, but we do know that they have reached a verdict on that fifth defendant for that seditious conspiracy charge. this man dominic pezzola who the jury has already said they do find him guilty of taking a police shield from a police person at the capitol on january 6th and then using it to break a window and get inside the building leading many rioters to want to follow him inside, overcoming the capitol, and we have been waiting. we know that the jury has already found four of the proud boys leaders, the people who were in touch well before

january 6th talking about civil war. they have found those men guilty of seditious conspiracy. they had not reached a verdict this morning on whether pezzola also would be guilty or not guilty of that charge. we haven't yet seen the jury come back in to deliver what that verdict is. they were in and then they went out of the courtroom again. there are some other counts that the jury was not able to come to a conclusion on, but those are relatively minor compared to the work that this jury did today and over the last seven days. we will be able to see the result for all five proud boys defendants on trial today related to that seditious conspiracy charge levied by the justice department. >> right, so stay with us. we are waiting nfor that to com in. katelyn, we will check back in with you. let's get a quick break, and we'll be right back. with t-mobile for business, save more than $1000 versrsus verizon. and with our price lock guarantee,

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we've just gotten news in the remaining charges against the members of the proud boys, remaining verdicts as well, some where the jury came to a unanimous verdict, others where the judge has declared a mistrial because they were not able to come to a unanimous verdict, katelyn, tell us what we know. >> reporter: well, jim, earlier today there were four members of the proud boys, leaders of that right wing group found guilty by the jury of seditious conspiracy, among other charges related to january 6th. and now we are waiting to hear what verdict the jury has reached related to a fifth person in that group among the proud boys, a man named dominic pezzola. the jury could not figure out what they wanted to do with pezzola related to seditious conspiracy earlier, but they have now reached a verdict for him. we don't know what it is yet. but this is a really big moment

for the justice department in so many ways. this trial has been extremely long. there was an exceptional amount of effort put in to gather the evidence needed to bring the prosecution against these men. these members of the proud boys. and there were things that the justice department found in chats even among members of the proud boys that they were able to show to the jury so far to help secure these convictions, things like a message enrique tarrio, the leader of the proud boys, had sent to other proud boys on january 6th saying, make no mistake, we did this. that was a crucial piece of evidence in this case so far, and it did allow the jury to find tarrio guilty of seditious conspiracy. he was not on the grounds of the capitol or even in washington, d.c., on january 6th, so that was quite a monumental thing for the justice department to be able to are prove in this case. but we are still waiting for that additional count. what happened with the other

seditious conspiracy charge against dominic pezzola. pezzola is a person that is very visibly part of the story of the day of january 6th. he had -- he's seen in many images, in video, in photos breaking a window, in this case, he was accused of ripping a riot shield away from a police officer and then taking it to bash into a window in the back side of the capitol building at a time when the crowd had sort of settled down, the police were basically getting their line regrouped, and pezzola was able to get them in leading others into the building. jim. >> a big day there, and katelyn, we have just gotten word that the jury is back in the courtroom, another verdict -- another part of this verdict is going to be read, so we are going to let you go so that you can see what is going to happen there and report back to us. i do want to bring in former federal prosecutor renato mariati to talk a little bit

about what we just heard from katelyn. renato, what do you think about this? and obviously there are so many charges at play here, the jury able to make a lot of progress as we await to hear this fifth verdict when it comes to dominic pezzola, but what do you think overall of what's come out so far? >> well, first of all, this really looks like a very careful jury. i think it gives you some newfound faith in the jury system. it's clearly a jury that's very carefulfully consly considering evidence and the charges. i think it's going to help these verdicts be upheld on appeal -- >> renato, i am so sorry to interrupt you. i want to go back to katelyn right now because she has the news of this other verdict that has just been read. katelny, what can you tell us? >> so this jury has found dominic pezzola, a member of the proud boys not guilty of seditious conspiracy in this case, so they're splitting in this major case where they are

