cnn's sara murray is with us now.his will be a big moment for senator menendez. >> yeah, it's going to be a very interesting day for the senator. obviously as you said this is the first time we are going to see him making comments in public since he and his wife were indicted on bribery charges, a corruption-related charges. again, second time in ten years menendez has faced these corruption-related charges. the last time there was a mistrial, he was acquitted by a judge on a number of charges and the justice department declined to retry him on a number of others. now they are back at this. menendez has just been defiant throughout all of this. i want you to take a listen to him talking back in april about this investigation and how convinced he was it was going to lead nowhere. >> to any new jersey voters watching right now who may have concerns that, again, you're facing scrutiny over corruption, what is your response to them? >> the response to what is simply that, number one, this inquiry will end up, i believe, i

we are all over it, and we will begin with sara murray with the latest. sara? >> yeah, john. we are waiting to see the new jersey senator later on this morning and the first time in front of cameras reacting to the charges that he is facing as well as potentially addressing political future, and this is of course coming after senator menendez was indicted with corruption-related charges and his wife and a handful of new jersey businessmen. according to the indictment, they accepted bribes including cash, gold bars and even a luxury vehicle all designed to benefit menendez and his wife and these businessmen as well as the government of egypt. and menendez, while this investigation has been going on, he has been completely defiant in the face of it. take a listen to what he said to cnn back in april about this investigation. >> to any new jersey voters watching right now who may have concerns that you are facing scrutiny over corruption, what is your response to them? >> the response to them is simply that number one, this inquiry is going to end up in absolutely nothing. if an

we are joined by cnn's sara murray and jeremy diamond. and sara, i will start with you, and what are we expected to start with the hearing? >> we will not expect new facts, and we will see, and i could be surprised, but they are going to set out the basis of the impeachment framework and they gave out a framework last night of what the parameters of the impeachment parameters are, and it is four questions. the first three pertain to the notion of whether joe biden provided access or whether he provided perception of access and whether he took any official action because of the foreign interests or foreign money related to hunter biden, other member of his family and then the last question there is whether joe biden ever intervened at all in the ongoing criminal investigations into hunter biden, and as you pointed out, these are not new questions for the republicans to ask. james comer who is the chairman of oversight committee since the republicans got control of the gavel, and he has not been able to prove that he received any evidence, a

sara sara murray has our report. >> reporter: following a flurry of developments in the georgia election interference case. of the 19 defendants charged in the sprawling racketeeng case we now know a dozen have entered pleas of not guilty and chosen to waive their arraignments, including people like former president donald trump and his former personal attorney rudy giuliani. now, we're still waiting for the others to decide what they're going to do, if they're going to plead on paper or show up in person next week. we're also waiting on a major ruling from a federal judge who is still considering whether mark meadows, the former white house chief of staff, should be able to move his case from state court in georgia to federal court. we know that donald trump's team is watching that closely. if that's the case we lose this ability we would have in state court to have cameras on these proceedings to see a trump trial on camera, that doesn't exist in federal court. no cameras allowed. so, again, there are a number of steps in this case that could move forward next week. sara murray, cnn, w

sara murray, cnn, washington. >>> this is a uhe biquitous iss when there are concerns like impending shutdown and politicians are very involved in their own internal wranglingings. so on that things not great. >> and you talk about how serious the shutdown is but then not spending their time on dealing with it. >>> still ahead for you, openai is rolling out changes for it popular chat bot. how you can have a conversation with chatgpt. >>> and a 200-year-old tree in england was deliberately chopped down. ahead you will see who authorities say are responsible for destroying the landmark. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. >>> chinese real estate giant ever grand says trading of its shares will remain suspended until further notice. >> the company announced thur

sara murray begins our coverage of this intense day of questioning and how the plea deal fell apart in july. >> reporter: attorney general mayor. >> garland on capitol hill today. >> the fix is in. even with the face saving indictment last week of hunter biden, everyone knows the fix is in. >> i am not the president's lawyer. i will add, i am not congress's prosecutor. >> republicans on the house judiciary committee hounding garland about details in hunter biden after his plea deal and he was indicted last week in connection with a 2018 gun purchase. >> after five years, what stage are we in? are we in the beginning taj, the end stage, the -- >> i can't discuss ongoing cases. >> a judge called b.s. on the plea deal. >> garland rebuffing questions and deferring to special counsel dade weiss who is overseeing the hunter biden probe. >> i leave it to mr. weiss whether to bring charges or not. that would include whether to let statute of limitations expire or not. whether there was sufficient evidence to bring a case. that was subject to the statute of limitations or not. whether there wer

