condition as he recovers from covid. dr. anthony fauci is standing by live. we will discuss. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we begin our coverage tonight with the guilty verdict in steve bannon s criminal contempt trial. the former top trump adviser convicted on two counts of contempt of congress for defying the january 6th committee s subpoena. cnn s senior crime and justice reporter, katelyn polantz is joining us from just outside the federal courthouse here in washington. katelyn, give us the latest. reporter: well, wolf, steve bannon was convicted today, even though he had vowed this was going to be the misdemeanor from hell for the select committee. it was not that. by the end of the day, we had two criminal convictions of steve bannon. now, these were both misdemeanor charges, but congress writes the law, and when they wrote this law, they said that it would be punishable by a minimum
state department is rejecting steve bannon s sudden willingness to testify before the january 6th committee days before his criminal contempt trial is set to begin. bannon produced a letter from donald trump, trump saying he is waiving executive privilege so bannon can testify. here s the thing, the committee and most legal analysts say no privilege existed in this case to begin with. what s more, federal prosecutors argue, trump never invoked executive privilege here. so, this doj court filing also reveals that former president trump s attorney justin clark was interviewed by fbi investigators two weeks ago. let s go to washington, whitney wild is there for the latest on what we can expect in the committee hearing tomorrow. the oath keepers front and center. absolutely. this will be a very robust hearing and this hearing will focus on how the violent mob came together and the role of extremist groups in that deadly insurrection. to connect trump allies to militia groups, s
to the violence that occurred here that day. we ve already seen this committee detail how donald trump pressured all aspects of the government to try to overturn the electoral results, the justice department, state officials, vice president mike pence. for tomorrow at the hearing they plan to show the oath keepers, and proud boys to take action and lead to the violence we saw in this building on january 6th. we will hear live testimony from one former member of the oath keepers, a former spokesperson, jason van patenhove someone he said had a lot of inside information, according to what he told a colorado tv station, said he had inside access to the oath keepers. we ll learn about that, and we ll also learn about a meeting that occurred mid-december, december 18th. jamie raskin, the congressman from maryland plans to lead the questioning tomorrow, says it will be a key focus of the hearing tomorrow. one of the things that people are going to learn is the fundamental importa
teachers at the end of may. and new details about what the 77 minutes of school hallway surveillance video shows. plus, a new covid variant spreading at an alarming rate throughout the united states, and this one is not deterred even by recent infections. so how do the vaccines hold up against it? welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. we start with our politics lead and members of the january 6th select house committee now publicly suggesting they will use tomorrow s hearing to draw direct links between the extremist groups who stormed the u.s. capitol and have been charged with seditious conspiracy and people inside donald trump s orbit. we are going to be connecting the dots during these hearings between these groups and those who were trying in government circles to overturn the election. what we heard cassidy hutchinson testify along the lines of trump telling mark meadows, the chief of staff, to talk to roger stone and others, mike flynn, and stone and flynn ha
to leave on a major middle east trip including a controversial visit to saudi arabia. can he reset relations with the country he had vowed to make a pariah? and new efforts are now underway to free americans britney greiner and paul whalen from captivity in russia. the better and hostage negotiator former governor bill richardson is now expected to travel to moscow in hopes of winning the release. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world, i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. on this the eve of the next january six hearing, select committee aides are sharing new details on what to expect as the panel zeros in on the far right extremists at the forefront of the insurrection. cnn congressional correspondent ryan nobles has our report from capitol hill. the justice department says they were among the writers causing the most trouble on january sixth. right wing extremist groups many of which came to washington intent on disrupting