George santos is defiant amid growing calls for him to resign over the many lies he told voters. House speaker Kevin Mccarthy standing by santos even as he acknowledges a lack of trust. Were tracking Severe Weather right now in the southeast including significant damage from a large and extremely dangerous tornado in alabama. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. We begin with this Special Counsel investigation thats about to get under way. Amid new revelations about classified documents found at President Bidens home and office. Lets go right to our chief White House Correspondent phil mattingly. The white house is attempting to defend its response as a new timeline is raising a lot of questions. Thats right, wolf. The white House Counsel saying they will fully cooperate with the new Special Counsel investigation and say they believe by the time the investigation is over it will be clear this was an inadvertent problem, a mistake that was made. A new timeline detailed by the Attorney General as he announced the Special Counsel certainly raising questions about a process that has been anything but transparent for the public. Im here today to announce the appointment of robert herr as Special Counsel. The dramatic escalation of a perilous moment. It was in the Public Interest to appoint a Special Counsel. Reporter appointing former u. S. Attorney robert herr to investigate the possible mishandling of classified documents and revealing more detail about an issue biden and his lawyers kept quiet for weeks and have desperately tried to manage since the story broke four days ago. People know i take classified documents and material seriously. Reporter coming after bidens Second Public statement about a second set of classified documents found at a second location. As part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as Vice President were stored and they finished the review last night. They discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in Storage Areas in File Cabinets in my hope in my personal library. Reporter garlands timeline underscoring at the time of bidens first statement on the issue earlier this week. Cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review which i hope will be finished soon. Reporter his lawyers had been aware of the second set of documents discovered at his Wilmington Home for nearly a month. A timeline that started with the discovery of ten classified documents that led garlic to appoint u. S. Attorney john loush to investigate the matter. President bidens personal counsel informed mr. Loush that additional documents baring classifications markings were identified in the garage of the president s private residents in wilmington, delaware. All key factors for what was recommended to garland last week. On january 5th, 2023, mr. Lausch briefed me on the results of his initial investigation and advised me further investigation by a Special Counsel was warranted. Reporter the recommendation that came four days before the initial discovery of classified documents leaked and before days of white house statements that intentionally avoided key details in part out of an effort to avoid this very moment, sources said, and to follow strict limits set by his lawyers. Ill get a chance to speak on all this god willing soon. Reporter as Due Dill Vence for more documents was still on going. This morning President Bidens personal counsel called mr. Lauch and stated an additional document was idea food at the president s personal residence in wilmington, delaware. Reporter wolf, white house lawyers say theyve cooperated closely with the Justice Department in the review up to this stage. That cooperation will continue Going Forward. Also, we have now reported that during that review they interviewed individuals tied to the then Vice President s time in office including kathy chung currently at the department of defense. She was the president s Executive Assistant at the time. This was a fluid period of time of the then Obama Administration in terms of how the documents got to the think tank and his Wilmington Home. Lets break all this down with our correspondents and analysts. Paula reid, let me start with you, our Senior Legal Affairs correspondent. I know youre doing a lot of reporting on this, on whats going on behind the scenes. What more can you tell us about this u. S. Justice Department Decision by the Attorney General to go ahead and appoint a Special Counsel . Its pretty important. Incredibly important and an ongoing process. Merrick garland is a former judge. Once a judge, always a judge. He believes in the process. The Justice Department was informed of the discovery of Classified Information on november 4th. Ten days later he tapped the u. S. Attorney in chicago, a Trump Appointee to review what happened here, and suggest whether or not there should be a Special Counsel. Just a few days after that he tapped jack smith to handle the trump investigation. He clearly had Special Counsels on the brain. On january 5th it is recommended by the u. S. Attorney he should indeed appoint a Special Counsel. Within a week he found someone. A very short list of people who are qualified, never mind willing to do this. I spoke with rob rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney general. He said he was one of my top deputies, he knows exactly what hes getting into. Seems highly qualified indeed. El eliot, lets talk about whats going on. Is this in part an opportunity where the Justice Department and the Attorney General to appear to be avoiding a double standard, one standard for trump, another for biden. The word appear is doing a lot of work in that sentence. At the end of the day, the Justice Department could have investigated this case. I worked there for six years and folks there can investigate matters of people of the same political party, up to and including the boss. The problem is a conflict is real even if its perceived under the guidelines and the fact that there are folks in the public who would regard any action by the Justice Department as being political. The a. G. Probably had to go down the road of appointing a Special Counsel here just to give the appearance of impartiality. Jamie, its interesting, i noticed the Attorney General when he was making his statement today, he went beyond what the white house was saying. He provided new information. We have for the first time really a sense of the timeline, including they found one more document this morning. This is not great. Youre doing a thorough search, and then, whoops, theres one more. Just to go back to something that elliott said, there are going to be constant comparisons here with trump, fair or not. I think that while nobody wants a Special Counsel and you dont know where this is going to lead, it was one way to appear evenhanded, impartial, and im told by sources that rob hur has impeccable conservative credentials. Which is interesting to me that you would have to go to a conservativeleaning person to be perceived as impartial in a Special Counsel situation. But i think youre right, jamie. The existence of a Special Counsel for trump necessitated that one would need to be in place here because of the perceptions problems. I think theres probably a Special Counsel for trump perhaps only because trump is already a candidate for the next election and could face biden again. That political layer is never going to go away. I do think theres real questions about this timeline that was laid out by the Attorney General and why in my mind i dont understand why the biden camp didnt do the searches earlier. Why did it take even until December 30th to take that second batch of documents. Why were they finding documents