sara murray, cnn, washington. >>> former trump white house aid who provided key testimony to the house january 6 committee is now accusing rudy giuliani of groping her. cassidy hutchinson says in a new book that giuliani put his hands under her blazer and skirt back stage at the rally that preceded the january of sninsurrection. she says john eastman witnessed it and he flashed a leering grin. she then broke away from giuliani and stormed out. giuliani's political adviser is vehemently denying this happened calling it a disgusting law and suspicious that she's making the accusation now when her book is coming out. giuliani faces legal issues including millions in mounting legal bills. >>> ukrainian president zelenskyy will be in washington today to meet with u.s. president biden and with members of congress. he just wrapped up his first in-person meeting at the united nations since the war began. he called out a council that has been deadlocked since the war began just because russia has veto power. but zelenskyy says there is a solution. >> translator: in cases of mass atrocities, vet

cnn's sara murray has the details on this now, sara, trump's team and they're accusing judge chutkan,rent judge, of bias. how is she responding to this? >> reporter: yeah, that's right, they're essentially saying you need someone who appears entirely impartial if you want the public to really believe whatever the verdict is rendered at his trial, they're saying judge tanya chutkan should recuse herself. she's asking prosecutors to weigh in by thursday what that think. let's weigh in on what the trump team is thinking. they're previously pulling previous comments that the judge made, suggesting this means she's biased towards donald trump, the defendant in the january 6th interference case. here's part of what they point out. they point out comments she made at a sentencing hearing where she says the people who mob that capitol where they're in fealty and loyalty to one man, not to a constitution. it's a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day. look, this is also related to the january 6th and also a civil case where donald trump wanted to block the house

cnn's sara murray is with us now. talk to us about this deal, sara. >> reporter: yeah, this is interesting because we had known something was going on beiend the scenes with taveras, this i.t. worker, because he switched attorneys and now it's clear what was happening is he was changing his story. he was now agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors under the agreement that he would not face charges as part of, again, this mar-a-lago documents investigation where trump and a couple employees are facing charges. as you pointed out, we learned from the indictment that taveras is in conversation with carlos de oliveira about what to do about the security footage at mar-a-lago, de oliveira is explaining the boss wants the servers deleted and you can sense in this exchange the hesitation from taveras who says he doesn't know if he has the authority to do that, he doesn't even know how he would do that. again, this could be a very interesting cooperator for jack smith's team, not necessarily about direct conversations with dona

sara murray has more. >> reporter: house republicans putting forth plenty of bombast. >> if we had aall the foreign money the bidens took, it would have reached to the ceiling. >> reporter: but as democrats noted, no new evidence. >> what's missing, despite years of investigation is the smoking gun that connects joe biden to his never do well son's corruption. >> reporter: as the gop convened its first hearing in the impeachment inquiry into president joe biden. even as republicans tried to drive home claims of biden family corruption -- >> hunter biden referred to access to his father as the keys to his family's only asset. those words are going to come back and haunt hunter biden. and his family forever. >> reporter: their own witnesses failed to back them up. noting that republicans are currently operating on allegations rather than hard facts. >> i do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. that is something that an inquiry has to establish. >> i'm not here today to even suggest there was corruption, fraud, or any wrongdoing. in my opinion, mo

more now from sara murray in washington. >> reporter: donald trump officially entering his plea of not guilty in the sprawling racketeering case he faces in fulton county, georgia where he and 18 other co-defendants were charged for their efforts to allegedly try to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in georgia. donald trump is now one of five again of the 19 co-defendants in that case who have entered not guilty pleas and waived their right to an arraignment. that means that we won't see donald trump showing up next week in the courthouse, we won't see him on camera there had many had expected. and now it is a question of what happens next for candidate's case. his attorney has moved to sever his case from other co-defendants saying while there are some who want to move ahead speedily with this trial and move ahead to trial in october of 2023. donald trump is not one of them. his attorney says there is no way that he will be ready for trial by then. it is also possible that we could see donald trump's team try to move this into federal court. they have not made that attem

sara murray joins with us more. so significant here. >> it really is. the judge handing down the longest sentence we have seen for any defendant related to the attack on the u.s. capitol on january 6th trying to send a message about the importance of the peaceful transfer of power in this country and sent a strong signal this is a der ternt for anyone who may think about doing something like this in the future. more than two decades behind bars for the man u.s. district judge called the ultimate leader behind the january 6th attack on the capitol. in tuesday's hearing, kelly said former proud boys chairman enrique tar row was motivated by zeal. before being sentenced, tarrio apologized for the pain and suffering that was caused. quote, i'm not a political zealot. inflict ing harm or changing th election was not my goal. tarrio also adding, i held myself morally above others, and this trial has shown me how wrong i was. tarrio was not in d.c. on january 6th. having bye-bye arrested days before and ordered by a judge to leave the city for burning a black

cnn's sara murray reports. >> reporter: mark meadow, donald trump's former white house chief of staff lost his first attempt to move his case that has been playing out in state court in georgia to federal court last week. a federal judge there said that he was not going to move the case to federal court, sent it back to state court, but meadows' attorneys are intervening asking that judge to put his decision on hooltd essentially while mark meadows can appeal it to the 11th circuit court of appeals. meadows' attorneys are arguing that if it proceeds in state court and meadows is convicted, that this would be offensive to his rights and they should let the full appeal play out. they are especially arguing this because the fulton county district attorney's office has said that she wants to see all 19 defendants in this case including donald trump, including mark meadow, go to trial in october 2023. the state court judge has been pretty skeptical of that time line. he is expected to make some decisions this week about when all of these defendants, including potentially mark meadows, coul

