we re going through a similar dance right now after the president s son pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges drawing a chorus of conservative criticism for a sweet settlement that includes only probation, but now we come to the irs whistleblowers who have been all but ignored by the press and, of course, we have to be cautious about unproven claims. but the new york times, to its credit, broke with the pack by saying it confirmed independently based on a source that a second unnamed irs official claims david weiss, the u.s. attorney in delaware, asked, the oj for special powers to the doj for special powers to pursue the case outside the state and was turned down. whistleblower gary shapley has said he was not the sole decision maker in the case and that he was constrained in the probe. you convinced looking back at this now that this was an effort to protect president biden and his family? there were definitely hindrances that aye never seen before in my 14
some wonder whether the next major putin offensive will launch from. the special counsel investigating trump is locked in at least eight secret court battles right now. we re going to tell you everything we know about it and why tonight. a near collision on a u.s. airport runway. a 777 coming dangerously close to a cargo plane. this is the third close call in less than a month. what is going on? let s go outfront. good evening. i m erin burnett. outfront tonight, attacked. new video into outfront tonight showing russian soldiers coming under fire. i warn you, as we always want to do here, it is graphic. i ll show you now. these are heavily armed russian soldiers that you see on your screen hiding, trying to stay out of view of ukraine s drones. they re spotted, though, and targeted. now, according to ukraine, two of the men were killed. and a russian state television war correspondent, who is embedded with russian troops, tonight posting, claiming that the private
one russian commander said they lost one of their villages close to the front line. so the russians on that front line appear to be on the back foot. of course, putin has his own propaganda pushing him. and we know putin has lied repeatedly. one of the reasons for the rebellion that was cited in advance was the russian mismanagement of the war. so prigozhin, he took a shot at the king, in effect. he s still walking around right now. and in the same city as putin? how did this happen? reporter: it s hard to know. we never really know what kind of deal prigozhin worked out with putin. you know, the director of cia said prigozhin is in belarus but he s been able to travel back to russia. here he is in russia. i think the currency that prigozhin has is that he was the wagner mercenary boss in africa
howard: right. and so ill say the challenges of covering it has been for reporters like myself on this messaging on telegram. that s where prigozhin puts videos up. we try and translate this to the u.s. to figure out what s going on. howard: well, i love how everyone on twitter is suddenly an instant expert on this. there are certain people who cover the region who do know a lot. so prigozhin, the guy who headed the mercenary group and later it was revealed his forces got $1 billion from the russian government, is now in belarus, basically a client state of the kremlin, and the president of bell louis, like chen coe belarus, like shinning coe, says he talked putin out of whacking prigozhin. so it s like a spy novel but nailing down the nonfiction part is difficult do. it is like it. there s a great new york times analyst saying china, president xi saying, hey, wait a minute, what does this mean for us? remember when the previous president 23 years ago, boris
his favor from one to another to ensure that no one gets particularly powerful, that could threaten him. you re right, putin and prigozhin go way back. but as not as military. so prigozhin has recently come onto the scene as the head of the wagner. for a while he denied it was even he was even associated with it. now, he admits, it s clear that he s involved in this thing. and, putin has got to worry that prigozhin is mounting a coup. they re talking about a coup, an armed coup that could threaten putin s regime. so, is that for real? i mean, in other words you re saying that the wagner group, if prigozhin were to go ahead with this, this armed rebellion, as he s threatening tonight, that he could pull off a coup? he has said that he s doing a