already ramping up its assault tonight. plus, a major update to a story we ve been following. the fbi now investigating congressman george santos for allegedly stealing thousands of dollars meant to help a veteran s dying dog. this is the $17,000 that sontose claims he spent in florida reportedly doesn t add up either. hunter biden s attorneys now calling for a criminal investigation into rudy giuliani and others over the laptop found at a delaware computer repair shop. i m erin burnett. outfront tonight, half a million more russian fighters. that s what ukraine is bracing for tonight, 500,000 more russians and a major onslaught. here s ukraine s defense minister with the chilling warning. translator: officially, they announced 300,000. but when we see the troops at the borders, according to our estimates, it is much more. we think that they have already mobilized 500,000. 500,000. it sounds huge on an absolute basis, and if it pans out, it is huge. just to give y
good morning, everyone. it is saturday, february 11th, we re live in the cnn newsroom, and you don t have to adjust your tv, we re actually in the same set in the same place. no split screen. right. great to be with you as well. up first this hour, president biden ordering an prague to shoot down an unidentified object over alaska, an operation that he is describing as a success, and right now, there are way more questions though about what that thing was that got shot down and actual details about it, and keep in mind, this is the second time in a week that a u.s. fighter jet has taken down an object after the chinese surveillance balloon was brought down last saturday. ten miles off the coast of alaska, the federal aviation administration issuing a temporary flight restriction in the area as the military took action. officials say they don t know what the object is or who it belongs to. the white house says president biden was first briefed on the situation thursday
but pages, new pages we haven t seen this before. specific information about the potential offenses that the justice department is investigating. in here is language that does sharpen the focus on the former president himself. for example, if you just look at this part, it says under the search is related to a violation of, it continues to say willful retention of national defense information, concealment or removal of government records, and obstruction of federal investigation. so we got a little bit here. this, again, is new information as part of the whole search of mar-a-lago. the federal judge today also ordering the justice department to possibly release the crucial affidavit used to get the search warrant. so prepare redactions in casey the ruling is to release it. the affidavit itself will tell us what specifically the justice department knew when it searched trump s home. what specifically investigators were looking for and why. what was their cause. and who helped
at this stage. reporter: right. well, it would be rare to make a search warrant affidavit public, but we are at a point where there is a push for transparency, not just on capitol hill, but the media, including cnn. in court the justice department made a set of arguments and really a couple little details about this investigation that they re saying should keep this affidavit secret, confidential, only for their eyes and for the judge s eyes. in their filing yesterday, they wrote if disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a road map to the government s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps. we know too they have disclosed in this filing yesterday that they are using witnesses already, that they have spoken with, they re using a grand jury in this investigation, and that they also are looking for to make sure there aren t future witnesses whose infor
plus, more evidence of an economic funk. a new data point shows american consumers are getting even more pessimistic, and it s because of inflation. and a split screen day for republicans. trump in washington. so is pence. competing speeches put their rift in the wrestling match for control of the republican party front and center. up first for us, though, a federal grand jury, its highest profile witness, and what it might mean for donald trump and those who helped him try to steal the 2020 election. a former mike pence cheech of staff, marc short, confirm last night here on cnn, that he did receive and did comply with a grand jury subpoena, his first appearance before the washington, d.c., grand jury. marc would not discuss the content of his testimony. but a witness to a long list of episodes including the senior circle of trump allies who pushed a scheme with the home that vice president pence would then refuse to certify the real biden electors. multiple reports say greg