we're joined by cara scannal and sara murray to sort this out.a, tell us about the whistleblower and his claims and who is disputing them. >> so the irs whistleblower, gary shaply was testified before the committee saying at this october 2022 meeting, with law enforcement officials, the u.s. attorney overseeing the hunter biden investigation david weiss had said that he didn't have ultimate decision-making authority on whether to bring the case. and that he had asked for and was denied special counsel status. so now three top law enforcement officials who were in the meeting, including shapely's supervisor and the head of the fbi office investigating hunter biden cast doubts on that. they say they have no recollection of that happening. the fbi special agent said it is in his recollection, if he had said that, that he would have remembered it. so pretty strong denials there. now shapely's attorneys saying that shapely, unlike the others has handwritten notes and he memorized those in a email to his supervisor so their standing by their version of

our coverage starts with sara murray tracking developments for months and she has the big takeaways from the shocking report. >> reporter: lindsey graham. >> that is my focus. how do you verify signatures. >> reporter: david perdue. >> there are huge irregularities in georgia and me need to be investigated and corrected. >> reporter: and kelly loeffler. >> that is right. every legal vote will be counted. >> reporter: all on a stunning list of 39 people that a special purpose grand jury recommended for indictment. after the panel spent months investigating efforts by former president donald trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in georgia. the special grand jury final report now public. it recommended indictments for 21 individuals who did not end up facing charges in fulton county. including the current and former u.s. senators. georgia lieutenant governor burt jones and trump adviser boris epstein and michael flynn. but fani willis did ultimately charge the others on the list. >> a fulton county grand jury returned a true bill of indictment charging 19 individu

sara murray joins us with more. it's really interesting basically saying watch what you say because what you say contains a jury pool. >> that's right. obviously, some of the underlying fight is still a mystery because it's under seal, but we know donald trump has been making statements about the charges he faces in a number of these cases, about the prosecutors who are are bringing them. we saw the team make this argument and these kinds of prejudicial statements. it's going to be really hard to choose a fair jury pool that's not contaminated. the longer the former president is out there whaling against the cases against him. >> getting back to georgia, there will be a televised hearing. there's so much reporting on this particular case and the lead up to it. since the indictment was brought, how quickly could all this it move? >> this is a great question for the judge to work out. >> i was asking you though, sara. >> you are the judge on this show, sara murray. >> i am not envious of what this judge has to do. he

cnn's sara murray starts us off. d sara, now that trump has pleaded not guilty and will not appear in court next week, what's next for him in this case in georgia? >> i think there is a question about when, if ever we might ever see donald trump in fulton county superior court. we did see from his attorney, his lead attorney in georgia steven sadow a motion to sever trump's case from another defendant. several have filed for a speedy trial, and the judge has said that will happen in october of 2023. in this filing, trump's attorneys says there is no way they're going to be ready to go to trial in october of this year. they're trying to force trump ahead on that timeline would violate his rights to a fair trial. there is also an open question about where trump is going to want to good to trial. we fully expect that his team is going to try to move his case to federal court, although they have not filed for this, and they may be frankly biding their time to see how this maneuver plays out for mark meadows. >> so let's t

cnn's sara murray is here with more on this. this means 18 of the 19 co-defendants have filed pleas. >> that's right. so we saw from mark meadows a not guilty plea. not surprising, right? he wants the whole case against him dismissed. he's trying to get that done in federal court. we're waiting for the judge to decide if meadows has met the bar and essentially arguing everything he did was part of his role as white house chief of staff. so we're waiting for the federal judge to weigh in on that. he's joined today in entering his not guilty pleas by people like jeffrey clark, who is a former justice department official, and john eastman, a former pro-trump attorney. the only not guilty plea we have not seen at this point is misty hampton so far. i would be surprised if she's the only person who decides to show up in person tomorrow. we still could see her plea come through in the court system today. >> and notably you mentioned john eastman. he's actually filed, as others, to sever his case from the rest of the co-defendants. >>

more now from cnn's sara murray. >> reporter: attorney general merrick garland squaring off against his toughest critics on capitol hill today. >> the fix is in. even with the face saving indictment of hunter biden, everyone knows the fix is in. >> i am not the president's lawyer. i will add, i am not congress's prosecutor. >> reporter: republicans on the hughes judiciary committee hounding garland for details about the criminal investigation into hunter biden, after his plea deal imploded in july and he was indicted last week in connection with a 2018 gun purchase. >> after five years, what stage are we in? the beginning stage, the middle stage, the end stage, the keep hiding the ball stage? >> i'm not permitted to discuss ongoing investigations. >> isn't that convenient. >> i think it's brave whistleblowers came forward and the judge called bs. >> reporter: garland rebuffering republicans' questions and deferring to special counsel david weiss, who is overseeing the hunter biden probe. >> i left it to mr. weiss whether to bring charges or not. that would include whether to let statute

