sarah murray, cnn, washington. >>> today is the final day for early voting in georgia's runoff election. for the last remaining undecided seat in the u.s. senate. already the state has seen a large voter turnout. officials report more than 1.4 million votes have been cast. today is the last chance to vote early in person with election day on tuesday. incumbent u.s. senator democrat raphael warnock earned more votes than his challenger in november's mid-term election but warnock finished just shy of the 50% needed to win. both campaigns are making their closing pitch to voters. diane gallagher has more now live from georgia. >> reporter: republican herschel walker closing out the night before the final day of early voting here in georgia telling his supporters that they must get out and vote noting if they don't vote on friday, they need to make a plan to vote on tuesday. he was joined by several republican surrogates, including the almost ever present senator lindsey graham. mike pompeo, trump's secretary of state was unable to make his scheduled stop because of a family emergency accor

sarah murray, cnn. >>> hospitals in the u.s. closer to capacity now than they have been since the start of the pandemic. according to a cnn analysis, more than le 0% of u.s. hospital beds are in use and that's up 8% than the last few weeks. respiratory viruses are putting a lot of stress on health care systems. all but six states are facing high flu rates. >>> a bill is headed to the president's desk after passage. >> on this vote the ayes are 258, the nays are 69, present, 1. the motion is adopted. >> 39 house republicans joined democrats in getting the respect for marriaging act passed. the bill received bipartisan support in the senate. it requires every state to recognize a legal same-sex marriage from every state. president biden will promptly sign the bins bill into law. >>> a mystery car. the what could it reveal about the death of four students. >>> the man traded for brittney griner. the story behind the merchant of death. unlike some others, neuriva plus is a multltitasker supporting 6 key indicators of brain h health.

cnn's sarah murray joins us now.hat are we learning from this new round of transcripts of which there are many. >> yes, there are many. and our team is diligently reading these. gi ginni thomas's interview came out late in the game and she sort of tried to walk some of those back or was more apologetic with them in her interview. she's asked about the messages she exchanged with mark meadows about pressing election contest. and he said i regret the tone and content of the texts. at one point she said in a message that she was disgusted by vice president mike pence and she, again, sort of tried to explain why she sent that. she said i was frustrated that i thought vice president pence might concede earlier than what president trump was inclined to do. according to her interview. i wanted to hear vice president pence talk more about the fraud and irregularities in certain states that i thought was still lingering. she expresses these concerns about election fraud in her interview with the committee, even though she sai

let's bring in cnn sarah murray. sarah, what have you got? >> look, we're getting more insight into the interview that donald trump jr. gave to congressional investigators. it's interesting because the former president son, there was this text messages -- laid out a plan for donald trump to stay in power, similar to what played out. congressional investigators asking why did you send this tax to meadows, and don junior says, look, this looks like a copy and paste job. perhaps in reading it, it was a sophisticated details about things i don't necessarily know too much about. it sounded plausible, and i wanted to make sure that we were looking into the issues brought up and detects, and this was a text that don junior sent to mark meadows on november 5th, and a part of the text at the time, it's set we have operation control, total leverage, moral high ground, protest must start 2nd turn now. there's more of that there. very similar to what played out. again, cnn reported on this earlier, meadows techs, donald trump jr.'s lawyers said the same

sarah murray has details. >> reporter: the january 6 committee failing to meet the deadline they set for themselves to release a report on wednesday saying it will be available to the public on thursday. we are expecting 8 chapters and hundreds of pages. in the meantime on wednesday evening the committee did released 34 transcripts. largely of people that did not answers investigators questions. in most cases they invoked their fifth amendment right but they included the names including the former national security advisor. michael flynn. john eastman and one of donald trump's longtime allies, roger stone. they give you a look into how these folks tried to stymie congressional investigators. in a two-part interview jeffrey clark was combative. at one point his attorneys presented a 12 page list of objections as to why they did not think he should be there. in the second up is this position he invoked his fifth amendment right what the 120 times. in the questioning the investigators made clear for a number of folks they have still been able to obtain emails and text messages that even

