action. also tonight, parts of buffalo, new york remain paralyzed by a once in a lifetime blizzard. the national guard now going door to door as the death it will keeps rising and the city struggles to dig out. as the january 6th committee releases a bach of transcripts, i ll speak with adam schiff. stand by for his take on the latest revelations including a claim that trump s white house chief of staff burned documents at the white house. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world, i m wolf blitzer. you re the situation room. let s get right to the southwest airlines meltdown. it s causing major disruptions across the country. our correspondents are covering the impact at major airports to the fallout from southwest and the airline industry. let s go to nick valencia. he s over at the atlanta airplane, the busiest airport of the nation. nick, how are southwest passengers being affected there? reporter: wolf, some passengers flying southwe
have our fox news chief meteorologist rick reichmuth with us. rick this has been rough so far. really has. three things, the storm surge that broke records in fort myers and naples as well by a lot by the way, three feet higher than we had ever seen from any kind of storm surge in the past. that obviously causing all that flooding right along the immediate coast. then we have the winds, actual verified winds of 140 miles an hour in cape corral. a lot of this wind was really prolonged because it s such a slow-moving storm and then you have the rainfall. because it s so slow we get rainfall that just continues to batter the state and we ll see big time inland flooding concerns. this made land fall in the exact same space that hurricane charlie came on shore in 2004 which is amazing to have two massive hurricanes or two strong hurricanes like this come on shore in the exact same spot, hard to imagine, because it came on so strong, it s still a category 2 hurricane after having
really was. from this latest discovery we have one johnny mcentee to thank, trump s director of personnel by the end. we now now mcentee s testimony before the committee revealed that the twice-impeached disgraced ex-president in his final hours in office floated the idea of a blanket pardon for the breach of the united states capitol. there was a vice of dissent to that idea, white house counsel pat cipollone. he rejected the idea. our friend luke broad water of the new york times reports this, quote, mcentee recalled cipollone also rejected trump s idea that all white house staff should be pardoned, even those who have played no role in the president s push to overturn the 2020 election. quote, i remember cipollone questioning on that, well, why does anyone need a pardon, mr. mcentee recalled, adding that the president had responded, well, just so they can t go after them for any little thing. and i think cipollone said, yeah, but no one here has done anything wrong. the
members of congress were still dodging the disgraced ex-president s phone calls on the floor of the house. kevin mccarthy was still cutting back room deals, negotiating with his hostage-takers, trading away everything but the gavel so he could ascend finally, at long last, to the speakership. now less than one week into republican rule of the house of representatives, here we are, one newly minted republican of the house, george santos, is facing multiple open investigations and mounting evidence that he is both a pathological liar and a potential campaign finance violator among other things. speaker mccarthy is dangling the possibility of expuning one of the disgraced ex-president s impeachments. republicans are unleashing a so-called weaponization with mccarthy. democrats of the house are now receiving death threats like this one against congressman eric swalwell. getting your kicked off the committee is the least of your problems. the american people aren t going to be
makes it all the more concerning when you look at how many of trump s pardons carried the stink of political patronage and best in corrupt self-interest at worst. according to pew research center over the course of his four years in office trump only granted 237 acts of clemency. that s the third lowest number of pardons for any president in history. only the two president bush is pardoned fewer people. it would seem that trump was extremely selective about who he pardoned. still some of his pardons were widely praised. like alice johnson in 2020 who was serving life in prison for a nonviolent drug conviction. he posthumously pardoned the historical figure season being anthony, arrested for voting illegally. in 1870 to inject johnson the first black heavyweight boxing champ who is subject to a racist conviction in 1913 for transporting a white woman across state lines. but he also pardoned a robes gallery of political figures including many of his own associates. some of whom