cnn's sara murray is tracking all of it for us. we know we're waiting this decision by a judge on whether meadows can move to federal court, but he does file a plea of not guilty. >> yeah, that's right. it is a little bit of housekeeping for all of these 19 defendants who have now formally entered their pleas of not guilty. they waived their arraignments. it looks like it would be a big day in court on wednesday with all of these folks parading in and appearing before a judge and also appearing before cameras. now it is not going to happen since they waived their arraignments. they will no longer have to show up in fulton county superior court in person. this gets us to the next fades of what's about to happen. for mark meadows, that's an open question of whether this will proceed in state court or in federal court. as you pointed out, he's been arguing everything he did he did as his role as white house chief of staff. we're waiting to see what a judge has to say about it. the other people that are waiting to see what happens is t

sara murray is tracking all this. terms of her plan, 19 codefendants including a former president, currently running for office. some demanding a speedy trial, some not demanding a speedy trial. sweeping charges here. how does she plan to lay that out in the timeframe she's asked for? >> reporter: they essentially have to made their best argument to the judge about why they think all 19 defendants should go together, and again, how you do that logistically on such a short timeframe in 40-something days. we know the judge had a number of concerns in hearing last week about how this would be handled logistically so he's asked her to lay it out in a filing that we're waiting for. one thing is clear. we know that ken chesebro and sidney powell, two attorneys who worked on donald trump's efforts to try to overturn the election, they're heard recalling ahead. they're going to trial in october of 2023. the question is are the other 17 going along with them or does the judge try to divvy up this block of 17 into smaller group

cnn's sara murray has more. >> reporter: south carolina senator lindsey graham.gia senator david perdue. >> there are hur irregularities in georgia. they need to be investigated. they need to be corrected in my opinion. >> reporter: and former georgia senator kelly loeffler. >> that's right. every legal vote will be counted. >> reporter: all on a stunning list of 39 people that a special purpose grand jury recommended for indictment. after the panel spent months investigating efforts by former president donald trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in georgia. >> it's not a short list. >> we heard a lot of very compelling things. >> and a lot of very compelling evidence. >> the special grand jury final report now public. it recommended indictments for 21 individuals, who did not end up facing charges in fulton county. including the current and former u.s. senators. georgia lieutenant governor burt jones, trump adviser and attorney boris epstein and the trump former national security adviser michael flynn. the fulton county district attorn

sara murray, before we go?eys viewed what was available to him as a defense under his role was so broad that his attorney actually pointed out if he went out and shot someone in lafayette square park that would not be under the color of his duty as white house chief of staff. that's where he drew the line, essentially, when they were in this hearing before the federal judge. it gives you an idea of sort of how widely they think his behavior was permissible as white house chief of staff. >> well, it's good they set that limit at least. can't shoot someone in lafayette park. we'll see what the judge decides. sara murray, renato mariotti, thanks so much. boris. >> still ahead, the boss begs off. bruce springsteen won't be on stage anytime soon because of a health scare. we have the latest on his condition when we come back. meet the future. a chef. a designer. and, ooh, an engineer. all learning to save and spend their money with chase. the chef's cooking up firsts with her new debit card. hungry? -uhuh. the desig

joining me now is cnn's sara murray, and michael moore. share let's start with today's not guilty plea by kenneth chesebro, the architect of the fake electors plot in the trump campaign. how significant is this not guilty plea? >> it would be surprising if he decided to plead guilty. every signal so far is that he is intending to fight this. he is the first person who asked for a speedy trial. we've seen another filing from his team essentially nudging the judge to encourage district attorney fani willis to hurry up and start providing discovery in this. he's taking an aggressive tactic in terms of the timeline and approach to start fighting the charges that he is facing in georgia. >> michael moore, chesebro is the first georgia defendant to have a scheduled trial date, that's on october 23rd. now, today his lawyer asked the judge to force the district attorney to speed up production of the necessary evidence. a trial date that's just seven weeks away, is that realistic? >> well, i'm glad to be with both of you. it's realistic because it'

it is a busy night, cnn sara murray starts us off. and sarah murray, now that trump has pleaded not guilty at will not appear in court next week. what's next for him in this case in georgia? >> there's a question about when, if ever, we might see donald trump in fulton county superior court. we did see from his attorney -- 's lead attorney in georgia, stephen saad, all eight -- other codefendants, as you pointed out. several of them have filed for a speedy trial, and the judge has said that that will happen in october of 2023, in this filing trump's attorney says there's no way they're going to be ready to go to trial in october of this year. -- forced trump ahead on that timeline would violate his rights to a fair trial. there is an open question about where trump is going to want to go to trial. we fully expected his team would try to move his case to federal court, although they have not filed for this. they may be, frankly, biding their time to wait and see how this maneuver plays out for mark meadows. >> so, let's talk about that

