office in new york is now looking into lies told by republican congressman elect george santos. this as cnn is uncovering even more false claims that he s made. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. one of the biggest airline debacles in recent memory has stranded even more passengers this hour. we re following all the new cancellations and the delays by southwest airlines and efforts to get the airline back on track. cnn s reporter is over at bwi airport. this meltdown appears to be far from over, gabe. give us the latest, what are you learning? reporter: look, wolf, just another brutal day for these travelers. southwest canceling 2500 flights, more than 60% of its schedule. as you mentioned, it looks like tomorrow is just going to be more of the same. behind me, just a few of the passengers still searching for their lost luggage. some of them never got out for the holidays. others are
very different timelines when it comes to the appointment of a special counsel when it comes to the handling of classified documents. merrick garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the handling of some classified documents. his appointment follows the development that a second set of classified documents were found, these in a storage space in the garage of president biden s home in wilmington, delaware. the president s lawyer said it was a small number of documents. watch. on january 5th, 2023, mr. laush briefed me on the results of his initial investigation and advised me that further investigation by a special counsel was warranted. based on mr. laush s initial investigation, i concluded that under the special counsel regulations, it was in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. as i have said before, i strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity, but under the regulations, the extraord
light speed, so we re kind of mixing apples and oranges there on the timing front, but i really think that the question that is bothering me most right now is why did it take jack smith s appointment on the 18th to all of a sudden see this increase in the pace and the scope of an investigation that should have been up and running at a full sprint ever since i maintain right after the insurrection and it sure doesn t feel like merrick garland was sprinting towards the finish line. was he running, glenn? how would you actually what was the pace with which merrick garland was pursuing potential criminality on the part of drrp and his inner circle, as it pertained to january 6th? it feels to me that he was walking at a leisurely pace, at a time in our nation s history
schiff is kind of onto something here. let me get carrie to react to that. what do you think? so on one hand, you know, we do know, wolf, that pardon authority is one of the strongest, not challengeable authorities that an executive has, that any president has. and so the former president was very aware of his strong executive authority. and demonstrated throughout his presidency that he was really willing to use that authority. i think it s interesting that in this particular circumstance, it sounds like the white house counsel s office was able to push back on his instincts to use that executive authority in such an unprecedented way, particularly as it pertained to january 6th related events. but it is amongst the things that the former president could be criticized for, it s in the area of sort of more of a political argument because presidents do have that strong
attorney in atlanta, the feds haven t really shown up in this case. there s no indication that the u.s. attorney in atlanta is an active participant. that can help with an investigation if you re a state d.a. she continues to look like she s doing it on her own here. charlie, lindsey graham gave one of the weirdest speeches on january 6th. he seemed a little choked up. it was just bizarre. it s been a fun ride, donald, but it s of. it lasted about, i don t know, 15 minutes. he was right back in the cooing and the mischief. is he a credible witness? it s been a wild ride for lindsey graham. it is not over. look, there s something about testifying before a grand jury under oath that focuses the mind marvelously. i assume he s not going to want