ahead. i ll speak with the family of paul weiland, another american, the kremlin has locked up on espionage charges and a group of military families gets the tragic news. nine service members killed when two black hawk choppers crashed. cnn has a crew right near that save. plus tension in the house from paper tossing to hallway shouting in your face. debates are getting heated on the hill. welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper, and we start today with our world lead. top u . s. officials are strongly criticizing russia after an american reporter was detained on charges of spying. evan gersh covic appeared in a moscow court today accused of trying to steal russian state secrets. his employer, the wall street journal, says it quote vehemently denies those claims. but now gorshkov itch faces up to 20 years in prison. and today , lawmakers on capitol hill are accusing russia of using this journalist as leverage, and the white house is dismissing the charges.
what are the odds that he actually faces justice? plus former president trump s attorney ordered to testify as part of the investigation into the formerer president s handling of classified documents. how he could turn out to be one of the most crucial witnesses in the special counsel s probe. it s thick in the summertime, builds up and smells terrible. it s also headed right for the u.s. away we know about the 5,000-mile massive seaweed make ing its way to the east coast and the impact it is will have on florida s beaches and tour u. for just the second time ever, a 16 beats a 1. plus another stunning upset in the ncaa tournament. a huge underdog 16 seed knocking out a number 1 in the first round of the tournament. andy scholes is laughing at our brackets. it s a dumpster fire out there. we start this morning with big international news. the president of russia is now aed man. the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for vladimir putin and the countr
daniels during the 2016 election. again, if there is an arrest, that s according to trump. trump also called for protests over his pending arrest to, quote, take our nation back. this development comes as sources tell cnn that law enforcement agencies in new york are also now preparing for the possible indictment of trump. cnn s polo sandoval is outside the manhattan criminal courthouse for us. we can also begin with cnn senior crime and justice report reporter katelyn polantz. what do we know about the announcement on the post? reporter: if it is charged, we don t have the answer to that yet and neither does donald trump. at this point in time his team through a spokesman has made very clear that there has been no notification made to him or his lawyers that he is going to be indicted or when that indictment is going to happen. however, trump is very aware of the politics of this and the bluster and the bully pulpit that he has, and so he is is agitating for his team to tr
what they think. chuck rosenberg, what is you take there is a lot in the indictment that did no surprise me, we have bee hearing for a long time it would be related to the hush money payments and therefore false entries on the books and records of the trump organization but there are some reall fascinating detail in th company statement of facts tha prosecutors filed yesterday, which shows, a couple of things one, their theory for elevatin those false records and thos false entries into felonies, violations of election law state and federal, and the hin of a plan to violate state - law. you also see the sensuality of not just michael cohen to this scheme, but also - clear to me from the statement of facts, and the prosecutor can prove everything in that statement of facts tha minister pecker woul essentially publishes th national enquirer wa responsible for the catch an kill stories, is a reall important witness. he had private conversations with trump, and in those convers
border crisis caused by the biden administration. never a good bet to bet against america, never. [chanting u.s.a.] newark can once again be the land of the free and the home of the brave. pete hegseth is live in carthage in north carolina where he s going to be talking to voters. who here watched the speech last night? who loved the speech last night? ainsley: last night was joe biden s second state of the union address. we all watched it. we watched sarah huckabee sanders rebuttal and listened to the pundits afterwards. we will get you up to date, up to speed if you happened to go to sleep last night. brian: then we watched some late night movies and went to the clubs and came right to work. how late were we up last night? 11:00? steve: listen, we made one correct prediction yesterday and that was that joe biden would be wearing a blue tie. ainsley: this is true. steve: and he did. from state of the union to safety the onion. let s go to having br