as they wait for vaccines and testing. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom, with kim brunhuber. president biden has issued a major disaster declaration for the state of kentucky, as catastrophic flooding has killed at least 16 people, including six children. and the death toll is expected to rise. flash floods wiped out entire neighborhoods, scores of people are missing. kentucky governor andy bashir says it s hard to get a fix on the number of cell services out. bridges were demolished, and some homes were completely carried away. for many who have been affected, the damage is devastating. i don t know what we re going to do. we don t have no place to live now or anything. the water got to about there. we had about this much more room before we got flooded, and i ve never seen it that high. we came out of the house, and it was so swift that even a jet ski was hard for him to handle. and he took us out one at a time. federal disaster declaration will free u
had been rescued. some had scrambled on to their roof tops and some just ran for their lives. we ve never seen something like this. folks who deal with this for a living have been doing it for 20 years. have never seen water this high. we still can t get to a lot of people. there s so much water, the current is so strong, it is not safe for some of the water rescues that we need to do. we ll be in the search and rescue certainly today and tomorrow and then we ll be looking at a year s worth of rebuilding. president biden has declared a major disaster across eastern kentucky and the national guard is helping to rescue people. joining us now from clay county, what is the situation where you are? reporter: well, fred, it is really hard, still, to get to the worst of this. this is an ongoing situation. we re not really in the aftermath yet. my cnn crew dave and chris pulled over on the side of the road to talk to you and catch you up on what we are seeing so far. the import
requested a colonel convicted of murder and added along this infamous arms dealer for wnba star brittney griner and paul whelan. we have a team of correspondents covering these breaking developments. frederik pleitgen is in moscow for us. let s start with natasha bertrand, who is breaking this exclusive. what have you learned. reporter: what we ve learned is that in response to the russian proposal to trade that arms dealer, viktor bout for the two americans detained in russia, paul whelan and brittney griner, the russians put forward their own request and they said we don t want just viktor bout, we want this guy name vadim krz krosokov, convicted in december of 2021 for murdering in broad daylight a chech an fighter and the germans sentenced him to life in prison. the russians in response to this proposal submitted this kind of back channel request to the americans. it was done through an fsb back channel, the fsb of course is the main security service for the russians.
cell phone, this is one permitting them to look at the contents of the cell phone. eastman is the one who cooked up the dubious rationale for overturning the election. also cassidy hutchinson, former white house aide to mark meadows, is cooperating with the department of justice. that s according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. and it comes with a caveat. we don t yet know the extent of her cooperation. we re learning, though, that she s not alone. this morning, an acquaintance of hers, alyssa farah griffin, said she is, quote, aware of other white house officials who is been reached out to by the department and are planning to cooperate, end quote. she was more specific when asked about it this afternoon. there was someone else in the broader network who i would consider mid level that could support what they re looking into specifically around similar questions to what short was asked about, which is the pressure campaign on mike pence in the days leading u
details from washington. the department of justice investigation into the events that led to january 6th is expanding at a rapid pace. i am aware of other white house officials who have been reached out to by doj, and are planning to cooperate. former weiss out staffer elissa farah, telling cnn, the doj has reached out to more administration officials and the trump white house. top aides to bike vice president mike pence. cnn learning that cassidy hoskinson, a former trump aide to the chief of staff is the latest official from the last administration to start cooperating with the doj s criminal investigating. i think doj is keeping an eye on on who s coming before january six, and who may have helpful information. the news comes at the same time sources tell the washington post post and the new york times, that federal investigators have asked questions specifically about donald trump s actions. suggesting they are probe is getting closer to the former president h