might s ancient sequoias as wildfires close in. i m standing right in front of the grizzly giant and we ve got a sprinkler system set up in front of it. i m pamela brown in washington. you re live in the cnn newsroom. we want to take you right now to mariposa, california as evacuations are under way as fires threaten the ancient sequoias. our nick watt has just arrived on the scene. nick, how serious is the season there, and what are they doing to protect these incredibly special trees? reporter: well, we just have heard that the fight is going in the right direction, but it is still a huge fight. the flames are within a mile or two of mariposa grove which is home to about 500 of these giant, beautiful, ancient sequoia freeze, so the way that they are trying to contain the fireworks the way they are trying to keep those trees safe, they have 360 personnel on the ground, including hot shot cruise who are digging trenches around mariposa grove, a kind of break to try to
of donald trump s top allies now says he s ready to testify. plus, president zelensky message to russia on a deadly strike in an apartment building in ukraine. live from cnn, this is cnn newsroom. thank you for joining us, japan is preparing to form a leader just hours after his party won big in parliamentary elections. a private wake will be held about three hours from now, followed by funeral service tuesday afternoon. u.s. secretary of state anthony lincoln made an unscheduled trip to tokyo to pay his respects. during his time in office, he really took the relationship between our countries to new heights. as i share with our colleagues we saw in him something rare. a man who had the vision and the ability to realize that vision. but mostly, i came because more than allies, we are friends. and when a friend is hurting, other friends show up. in the meantime we are learning new details about the suspect and his anger over an unnamed group he thought they were conn
pat cipollone who spent hours with the house select committee friday. committee members say they will air clips on that interview. he was able to provide information on basically all of the critical issues that we are looking at, including the president s what i will call dereliction of duty on the day of january 6. steve bannon says he is willing to testify now. this after former president trump lifted a claim of executive privilege. he is set to appear in court today a criminal contempt charges filed after he ignored a congressional subpoena. let s bring in host of the podcast that said. good to see you this morning. as we look at what is potentially what we will likely learn more about at the hearings what are you most interested in? we are up to part six and seven of the seven part conspiracy outlined on day one. these parts are trump assembled and summoned the mob and directed them to go to the capital, and then stood by and did nothing while they ransacked the cap
quote, irrelevant to the contempt of congress case against him. that is set to begin next week. the doj wrote, quote, the defendant s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet obl gigations, but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability. bannon s reversal comes after he received a letter from former trump that waives executive privilege, but new court documents show that an attorney for former president trump actually spoke to the fbi weeks ago and contradicted bannon s claim that the former president had invoked executive privilege over particular information or materials, so who is telling the truth and who is not? more on that in a moment. also, in the january 6th public hearing that is tomorrow, this is the next one, the panel is expected to focus on how the violent mob came together, the rule of extremist groups in the deadly insurrection, and any connections of those groups to trump s inner circle. a former spokesman for the oath keepers, a far right
government circles, to overturn the election. one witness we are expecting to hear from is a former spokesman for the oathkeepers. that is the group that we now know brought explosives to the dc area ahead of january 6th, according to the justice department. one person we won t hear from tomorrow, trump allies steve bannon. days before he goes on trial for stonewalling the select committee, bannon now says he will testify. prosecutors say this last minute 180 won t get him out of next week s trial. we will have the latest on that case in just a moment. first, let s go to ryan nobles on capitol hill. how is the committee planning to show links between trans allies and the 60 myst groups tomorrow? that is a great bastion. it will probably come through closed-door witness testimony which we have already seen the committee display over the past few weeks in these public hearings. we know the committee has spoken to a lot of people inside and outside the white house who knew a