all, right sarah murray, stay with us, i'm gonna bring in cnn contributor john dean, former white house counsel for president nixon. and cnn political contributor david urban, a republican strategist and former trump campaign advisor. all right, so david, you heard sarah laid out. we all know the former president and his allies were obsessed with finding voter fraud. but now we are learning more about what it was conspiring behind the scenes with a sitting senator, lindsey graham. saying, according to this testimony, give me five dead voters that i can go out and champion. your reaction? >> yeah, what i think lindsey graham is saying is give me something credible, give me something possible that i can go out and take to people, not just some hearsay, not some scattered rain and, you know, notions that are being flown around the internet. lindsey graham is looking for proof. whether people were looking for to. can be some proof and i will go out and talk about it. and i think later in that testimony it appears that lindsay khoramabad is said, hey, there is no proof here, i'm not going, f

sarah murray, cnn, washington. >> u.s. george santos admits he lied about it multiple parts of his resume, during his campaign to become a lawmaker. congressman-elect from new york confirmed claims that he lied about attending university and his work experience published in the new york times republican leadership has been noticeably quiet since the revelations were made, santos says even though embellished his credentials, he said, and i'm quoting him directly, here we do stupid things in life. >> i am not a fraud, i'm not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up this fictitious character and ran for congress i've been around a long time, a lot of people know, me they know who i, am and i'm not going to make excuses for this, but a lot of people over state -- i am not saying i'm not guilty of that. >> all right, we will take a short break, you're a rare move by north korea towards south korea on high alert and drones were involved. we will have a report from -- after the break. for people who are a little i

sarah murray is looking into that. now, as we look into that, as the lawmakers are looking into the trump tax returns, what do we know right now? >> well, jake, they are in the room right behind me, and having a deliberation, and they have been in there for about an hour now, and having a closed door discussion, and they are in an executive discussion, and we don't have insight into the room, but they are discussing whether or not to release any of the information related to donald trump's tax returns. that is something that the chairman richard neal fought for in court to have access to, and he has had access to this information for about a month, and committee members have had access for a couple of days and getting ready for the meeting. we know that once they are ready to vote, they will come out of the executive session, and we will see what they vote on in public, jake. we expect that it could come in the next hour or two. >> sarah, the justice department has been waiting for the evidence and the transcripts from

cnn political correspondent sarah murray is here in "the situation room" with me. transcripts already released have been packed with new revelations, as you know. we learned that trump considered issuing blanket pardons for some of his allies in the final days of his presidency. tell us more. >> reporter: that's right. we're learning that president trump floated blanket pardons for people involved in january 6th. he got pushback from the white house counsel. he said what if we just pardon the people who walked into the building, the white house counsel said no, no, no. he also floated the idea of blanket pardons for white house staffers. again, the white house counsel is saying why do we need to do this? the people here did not do anything wrong. it gives you an idea about trump's concerns about january 6th. we've continued to hear this from him since he left office, suggesting he would pardon people who were charged related to the january 6th riot if re-elected. we also learned an interesting tidbit from a press aide in the white house. he told investigators he he

as sarah murray reports, searches have been conducted at four different trump properties as his legal problems continue to escalate. >> tax fraud, but really it's cheating. it's lying. it's greed. >> mr. president! >> former president trump under pressure from an ever growing pile of legal problems. >> the name sake company of former president of the united states held accountable by a jury by way of a criminal conviction. >> a manhattan jury finding two trump organization companies guilty of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. part of a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities. trump and his family weren't charged in the case, but the investigation into trump companies continues. >> this is one chapter, an important chapter. >> trump also grapple lg with an investigation into his handling of classified government documents. >> this is a new hoax. document hoax. >> and a probe to subvert the 2020 election. >> we're going to walk down to the capitol. >> amid concerns from the justice department that trump is still holding on to sensitive government documents. >> it's n