deciding that the four leaders of the proud boys, the men who were in communication before the capitol riot talking about war, civil war, they have found those four men guilty, but this man, dominic pezzola, the fifth man, the one that prosecutors say led the charge into the capitol, breached the building, and was the key player at the tip of the spear specifically in this group trying to get the rioters to overthrow the u.s. government, he is not guilty. that said, dominic pezzola has been found guilty by this jury earlier today for several other things related to the capitol riot including assaulting police, robbery of the personal property of the police, taking that riot shield among destruction of government property, among some other charges today. but this is a split verdict, and so it is one of those things that is going to lead the defense attorneys for the other proud boys to want to argue even more. they've argued quite a bit, and i'm sure that they are planning

appeals going forward from now. >> renato, i want to go to you. it's a lot for folks to digest at home. we were reporting thisd of sedi conspiracy, which is quite a serious charge, not an easy one to prove in court, you and others have made thar repeatedl. four guilty of charges, one of just place this into context here, a careful jury that a jury that came to quite a conclusion for several leaders of this group regarding their role in january 6th. >> that's right, jim, you know, if you asked me a couple of years ago would we see charges for seditious conspiracy against any defendant, i would have said absolutely not. i'm sure i did on the air once or more than once. it's a very rarely brought statute. it's the sort of statute that's rarely charged, charges i don't think we've really seen since after the civil war. difficult to prove, and so i

think what you saw here like you said, jim, very careful jury parsing the evidence found four defendants guilty of seditious conspiracy. i think it's a landmark, you know, achievement frankly by the justice department, a very challenging case to bring and one that undercuts a lot of the narratives about january 6th being, you know, just a bunch of hoodlums or, you know, something that was disorganized. actually, you know, there was a lot of evidence presented at this trial regarding planning and coordination, like katelyn mentioned a moment ak. the fact that the fifth defendant's not guilty of that as katelny pointed out, a number of other convictions of him including conspiracy charges regarding obstruction of an official proceeding. so a similar sentence, but actually, i think, a set of verdicts that are going to now hold up very well on appeal given the careful consideration by the jury. >> renato, thanks so much. stay with us for a second, i'd like to go out to sara sidner who's been following these cases for months now, really since the beginning. sara, you and i were talking a

little bit ago about consequences. renato underscored that point saying this really flies in the face that this is any argument that this is just a bunch of people that got together and happened to be at the capitol that day. this is a seditious conspiracy conviction for four of these people. this latest gentleman not guilty but guilty of so many other things. help us understand what this means for this moving forward and kind of zoom out if you can, because we're kind of getting down in the weeds a little bit, for people who are just tuning in, what does this mean? >> reporter: all right, so i'll sort of start with the reasons why perhaps a jury did not convict pezzola, the fifth defendant who faced seditious conspiracy charges. part of the reason may be because he was not in a leadership position. en enrique tarrio was then the president, if you will, the leader of the national organization of proud boys at that time, and then the others who were convicted held some kind of higher up role, and so

you had someone who was like the head of the philadelphia proud boys, right, the president of the philadelphia proud boys. so they looked at this and said in order for this to have been a conspiracy, in order for this to have planned and plotted the heads of these different proud boy groups, were at the forefront of this, and they had to show the evidence. again, this is not -- this trial went on for something like 18 weeks. there was a mountain of evidence, and there was a large defense as well, which is one of the reasons why this went on so long. a lot of arguing by the attorneys with the judge, with the other attorneys on all sorts of different pieces and parts of this case, but ultimately a jury of their peers came back and said, you are guilty of seditious conspiracy. you are guilty of, you know, going after police officers and taking their equipment and breaking into the capitol, and it is significant. they took video of themselves

out there, and trust me when i say as i watched this group change and morph and grow, the group was growing up until -- up until this time, and the question now will be is this a warning to those thinking about joining groups like this who started to become quite radicalized, quite far right, quite extreme. is this a warning to those thinking about joining or being attracted to them to see what is happening to these men who went to the capitol, one of whom didn't even go to the capitol but was still convicted of seditious conspiracy. you talk to anyone who covers and watches the extremist groups in this country, and they will tell you, it will definitely be something that may chill the water for anyone thinking of jumping in to one of these groups. >> one thing we should note, they were attempting to overturn an election lost by former president donald trump, who is now the leading republican candidate for president in 2024,

