georgia bulldogs edges out ohio state here in atlanta. i m pamela brown in washington. you are live in the cnn newsroom on this holiday. happy new year. we begin tonight with a major development in the idaho murder investigation. for the first time we re hearing from the parents the suspect in the case, bryan kohberger. he s facing four counts of first-degree murder. jean casarez is in pennsylvania where kohberger remains in isolation at the correctional facility. what are the parents saying? well, pamela, they have released a statement and i want to read this to you. the attorney for bryan kohberger, jason labar, tells me that when he was arrested friday morning and the family is telling him about 3:00 in the morning, but brian labar tells me what happened was they wept to the front door and that bryan s father actually answered the door. it was law enforcement. we know it was the fbi. we know it was pennsylvania state police. it was in the middle of the night. we al
the january 6th committee, they interviewed her, and they did not actually mention her in their year-end report. even if it wasn t a big deal for the committee, and her lawyer said look, her rule was minimal, she doesn t talk to her husband about the law, still that raised these concerns, should justice clarence thomas have recused himself from at least one case that had to do with that committee. all these questions are gurgling and we get this report where, in fact, chief justice john roberts isn t talking about things that are happening right now. he s sort of making references to judicial safety, pinning it back in history, but i think a lot of people thought that this year, this report, might have had a little bit more meat. yeah. he certainly didn t address all the elephants in the room. thank you very much. from the adventures of an animated plumber to the return of indiana jones, 2023 could be a big year at the movies and we have a preview for you.
the justices get to decide when they want to recuse from particular cases, and that brings up questions for a lot of people. they thought maybe in this new report he would unveil something, new ethics guidelines, and he didn t. yeah. i mean, that was a big question with justice thomas, whether he should recuse himself in certain cases involving january 6th, given what we have learned about his wife ginni thomas. she came under fire for her efforts to help trump overturn the results of the election of 2020 despite calls for justice thomas to recuse himself from a case involving trump he didn t. did roberts address that narrow aspect at all? kind of a good question, right, because that was a big deal when you re writing a year-end report and, in fact, as you said, the january 6th committee, they he came upon these texts between ginni thomas, and it s fair to say as you know she s a long-time conservative activist, but she wrote the texts to the white house expressing concerns about t
is that innocent until proven guilty because there s a potential jury pool that is watching all of this, too. watch what he said to me on that presumption of innocence. he s doing okay. he s shocked a little bit. obviously, he s calm right now. you know, we don t really know much about the case. i don t have any affidavit or probable cause. he is entitled to a fair and impartial jury of his peers. he s preassumed innocent. he s cloaked in that innocence. really, i don t want anyone to jump to conclusions as far as facts and evidence. everybody is making presumptions and assumptions, he has that presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. and it is true, to remember, for any defendant, obviously, it s constitutionally based, but the next hearing will be that extradition hearing. it is on tuesday. and once he gets back to idaho and has his initial appearance,
could prosecutors face in securing an ultimate conviction, and what role does the fact that he was a former president play in all of it? yeah. so it s such an important point to keep in mind. if if it happens that donald trump is indicted, it may happen, we don t know, people need to remember an indictment is a start of a case, it is not the end point. we are going to see real obstacles here. at the state level, there s a real legal and constitutional question about whether a local elected partisan district attorney at a county level can indict somebody for conduct touching on the presidency. there will be debate. but watch that will be a legal argument. either way, as you note, you have to get a jury, if you re a prosecutor, to convict 12-0. that s going to be difficult in any case, particularly difficult against a former president, it s going to be particularly difficult against somebody who is a current candidate for 2024. an indictment, it will be momentous, if it happens, but i