sarah murray, cnn, washington. >> the taliban has released to americans who have been detained into afghanistanle filming in kabul. it is not immediately clear what led to the release, but the u.s. state department it appears to be a goodwill gesture. carly atwood has. more >> to americans who are detained by the taliban in afghanistan have been released, heading to qatar, on their way to safety and security. of course, the biden administration is welcoming their release, we know that one of them is -- he is a u.s. filmmaker, detained back in august. we are not naming the other person, due to a request from their family. but it is noteworthy that this comes that the same day the afghan-led government is banning all women from attending university. ned price said that that is indefensible there will be consequences for the taliban due to that decision. kylie atwood, cnn, washington. >> now china is narrowing its definition of covid related deaths in the face of an unprecedented surge in cases. the count will now include patients who have died from respiratory failure directly caused by the virus

sarah murray starts off our coverage with more insights into the special council's investigation, including a brand-new subpoena to a top elections official. >> also reminded her. >> jack smith speeding ahead with a pair of criminal probes around former president trump. >> he promised to the american people in his own statement that there would be no pause or hiccup in this work and i understand that is exactly what's going on now. >> prosecutors in the mar-a-lago documents case taking an aggressive approach as they asked a judge to hold trump in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena over the summer, demanding -- >> it is the document hoax. >> doj hitting a setback as the judge refused to hold trump in contempt, but notching a victory as the third party review of documents comes to an island. the judge dismissing the case today, giving doj access to tens of thousands of records and other items from mar-a-lago. investigators also plugging their way on their probe on ways to subvert the 2020 election. they're asking those in trump's orbit about trump's knowledge of events leading up

and of course the doj's doing their own investigation like sarah murray. but the bottom line is.ust a big vote that the january six is wrapping up. read page ten line six. and telling personal people who they are investigating for criminal acts. so the doj may not complete this referral. but again, if you're donald trump. this is not helpful. donald trump, and many of his candidates cannot defy political gravity. what just happened tonight in georgia. a race thrown away because of candidate issues. he's got all kinds of problems here, his announcement was [inaudible] at best. he has a lot of republicans speaking out forcefully against him, chris christie and others are speaking out against him. so i don't think he's gonna have an easy pass this time around from his challengers. >> so, caroline, let me get you to weigh in on this because you are a democratic strategist and you've also study these things, the reality was that donald trump for a long long time to find everything that we thought we know about the laws of the political gravity. and the way that voters were gonna react

cnn political correspondent, sarah murray, is covering it all for us from capitol hill. >> jack smith subpoenaing brad raffensperger. the georgia secretary of state donald trump pressured to overturn the 2020 election. >> all i want to do is this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. >> the round of recent subpoenas to battleground state officials ahead with a pair centered around trump. >> he promised to the american people in his own statement that there would be no pause or hiccup in this work and i understand that is exactly what's going on. >> prosecutors taking an aggressive approach as they ask a judge to hold trump in contempt over the summer, demanding he return all documents with classified markings. >> this is a new hoax. the document hoax. >> the judge refused to hold trump in contempt, but notching a victory as the third party review of documents seized from trump's florida resort comes toen aend. the judge dismissing the case today given doj access to tens of thousands of records and other items from mar-a-lago. inves

. >> sarah murray, appreciate. former nixon white house counselor -- cnn former prosecutor, rogers. others be on the former president are being looked at, possibly being referred to by the select committee or the doj. >> i don't think it'll influence the department. it will certainly influence the public, which in turn may influence the department. and this focuses on these people. there will be more information than normally from a criminal investigation that will be revealed about why the committee feels these people have earned a referral. i think it's an important move. i would not be surprised if there is some more that gets made. >> jennifer, how do you think the attorney of the department of justice weighed these referrals? >> not really at all, anderson. i mean, if the referrals were for obstruction of congress or perjury before congress, and then doj looks at it differently because congress is effectively a victim there and you would treat that the way you would abuse of any other victim. but if it's just we've done investigation, here's what we think, doj will say thank yo

. >> sarah murray, appreciated. now the doj investigation, new information about a secret court proceeding to gain excess republican congressman, scott perry, text messages, which could be significant because we know congressman perry was in touch with the white house chief of staff, mark meadows about various election conspiracy. and i'm joined now by our senior crime and justice reporter, caitlin polantz. caitlin, what do you know about the content of these text messages between the congressman perry and meadows? >> well anderson, we have seen some of the text messages before. and there is new reporting out there now about what they were talking about. and really what perry is doing in the text messages we have is he showing concern over the election. he's expressing this skepticism that he believes there was security breaches and some of the things he's writing to mark meadows, i mean, a lot of this is totally unfounded allegations. but he is asking mark meadows for help. he wants help to get in touch with differ