at least at this point in the process. >> yeah, and i think there's a very big message here, sara, which is there is the act of say breaking into a building as these very important proceedings, obviously critical to the -- critical to democracy, critical to our democracy, right? there's the damaging of property, there's what we saw happened to so many police officers who suffered that day, and then there's also this idea of planning, right? of people making a plan to impede this process, and that that is incredibly significant, sara, that that is something that is going to be -- these folks are going to be accountable for. >> that's right, and think about this. the doj has done dozens and dozens and dozens of trials, right, and had some people have pleaded guilty, but they have not lost one so far, and if you

look at how they went after these two groups specifically, this is the harshest, highest charge that they can charge anyone with, and you saw two groups, the oath keepers and the proud boys, both of whom were clearly present that day. they saw the doj look at the groups, look at what they did, look at all the evidence and the conversations between them on media, on apps, on social media, and they said, okay, these groups had a plan and we're going to go after them, and it is exactly what they did, and in both cases, some of the members were convicted of seditious conspiracy, and all of the members of both of these groups that went on trial were convicted of other serious charges if they were not convicted of seditious conspiracy. so this is a win for the doj, but it is also a warning to anyone who is thinking of trying

to stop the democracy in this country. and you look at what they did, especially dominic pezzola slashing into the capitol. that led a slew of people into the capitol from a place where you weren't expecting people to come in, so you saw this huge number of people pushing in through that broken window. i mean, it is remarkable to see that happen, and it would have been surprising if he were not convicted of serious charges, after seeing it plain and in person what he did as well as some of the other members when you look at the evidence. the jury saw it, and they came back with guilty verdicts. >> yeah, there's just so much evidence. that's the other thing. >> renato, i do want to ask you -- and i asked this question of elie williams last hour -- the former president is currently being investigated by the justice department for his role in january 6th. of course he did not storm the capitol. he did not break a window there. he did not assault a police officer. the focus has been on whether he encouraged the crowd, incited

the crowd to do so. i know that there were freedom of expression barriers to charging someone, but you have folks here among hundreds, right, who have now been convicted of criminal acts, in this case conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. do you see -- do you learn anything from these convictions as regards the president's legal jeopardy and the chances that he might be charged for his involvement? >> well, a couple things. i mean, first of all, jim, whenever a defendant is sentenced, one thing that they consider are all of the nature and circumstances of their offense, and all of the history and characteristics of the defendant. that's by law what a federal judge is required to consider. so i suspect that this will raise the stakes for the former president because ultimately a judge looking at a potential punishment in a case involving donald trump is going to

consider these types of sentences that have been imposed in other cases and is going to be considering the impact that trump had on our democracy, and the impact that he had, for example, in inciting this attack on the capitol. even if that isn't charged, in other words, even if trump is ultimately convicted of something like classified documents in mar-a-lago, if that ends up happening, i do think a judge is going to consider this activity as well, and ultimately is going to be considering whether or not a sentence for something else, you know, potentially is commensurate with the activity that the full breadth of the activity that he's undertaken. so i do think it will have an impact. whether it impacts the january 6th investigation itself is yet to be determined. i think a focus there is going to be much more on what might -- that trump was trying to get mike pence to do inside the united states senate to obstruct, you know, that proceeding to potentially put forward false documents, false

electors, things along those lines. >> goodness, well, that's another investigation. in this one we already have fairly remarkable results today. coming up, we have more news we're covering this hour. russia says it is the u.s. that is responsible for a drone attack at the kremlin, how intelligence officials are responding to that allegation today. plus, the white house unveils a plan to address artificial intelligence, what is most concerning to officials and what they plan to do about it. a thing of the past... because only tempur-pepedic uses our one-of-a-kind, incredibly adaptive tempur® materiaial... to relieve pressure points and d support your body, in a way no other mattress can. molecule by molecule, and millimeter by millimeter. all night. every night. now is the perfect time to experience the mattress ranked #1 in customer satisfaction by j.d. power, four years in a row. learn more at tempurpedic.com. when it comes to reducing sugar in your family's diet, the more choices,

