people from grave dangers on social media, with angry victims relatives in the room. i ll speak with a senator that co-s co-sponsored, richard blumenthal. donald trump meets with the teamsters, hoping to drive a wedge between president joe biden and his traditionally loyal allies in organized labor, this as nikki haley is unleashing her sharpest attacks on him yet. and a dire new warning from the fbi director, that chinese hackers are preparing to, quote, wreak havoc on the united states. stand by for details on potential targets and the serious harm that could come too americans. welcome to our viewers around the world. wolf blitzer is off today. i m alex mar equity. you re in the situation room. our top story tonight, some of the biggest nay in the tech industry confronted about the perils of social media, and many young people who are suffering, even dying. cnn s tom foreman has more on the often combative senate hearing, which included a stunning apology. you
white nationalists who organized the rally, saying they planned the attacks on counterprotesters. ken dilanian is outside the courthouse in charlottesville. ken, what can we expect when opening statements get under way tomorrow? reporter: geoff, this is a case about the line between speech and violence. and the question of whether people urging violence in social media and internet chat rooms can be held accountable when that violence leads to real world injuries and suffering. some of these plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit were hurt in the clashes that occurred four years ago around this unite the right rally. they are alleging that the people who organized this rally and advocated violence online before the rally are responsible for their injuries and should pay damages. and they have a trove of evidence, five terabytes of evidence, including from the platform discord, of people talking about violence. let me just read an excerpt from
we know it was hell on earth for so many of them. the things they were being attacked with is such a heinous recollection. what kind of questions do you want to get asked to get to the bottom of what happened? first of all, i think we have to have an accounting of the facts. january 6th was one of the darkest days in the history of our country, period. bar none. it s one of the worst offenses that ever happened to our democracy, the worst attack on our democracy since the civil war. we have to have an accurate accounting of that. put it out for the public to see. get past the facebook pages and internet chat rooms where the rumors and lies are spreading so effectively. people need to know what happened. i also, as somebody who was there that day and who was falling along and first had to evacuate, i want to talk about the roles of the folk that went into organizing this. the roles of the people involved in terms of bringing people and
correspondent martha raddatz again tonight. reporter: tonight, reports russia officially bringing espionage charges against paul whelan, accusing the former marine of being an american spy. whelan now held in isolation in a notorious moscow prison. his lawyer calling the charges baseless. still, he believes whelan will be convicted to facilitate a prisoner exchange, possibly for maria butina, now locked in a virginia detention center after pleading guilty to being a russian agent. a russian news site with ties to the security services claims whelan was caught with a classified list of russian operatives, saying that whelan had been spying for the u.s. for ten years, trying to recruit russians through internet chat rooms and social media. whelan s lawyer is speculating that surveillance began long before maria butina pleaded guilty, but it certainly seems more than a coincidence that
emerging about russian efforts to have discord online. matthew chance is just outside one of the tropical farms named in the indictment. matthew, what are you learning? reporter: first of all, wolf, learning this troll farm behind me, internet research agency is still functioning. we expect to see it closed up, there s been so much publicity surrounding it. but all through the day, people are coming and going, workers coming out for cigarette breaks. a reminder, this is the place named in the u.s. diamond as being the office where all the illegal activity took place. russians posing as americans, inserting themselves in blogs and internet chat rooms, hiring advertising space to promote one candidate or the other. even organizing divisive political rallies on the streets