joining us now, we have cnn's sara murray.s new filing by chesebro on wanting a solo trial, he says he doesn't want to be tried alongside former trump lawyer sidney powell, which is something that i think many legal experts would say is a good idea. tell us about this. >> yeah. i mean, he and sidney powell are the two who have asked the judge for a speedy trial. ken chesebro's trial is set for october of this year, and he's making clear in this motion, he does not want to go to trial alongside sidney powell. his attorney basically says, look, ken chesebro has been accused of being the architect of this fake elector plot. sidney powell is being accused of a variety of things, mainly involving voting machines and this election breach in coffee county, and they're saying this is like oil and water. these two schemes don't go together. they shouldn't go to trial alongside each other, that chesebro didn't have any direct communication with sidney powell and essentially he should be allowed to go forward on this alone. and chesebro,

. >> sara murray, we will allow you to keep on watching, and this is going to go on for some time. >>> and this just in, and not breaking news for some people, donald trump is not going to be attending third primary debate, and this is after he successfully did not attend the second one. so what did happen last night? well, they came, they saw, and it is a question if anyone did conquer. seven republican candidates facing off for the second primary debate. the fight for speaking time was fierce, and evidence by the number of times that they were all talking over all over each other all at once. this morning at least one of the candidates on the stage says that despite donald trump's commanding lead, it is way too early to give up. >> you want trump-biden, then we should all drop out now, but 70% of the american people don't want trump-biden, and so why don't we take the time to run a real campaign. >> cnn's kyung lah joining us from simi valley this morning and the site of the republican presidential debate, and were there any standout moments? >> there was an email blast that donald

sara murray has been at this for months coffering the back and forth. you have been following this hearing. what has happened so far, if anything, that is notable when it comes to the bottom line that republicans are trying to show? >> there's a lot of republicans that are on this committee who came into this hearing sort of trying to make the case that it's asked and answered. they are saying joe biden lied to the american people, his son hunter biden was clearly profiting off the family name, joe biden clearly was aware of all this. they are making all these allegations without the evidence to back it up. and they don't get that evidence from the panel of witnesses they have before them today. they have these three witnesses that the republicans have called. and they are not fact witnesses. alexandria ocasio-cortez, the congresswoman, just established this with each of the three of them. a forensic accountant, a former doj official in the tax division and jonathan turly, a favorite of republicans in these kinds of hearings, she went through with each

sara murray is in washington with a look at what we might be hearing shortly. >> reporter: yeah, johnthis is a hearing that's going to set the stage for the republicans' impeachment inquiry into joe biden. they put out the framework last night that gives you an indication what they want to focus on as the impeachment inquiry progresses. there are four questions here. the first has to do with whether joe biden, at any point, decided to trade access, the appearance of access, or perform any sort of official acts in exchange for money, for him or for his family. and then the last one has to do with his son hunter biden and the ongoing investigations and whether joe biden ever interfered in those investigations. and as you point out, we should reiterate, house republicans haven't found any evidence of this yet. they haven't found any evidence that joe biden profited off what his son or other family members were up to, they haven't found any evidence that he performed any official acts when he was vice president in exchange for money for some kind of foreign interest. this is what they're

now, sara murray is keeping track of all of the pleas as they come n and what is this saying about the state of the case, sara? >> well, kate, we were waiting to see this flurry of filings, and we suspected that not a lot of the folks and especially not mark meadows the white house chief of staff would want to appear in person at the fulton county courthouse for arraignments and now we are seeing the filings coming in, and mark meadows has entered a plea of not guilty and waived the arraignment and pro trump attorney john eastman and jeffrey clark and everyone is getting the filings in ahead of this wednesday deadline for arraignment, and again, the way it works in fulton county superior court, you don't have to be there in person, and you can put in the paperwork and waive arraignment, and so it is an open question of when we could see these folks in court. mark meadows is in the process of trying to move all of the proceedings against him from state court to federal court. a judge has heard hours of arguments on, that and he got additional briefings on that, and we are waiting essent

. >> sara murray has the latest from washington. >> reporter: donald trump officially entering his plea of not guilty in the sprawling racketeering case he faces in fulton county, georgia where he and 18 other co-defendants were charged for their efforts to allegedly try to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in georgia. donald trump is now one of five again of the 19 co-defendants in that case who have entered not guilty pleas and waived their right to an arraignment, that means that we won't see donald trump showing up next week in the fulton county courthouse, we won't see him on camera as many have expected. and now it is a question of what happens next. his attorney has moved to sever his case from other co-defendants saying while some want to move head with a speedy trial, donald trump is not one of them. his attorney says there is no way that he will be ready for trial by then. also possible that we could see donald trump's team try to move this into federal court. they have not made that attempt yet, but others involved in this case have. trump's team may be waiting