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a mysterious drone talk in moscow, moscow uses it to unleash carnage inside ukraine today. the kremlin claiming without showing evidence that the u.s. orchestrated the drone incident that left moscow's senate palace damaged. the white house calls that ridiculous and a lie, but russia is vowing revenge. as we've seen so often in this war, it's ukrainian civilians who are the ones to pay. overnight vladimir putin released some of the worst strikes ukraine has seen in months. cnn's natasha bertrand is live for us at the pentagon. it's interesting talking to officials, they do not know who is responsible, but what is clear is that they are saying that vladimir putin is very wrong about who he is claiming is responsible for this drone

incident. >> yeah, so the national security council coordinator for strategic communications, john kirby, he actually accused the kremlin of flat out lying about this notion that the u.s. was behind this drone attack in any way. and while he said earlier today during a press briefing that he could not get into the minds of the kremlin officials who are accusing the u.s. of doing this, he also said that they don't necessarily need a pretext in order to launch these kinds of attacks on ukraine. they don't need a false flag, for example, to justify their continued invasion because they continue to bomb ukraine day in and day out. here's what john kirby said earl earlier today. >> not investigating and i want to be clear, i said we're still looking at this, we haven't come to any conclusions one way or the other. we're going to try to learn more, but let's not label it a report or an investigation or anything like that. we're doing the best we can to try to find out what happened. let's not lose the bigger picture here, it's not like mr.

putin has to invent new reasons to kill innocent ukrainians. he keeps doing it over and over and over again. now, whether he's going to use this as some sort of pretext is up to him, but just in the last 24 hours, you know, he's bombing shoppers at a supermarket. so the violence just continues one way or the other. >> reporter: now, of course this is not a new accusation by the k kremlin. they have accused ukraine of being at the whim of the united states really every step of the way in this conflict with russia claiming that it's really the u.s. pulling all of the strings in the war, something that the u.s. of course has categorically denied saying that they are supporting ukraine, of course, providing military equipment, but they have actually explicitly told ukraine not to attack inside russia, and that is a big reason why they have not given the ukrainians the kind of long range missiles they have been asking for for well over a year now. >> yeah. natasha live for us at the pentagon, thank you for that. jessica. the question is will

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of ai companies anthropic and open ai. president biden also dropped by the meeting. ahead of it the white house announced how they plan to meet the challenge and the risks of this new technology. that includes spending $140 million to promote research and development, but listen to an expert known as the godfather of ai warning on cnn this week that he does not think it is clear we can solve the problems ai presents. >> i believe we should put a big asterisk into thinking about ways to solve the problem. i don't have a solution at present. i just want people to be aware that this is a really serious problem, and we need to be thinking about it very hard. i don't think we can stop the progress. i'm not an expert on regulation, i'm just a scientist that suddenly realized that these things are getting smarter than us. i want to sort of blow the whistle and say we should worry seriously about how we stop these things getting control

over us. >> re . >> john, watching that white house meeting it made me think of a meeting in the white house in the '90s on the internet. right? it's like hey, we got this thing, this internet. let's talk about how we're going to handle it. folks had no idea, no idea how it was going to change things. i kind of feel like we're at a similar place here with ai, but zero in particularly on the current risks as it relates to politics and disinformation, particularly as we're entering a whole new election cycle? >> jim, that's a great point. this is a new chapter in technology, and so as we've seen this rapid improvement in ai technology over the last year, it's increasingly blurring the lines between what is ai-generated and what is generated by people, whether it's text or video or audio. earlier this month the rnc released an ad that they claimed was their first 100% ai-generated ad. it painted this dystopian picture of if joe biden were to be reelected president in 2024.