. >> sarah murray, appreciate. it we want to get some perspective. now to enhance -- carrie cordero in elie honig. also cnn political commentator, david irvine. former trump campaign advisor. carrie, how helpful, in your view, is this ruling to the justice departments investigation going forward? >> i think the 11th circuit ruling is important in the case. what it did is i t basically said that the former president is not entitled to special treatment, that executed search warrants is a standard process for the justice department, for the fbi, when they are conducting an investigation. when that warrant is based on probable cause and it's approved by a judge, that there really were no strong arguments made by the former president, that is special master should be in place, and that he should receive any special treatment. so, i think the 11th circuit case and the opinion that was just issued really resets this case in terms of the way things normally would work for any individual who is the subject of a search in any investigation around the country.

correspondent sara murray joins us now. so sarah, walk us through the significance of tomorrow. >> i think the significance of this for the committee largely has to do with the historical record and frankly for them to speak in one voice about they'll all been saying individually which is they think donald trump committed crimes. we've learned they're expected to refer him to the justice department for insurrection and conspiracy to defraud the u.s. government and obstruction of an official proceeding. but as you know, doj did not take its cues from congress and it is well on the way in a criminal investigation into the former president, the people around him about january 6, about what led up to it, and efforts to subvert the 2020 election. so doj is going to carry on doing what they're doing. they probably have evident that the committee has not been able to get. but lawmakers believe they have found evidence of a crime and they think it is important to lay that out for the public and the department of justice. >> and committee ha

let's go to sara murray now who's been going through these transcripts. sarahts, but some of them are quite terse shall i say. what can you tell us? >> i think terse is a good way of putting it. you know, this batch of transcripts what they really have in common is these are witnesses who did not want to answer the committee's questions and in many of these cases invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. in the eastman transcript he asked about legal memos he wrote. he invokes the fifth amendment. roger stone remember he was convict of lying to congress in the russia investigation and later pardoned by trump. he pled the fifth to every question he was asked. and jeffrey clark, the former doj official, he had a pretty combative set of two depositions with the committee. in the first one his lawyer presented the committee with 12 pages of their objections, and in his second deposition with the committee he pleaded the fifth roughly 120 times. so it gives you a look at how investigators were not able to maybe get all of the answers they wante

sara murray is live in washington with more. what are you learning here, sarah?rter: well we're expecting a hearing in a sealed proceeding to happen on this contempt issue later today. what the justice department is saying to this judge is, look, the trump team never complied with the subpoena we sent over the summer to return all documents with classified m marking. the trump feel found two more documents with classified markings as a storage unit and they're concerned that the trump team won't name a custodian of records to sign an attestation saying we've looked and we've handed over anything with classified markings. so that is all an issue in a secret court proceeding for a judge today and if held in contempt, they could face fines. as we're waiting for the january 6 committee to formally issue their criminal referrals. they've been weighing whether to issue a criminal referral for donald trump but colleagues are also looking at referrals for mark meadows and rudy giuliani and john eastman both attorneys as well as jeffrey clark who was a former justice depa

murray. democratic congressman from new york air gianna -- form republican congressman and south carolina governor for -- former u.s. attorney harry lippman. thank you to all for joining me. sarah, i know you have been sifting through all of the evidence and their conclusions, but a lot of people tuned out, of course, from christmas. and their holiday weeks. so just give us some of the headlines. well, look, there is a lot to sift through. between the report and the transcripts. but even these transcripts we're learning new information. there was one in transcript that reference to this draft press release, the white house was dropping in december of 2020. that we never heard about before. it was right after bill barr had publicly done interview saying there was no widespread fraud, he then attorney general over the white house -- anybody that thinks there was not massive fraud in 2020 election should be fired. never issued this press release, eventually bill barr resigned from the administration anyway, we didn't know about that until we saw this pop up in one of the questions investigators asked. one of the other big findings from the report was how extensive the pressure cam