. >> sara murray, thanks. >>> dysfunction among house republicans on the government spending issue is getting uglier. some republican on republican violence. sources tell cnn the words " "scumbag and" f off, except not f off was said. on capitol hill today manu raju, f off, logan roy said that on "succession" on hbo. we're cable but an afternoon show like families watch, the kids watching. keep the kids allowing them to watch, a civics lesson of sorts. what led to a member of congress telling matt gaetz to f off? >> reporter: a lot of tension between matt gaetz and much of the house gop. particularly speaker of the house. gaetz for a while continuing to wield the government in the cusp of potentially shutting down this weekend. gaetz believes mccarthy's allies have been bashing him. he's been paying conservative influencers to bash gaetz on social media, and what gaetz confronted mccarthy over in a closed d closed-door meeting this morning. accused the speaker being behind this saying he would not waste his time or money or matt gaetz and money transferred over to the goppest to take

cnn's sara murray is with us now with some of the details in this new book. sarah. >> yeah, john.ean it really is a picture of chaos in the trump white house, especially in the final weeks. i mean there's this whole anecdote where cassidy hutchinson is laying out how her direct boss, again, white house chief of staff mark meadows is burning tons of documents in his final weeks in the white house and even meadows' wife takes notice of this. at one point she comes to meadow's chief of staff office to pack things up and tells cassidy, mark doesn't need to burn anything else, all of his suits smell like a bonfire. this is being pushed back on, saying it is an absurd mischaracterization, saying his wife was referring to how the fireplace makes everything smell smoky. she was asked about the push back meadows was putting forward about this anecdote and a number of others. take a note of what she said. >> i would encourage him to testify under oath as to woo is in the book and what i testified to under oath which is consistent with what is in the book. he can testify under oath if he has

cnn political correspondent sara murray joins us now with the details.arah, a source telling cnn this is the first time the panel has subpoenaed bank records for hunter biden, what else are they claiming that they found? >> that's right. house oversight republicans say that they were able to find two of these transfers from a chinese national to hunter biden in 2019. and house oversight chairman james comer is stressing that this is the first time the panel has been able to find examples of transfers that are going directly to hunter biden instead of through various llcs and also pointing out that the address on these transfers is joe biden's home in wilmington, delaware. again, this is all coming as house republicans are launching this impeachment inquiry and trying to make the argument that essentially there was no daylight between what hunter biden was doing and his business dealings and what joe biden, now the president of the united states, was involved in. but, of course, they fall short of meeting that mark in terms of actual proof. you know, in t

. >> we'll keep an eye on it and get back to sara murray. >>> a busy day on capitol hill. >> it certainly is. we're getting busier. bob menendez told his colleagues he will not resign, which is what he has been saying. he continues to repeat that. we have cnn's lauren fox on the hill. he just met them. it was a lunch. he had to face these 30 senators in his own party who vl calling on him to resign. tell us more about what you're learning. >> reporter: yeah. 30 senators who were skeptical of what they would hear from their democratic colleague when senator menendez addressed them. going into the meeting i talked to one of the members, peter welch, who said what can he tell us? there was cash and gold bars at his home. we are told according to senator joe manchin who just left this meeting that senator menendez vowed he would not resign. he did not address his political future. he's up for re-election in 2024. our colleague also caught up with menendez as he left this meeting with his colleagues. he told reporters, quote, i will continue to cast votes on behalf of the people in new jersey.

sara murray, cnn, washington. >>> there are new calls for senate minority leader mitch mcconnell to step down, and the calls are coming from inside the party. >> reporter: right now the senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country. mitch mcconnell has done some great things and he deserves credit, but you have to know when to leave. >> republican presidential candidate nikki haley's comments come after mitch mcconnell froze on camera for a second time in weeks. occasional light-headedness could be linked to the senator's concussion last week. earlier i spoke with nancy jenker and we discussed whether there should be any age limits for politicians. here's what she has to say. >> the president has the ability to launch a nuclear weapon. members of congress have the ability, the power to wage war, to, you know, vote on spending. so i do think that we need to consider what's relevant to their ability to do that job. i would argue going back to the case of mcconnell, senator mcconnell, the concern may be he may be impaired to do the job. it's not that he's 81. the other problem w

let's get over to sara murray. what can we expect to happen with the julk today?ook at what happened to the other proud boys who are have already been sentenced, he faces seditious conspiracy. if you look at the proud boys who have been sentenced, joseph biggs, zachary rail, all of these folks have faced upwards of 15 years behind bars for their convictions. again, prosecutors have asked for 33 years in this case, so far the judge has been hesitant to go that far, but enrique served as chairman of the proud boys. he wasn't in washington, d.c. on january 6th. he had been arrested on a different issue and told to leave the city, but prosecutors in the indictment papt ed a picture of how the proud boys played an organizational role behind the attack on january 6th. they pointed out these messages where he suggests he's preparing for a revolution in the run-up to january 6th. we'll see what the judge has to say about his sentence today. >> absolutely. it's great to see you. thank you so much. we'll be tracking that closely today. >>> the senate is back at work today a