those photos in the ad were entirely generated with ai. now, to be tfair, the rnc declared that the ad in a press release, on youtube and in the ad itself said that it was ai generated. that, however, won't always be the case. look no further than an english channel that appeared on youtube called house of news that was broadcasting venezuelan propaganda. the reality is that anchor that you see right there is completely ai generated. the face, the voice, the company who offers the product there, so we're seeing how ai can be used by political actors to create images that were not, that are not real. >> don't scare me with ai-generated anchors, man, that's really going into sensitive territory, but let's talk about on that topic how ai is already affecting jobs, right? i mean, i suppose the worry here

is it takes over some jobs? >> right, so as we've seen this rise in ai technology, there have long been speculation that that increase in ai technology will lead to a rise in job losses. that's coming to a head now with the writer's strike, with the writers guild making demand from studios to prevent ai from being used in films and television. they're calling for to they are calling for ai can't write or be used as source material and cover material can't be used to train ai. in that is this a major concern for the writers. studios instead offered an annual meeting to assess new technology. and then you look at an interview that the ceo of ibm gave with bloomberg this week and he speculated as many as 7800 jobs of theirs can be taken away because of advancements

inmein ai. so this is looking more and more like a scenario that could be happening in the future. >> and we're seeing it with robots. stands to reason ai might do the same thing. thanks so much. and we're talking to new accusations leveled against clarence thomas. another propublica report alleging a republican mega donor paid for the school tuition of a grand nephew clarence thomas had legal custody of and who lived with the justice. details ahead. - how'd you get hehere? - kayak! ththey compared hundreds of travel sites to find a great deal on my flight, car, and hotetel. - kayak. search one e and done. (vo) in three seconds, this couple will share a perfect moment. (woman) is that? oh wow! but we got to sell our houses! (vo) don't worry. sell and buy in one move when you art with opendoor. (woman) yes! (vo) close in a matter of days. start withn all cash offer at opendoor dot com

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there is a new report from propublica that finds that school tuition was paid for clarence thomas' grand nephew who lived with the justice. it is the latest in a series of controversial financial dealings between the two men that has legal experts and lawmakers asking the nation's highest court to establish a code ofof ethics. thomas took legal custody of his nephew when he was just six years old. and in his own words said that he was, quote, raising him as a son. or legal analyst is here with us now. when you look at this, norm, how bad is this? >> it is bad. even if it didn't come on top of all of these other allegations about justice thomas' conflicts, it would raise an eyebrow. but here the latest revelation that thousands of dollars in

what i believe were essentially gifts to justice thomas who would have otherwise had to pay the tuition for this young man or gifts to a dependent, either way you look at it, it had to be disclosed under federal law. yet another undisclosed benefit from harlen crow. >> and the other option was to disclose it and he has disclosed some things before. and then he sort of stopped disclosing them. what would have happened if he did just disclose this payment? >> we would have had the tremendous fuss that we now find ourselves in, but he would not be legally exposed. the gift itself is allowed. what is not allowed is to hide it. and when this comes on top of the justice's failure to recuse himself from the january 6

cases, even though his wife ginni thomas was a witness, hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed luxury travel from harlen. purchasing real estate from justice thomas. that is not disclosed. now this tuition, we need to ask ourselves when is enough enough. and when is do skrchlt going to open an investigation. >> to that point, what are the consequences here besides, say, the chief justice walking to clarence thomas' office and addressing this with him? i mean, where are the real teeth in any of this? >> these disclosures are required by federal law. the law provides that there can be civil penalties. you have to pay a fine if you don't settle the case, go to court, get a judgment against you, doj sometimes does that. if it is serious enough, there can even be criminal penalties for hiding this kind of information. and here where you have issue after issue after issue, doj has

to investigate. they can't just take the statements of clarence thomas and his friends that everything was fine or that thomas consulted with people as he said about the travel with his colleagues. no, doj needs to get real answers. >> you say they need to. will they i think is the question. you feel that this is incumbent on them do. do you actually expect that will happen? >> we don't know if they will or not. they don't love to tackle these financial disclos disclose sure. we're frustrated and we were tough in the obama administration on following these rules. we're frustrated that doj hasn't acted yet. but this latest tuition payment revelation should be enough. we'll see if should be is the same as will be. >> often it is not, i will say. >> tragically.

>> norm, thank you so much for being with us. that does it for cnn news central. "the lead" starts right now. the proud boys now standing back and standing by for their prison sentences. "the lead" starts right now. today four proud boys convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the january 6 insurrection making this the third time federal prosecutors have successfully gotten a guilty verdict on these very serious charges. what might it mean for donald trump and the special counsel investigation? plus a hom