start. nice to have you with us. i m ashleigh banfield and i m zoraida sambolin. it s 5:00 a.m. here in the east. let s get started. attorney eric holder to be held in contempt in congress. yesterday the members of the government oversight and reform committee voted along party lines to recommend citing him for contempt for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents from the botched fast and furious gun operation, documents that are now off limits to republicans, and everyone else, because the president has invoked executive privilege to keep all of those documents now under wraps. joe johns is live from washington, d.c., this morning. joe, this is the first time that president obama has used the executive privilege. i think it was president clinton that maybe used it 14 times. how rare is this, and what is going to happen next to the attorney general? reporter: it is rare, but on the other hand, presidents do it, and most presidents do it at least once or twice during
let s get to takoma, washington where dan simon is now. reporter: of course the focus is trying to see if there were clues or warning signs that may have caused this army soldier robert bales to carry out this unthinkable rampage. right now there is a lot of speculation whether or not he suffered deep emotional problems after having been to four different battle zones, three in iraq, one in afghanistan. of course, his attorney tells cnn in 2010 he suffered a serious brain injury after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. that attorney telling cnn that the day before the rampage took place, his client watched a fellow soldier get seriously injured. take a look. what i heard from the military lawyers who are working on this case with me, who i m very impressed with, that another soldier at this base was brutally attacked the day before this incident and had his leg shot off right in front of my client. reporter: the military moved bales family. he s a father of two children
according to two leaders in al sadr s movement there. they say he was held for the past nine months and that he was, quote, captured in battles. u.s. officials have not confirmed this information. pentagon officials say there have been no active duty military personnel missing in iraq. it s an interesting story with lots of twists here. we are going to continue to follow this story and bring you the very latest information as it comes in to cnn. stay tuned. new details paint a very clear, much clearer picture of the soldier accused of a brutal massacre in afghanistan. the portrait of staff sergeant robert bales seems incomplete. it doesn t explain how or why a decorated combat veteran could carry out such a grisly rampage. dan simon is standing by for us outside lewis-mcchord where bales is stationed. we are starting to learn more about bales. what are you hearing? reporter: the focus is whether or not there were any clues or warning signs that may have caused bales to go o
it s the conservative political action conference in washington, d.c. i ve got you there live right now. this is the vamp up, folks, to the big delegate leader, mitt romney. if you want to be the republican nominee for president, you d better have your game face on when you come to cpac. and you better have cpac on your side, some say. there is a caveat to that. i ll get to that in a moment. any second now, as i said, we re expecting mitt romney, who s going to make his case from that podium to this audience. a critical audience. core conservatives in that audience. and the message he wants to deliver, i am your core conservative leader. and i ve got a message for you. we re following those comments live as he shakes the hand of the interviewer or the look at that. perfect timing. mitt romney takes the podium. let s listen in live as he gets ready to sell his conservative message and his record in massachusetts. wow, thank you, please. thank you! thank you. please. wo