sara murray has more. it seems like that's a go for those two. the big question is trump?was very decisive from the bench yesterday and basically saying that ken chesebro and sidney powell are going to go to trial in october of this year. they are going to go to trial together, even though that's not what they want ed. he was much more skeptical about the district attorney's office still pushing to have all 19 defendants, including donald trump, going to trial in october of this year. take a listen to what he said that really gets to the heart of his skepticism. sglu don't know how many hearings we're going to need to have to sort through all those, but if we compress to 40 days, our ability to even weigh those and think through the issues, again, it just seems unrealistic to think we can handle all 19 in 40 days. >> one of the issues the judge is referring to there is that a number of defendants, including mark meadows, are trying to move this case to federal court. that still needs to be l litigated. the district attorney's office laid out a potentially long trial ahead

sara murray reports. >> reporter: south carolina senator lindsey graham. >> that was my focus, how doou verify signatures? >> reporter: former georgia senator david perdue. >> there are huge irregularities in georgia, they need to be corrected in my opinion. >> reporter: and kelly loeffler. >> that's right, every legal vote to be counted. >> reporter: owl an of stunning list of 39 people that a special purpose grand jury recommended for indictment, after the panel spent months investigating efforts by former president donald trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in georgia. >> it's not a short list. we heard a lot of very compelling things. like a lot of very compelling evidence. >> reporter: the special grand jury's final report now public, it recommended indictments for 21 individuals who did not end up facing charges in fulton county. including the current and former u.s. senators. georgia lieutenant governor bert jones, trump adviser and attorney boris epstein, and trump's former national security adviser michael flynn. but full conn county district attor

. >> sara murray, appreciate it, thank you. >>> as you could imagine, there is a lot in cassidy hutchinson's new book. jake again is going to sit down with here tomorrow on "the lead." be sure to tune in at 4:00 eastern. >>> up next, right here, a must-see story of resilience. an air force veteran badly burned in afghanistan. now his moment of praise as he uses his situation to inspire others. >>> in our national lead, the remarkable inspiring story of one air force veteran's sacrifice and resilience. in 2005, israel del toro's humvee suffered third degree burns on 80% of his body, was in a coma for three months. doctors said if he did survive, he'd need a respirator to breathe, he'd never walk ago. he recently sat down to speak about his most recent accomplishments, "a patriot's promise," protecting my brothers, fighting for my life and keeping my word. >> here it is. i have a copy right here. thank you so much. it's a great read. when your humvee ran over the ied in afghanistan, you write that your life flashed before your eyes. you also say, quote, they weren't memories recalled, they wer

i want to go to sara murray. what exactly happened with his plea and what does it mean? scheduled for tomorrow in fulton county, georgia. and we have now seen mark meadows, as well as several other defendants in the case, john eastman, jeffrey clark, who is a former justice department official enter their pleas of not guilty and waive their arraignment. that means they won't have to show up in person. and essentially, it will be up to the state court judge to figure out how he wants to divvy up the defendants, what he wants to do about folks who don't want to be tried alongside their other co-defendants. and mark meadows is in an interesting position because he put in this not guilty plea while he's waiting to see if his case is going to play out in state court. a federal judge heard several hours of arguments from meadows' team insisting his activities were related to his role as white house chief of staff and because of that, his case should be moved to federal court. the judge asked for additional firings in that case, which came through last week. now we are waiting

. >> sara murray, a lot to get through. kate. >> and on this very topic. trum trump's trial may be on display for all to see, because the judge has ruled that all courtroom testimony will be televised and livestreamed, and there is more, the decision would not apply to any portion of the case that is moved to federal court. as you well know, donald trump is expected to request that his entire case get moved out of georgia and into federal court. cnn's oliver darcy is joining with us more and the decision of the judge to have it livestreamed and on tv. how big of a deal is this, oliver? >> it is a huge deal, kate. it is a huge win for court transparency advocates who have said that the public has a right to see this historic trial streamed live and televised. you know, this is going to go down in the history books, and so allowing people to watch in realtime will allow them to also see the evidence against donald trump in realtime. it is going to be probably the most watched trial er. it is -- most watched trial ever. and it is hard to see how. and it is al

cnn's sara murray is tracking all of this.s through what could happen this week. >> first we're waiting for this judge to weigh in on mark meadows' bid to move his case to federal court. he argued everything he did around the 2020 election perhaps to try to overturn the results in georgia as the district attorney has alleged was actually related to his duties as white house chief of staff. a judge is going to weigh in on whether that argument is successful and meadows can move this to federal court. the trump team is watching that closely. donald trump hasn't made an attempt to move his case to federal court yet but we expect they're watching to see how the meadows situation plays out before they do that. on wednesday there was set to be a big arraignment with 19 defendants, most of the defendants have put in a piece of paper essentially saying i'm going to waive my right to an arraignment, enter a not guilty plea, that's what donald trump and rudy giuliani has done. we have several holdouts still, we have not heard from yet m