today . Theres a limited universe of places where these documents could be. One could imagine those searches could have been executed pretty much immediately after the second set were found. You saw the Press Secretary today basically cueing to a Statement Writ Attorney on a piece of paper and saying they were following the book. Again, theres just a lack of transparency here on the timeline, information they certainly could have provided. For those of us who covered the white house, today was a bad day to be at the podium, whether youre a republican or democratic. One other thing to add, wolf. We know they did the right thing when they found that first paper. Cooperation is the key. They immediately reached out to the white House Counsel who said call the National Archives. But to abbys point, this has gone on now for weeks and weeks, now months when theres just this mixed bag here of cooperating, trying to do the right thing. But then unanswered questions. How did these classified documents get there and why have they not been more transparent . To me its a tell. They know this is a political problem for them. Otherwise, i think they would have tried to give at least a more clear timeline of what happened, how many documents there were, et cetera, because they put out a statement this week that had details in them. Again, its not the same thing. Theyre giving the documents back not trying to hold on to them. That is a key fact. But from a political and perhaps a Public Relations perspective, theyre trying to hold Back Information because of where we are in the political cycle. Wondering, because i know youre doing reporting on this, paula. Where does the other Special Counsel investigation, jack smith Investigating Trump and his mishandling of highly classified documents . We know hes been busy. Two months into the job, there was a flurry of activity before christmas. They gathered a lot of evidence. There was another round of subpoenas to Trump Associates in recent weeks. They have an enormous amount of evidence theyre going through as they decide whether or not to bring charges. This is a much more complicated investigation. Not only are they dealing with january 6th, looking into that. Theyre also looking into maralago, not only the potential mishandling of Classified Information, but also this question of cooperation and potential obstruction. Its a very complicated investigation. As we know, jack smith was abroad for most of the past two months. Hes back in the u. S. Getting his office set up. Time is of the essence. Theres a lot of concern over how far these investigations will go into the election season. Theres a lot of pressure to move quickly. Its important to know the difference between a pr issue and a legal one. Now, one can quickly become the other, and something can spiral out of control for the current president s administration. Look, they are doing everything, as it appears, to cooperate with the investigation here. W they have a communications mess. What it seems former President Trump is sitting on is a series of legal problems compounded by his own conduct and that of the attorneys around him that could end in criminal charges. We know the history of Special Counsels investigating a sitting president of the United States going back many years to nixon and reagan, bill clinton and others as well. It usually doesnt necessarily work out all that great for the sitting president of the United States. Guys, everybody stand by. Just ahead, embattled congressman George Santos dodging cnns questions about bly tant lies on his resume as a growing course of republicans wants him out of the house. Live to ukraine where russia is fighting for a Battlefield Win after a string of defeats at a very steep cost to its forces. Hey, thanks for helping me out. Of course. You can easily get Helpful Customer Service over the phohone or on the progressive app pretty much anywhere. Like at the coffee shop, at the park, just kidding. Its another coffee shop mucix nightshift fights your worst nighttime symptoms so you can get to sleep and wake up ready to g how could you . Wake up to a new you. With mucinex nightshift, its not cold and flu season. Its always comeback season. Meet Three Sisters learning how to spend, save, and budget. All with chase first banking. Freedom for kids. Control for parents. One bank with tools for both. Chase. Make more of whats yours. This electric feels different. Because its powered by the most potent source of energy there is. You. This is the lexus variety of electrification. Inspired by, created for and powered by you. Wants him out of the house. This feels so right. Adt systems now feature google products like the nest cam with floodlight, with intelligent alerts when a person or familiar face is detected. Sam. Sophies not here tonight. So you have a home with no worries. Brought to you by adt. My name is austin james. As a musician living with diabetes, fingersticks can be a real challenge. Thats why i use the freestyle libre 2 system. With a painless, onesecond scan, i know my Glucose Numbers without fingersticks. Now, im managing my diabetes better, and ive lowered my a1c from 8. 2 to 6. 7. Take the mystery out of managing your diabetes and lower your a1c. Now you know. Try it for free at freestylelibre. Us my name is joshua florence, and one thing i learned being a firefighter is plan ahead. You dont know what youre getting into, but at the end of the day, you know you have a team behind you that can help you. Not having to worry about the future makes it possible to make the present as best as it can be for everybody. Tech when you have auto glass damage, trust safelite. This dad and daughter were driving when they got a crack in their windshield. [smash] dad its okay. Pull over. Tech he wouldnt take his car just anywhere. Pop rock music tech . So he brought it to safelite. We replaced the windshield and recalibrated their cars advanced safety system, so features like Automatic Emergency Braking will work properly. Tech alright, all finished. Dad wow, thats great. Thanks. Tech stay safe with safelite. Schedule now. Singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Newly elected republican congressman George Santos of new york is defiant amid calls for him to resign over multiple lies hes told about his background that have been exposed since he won his house seat. Cnns chief Congressional Correspondent manu raju has been trying to give santos a chance to address the controversy. Manu, whats the latest . Reporter when i approached him today and asked him to address his widespread lies about his past, he refused to engage, even as more and more republicans are calling on him to step aside. Right now six total House Republicans have urged him to resign. Theres one person who is making clear hes not joining those calls to resign, thats House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy. Freshman congressman George Santos defiant i will be continuing to hold my office elected by the people. Reporter facing growing gop calls for resignation over his web of lies, but saying hes not going anywhere after winning 142,000 votes last fall. 142 people ask for me to res resign, ill resign. Mr. Santos, why did you lie to your voters about your qualifications, your past, why did you lie to them . Dont the voters deserve an explanation about your widespread lies about your past . How can you be trusted with sensitive security information. Reporter telling a fellow republican he has been honest. Ive worked my entire life. I live an honest life. Ive never been accused of any bad doing. Reporter santos has admitted to lying including by saying hes jewish and his family survived the holocaust, he owned