we have it all covered, but we'll start with sara murray, who spent too much time trying to explain internally difference between a special grand jury and a grand jury that were all accurate. we have a teaser in february about what this might entail. what are you expecting to learn? what are you looking for given how close ily you have covered this case? >> it's been a long time coming, as you point out, to see the product of this special grand jury that did months and months of the actual investigating. they handed the findings off to decide whether to heed closely to them or to do her own thing. the first thing we're looking for is any kind of difference between who district attorney fani willis decided to bring charges against and who the special grand jury recommended. we do know that the special grand jury was unanimous on at least one point because we got this in the earlier excerpts that the judge released. that was after they heard from 7 witnesses they were not convinced of any fraud. we find by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the georgia 2020 presidential elec

here to discuss, sara murray, former assistant u.s. the southern district of new york elie honig. i want to start with you because you have been so deep in the weeds covering all the different elements of all of the different legal cases here. what stands out to you as you look through this reporting as you've been calling your sources about what this means? >> two things stand out. one, we knew that some of these voting breeches were being looked at on a local level. we knew they were being looked at in georgia where a number of these folks face charges. it's notable the special counsel is looking into them. it's also notable this investigation is continuing. when we saw this indictment against former president donald trump we saw these unindicted coconspirators along them. we were wondering are these people going to face charges at some point. this latest reporting from zach cohen and paula reed still holds out that possibility. it's very clear the special counsel's investigation snot over. it's continuing. and that there could be ot

cnn's sara murray lays out details about the investigation into the former president and the most serious charges he's now facing. >> breaking news in to cnn this hour. prosecutors in georgia have opened a criminal investigation -- >> -- criminal investigation into former president trump. why? because of his january phone call to the georgia secretary of state. >> -- the former president's attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 georgia general election. >> donald trump got beat by joe biden. handily. >> there's no way we lost georgia. that was a rigged election. >> he went on a warpath like a scolded child to do anything he possibly could to overturn that election. >> they defrauded us out of a win in georgia. and we're not going to forget it. >> i underestimated his willingness to push the envelope as far as he did, to just boldfaced lie again and again and again. >> three months after the election, the district attorney in fulton county, georgia, fani willis, officially opened an investigation into former president donald trump's efforts to overturn the state's presidentia

sara murray, when it comes to what we may see from this special grand jury release, we got a teasenerary. what are you expecting? th what's going to stand out to you? >> the teaser in if teb was limited. we have only seen a tiny portion of what they concluded. we didn't see any of the recommendations. we will be looking for who they thought should be indicted in this case and how closely that alliance with what fulton county district attorney fani willis decided to in indicting donald trump and 18 co-defendants. the one unanimous conclusion we know the special grand jury came to came out a couple of months ago in the excerpts the judge released. no widespread fraud took place in the georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning the election. so they were pretty unequivocal about that. they also raised concerns that some witnesses had lied to them over the course of their investigation. we know one of those witnesses they believe to be bob cheeley, who is pro-trump attorney who pled not guilty and was charged with perjury. they said a majority of the grand jury be

sara murray joins us now. even though that panel no longer exists, it was disbanded by house republicans, it matters if you don't respond to congressal inquiries. >> it does matter. especially if they decide to pursue criminal contempt of congress charges against you, as they did with peter navorro. it was a short trial with a short deliberation. it was a quick verdict for the jury to find him guilty of criminal contempt of congress, peressentially finding he defie subpoenas from the house committee that had investigated january 6th. in some ways, this was not a surprise. many of the defenses available to peter navorro were neutered u which the judge did not let him put forward saying the evidence ahead of this trial was pretty weak sauce. unsurprisingly, peter navorro is out there trying to spin what happened in court. take a listen to what he had to say. >> i was not tried for con tmt of congress today. that's not what the trial was about. if any of you sat in the trial, you saw the opening argument. you saw

. >> sara murray, thank you for that reporting. >> here with me at the table david chalian, gloria borgerjulie davis of "the new york times." nice to see you all. a busy friday. i want to pull up the list of the 39 that this special grand jury recommended for indictment. as we talked about before, as you heard from sara, 19 of these, including the former the president himself, were indicted separately. for our purposes, i want to zero in on three individuals who were not. lindsey graham, david perdue and kelly leffler. what is interesting is that lindsey gra graham, we have the brackdown of the voting. and lindsey graham, only 13 of them said yes. 7 said no. for perdue, it was 17-4. kelly loeffler, 14-6. just by way of comparison. most of those who were actually indicted again, including the former president, 20 of the grand jurors said yes. what does this tell us, let's start with the politics of what happened. >> i think for lindsey graham, you're probably going to hear him say so what, some people on the grand jury voted to indict me. i was not indicted. there was a clear disagreement