Im jose diazbalart. Right now, we are tracking the very latest on the deadly storms and tornadoes that slammed into parts of the South Killing at least seven people. Well bring you a live report from alabama. Also this morning, were following the very latest on the controversy surrounding the classified documents found at President Bidens former office and delaware home. What the Special Counsel is looking into, coming up. On capitol hill a growing number of republicans are now call ong one of their own to step down after congressman George Santos admitted to fabricating parts of his resume. Well have congressman Robert Garcia about that and more. And here in miami, i had the chance to speak with the charity providing migrants with legal advice, food, and shelter. Well discuss the challenges facing Asylum Seekers later this hour. We begin with the cleanup and recovery just beginning this morning after a dangerous storm system swept across parts of the unleashing a series of destructive tornadoes, mostly in alabama, but also in georgia and kentucky. At least seven people are dead, six were killed in alabama. A 5yearold boy in georgia was killed when a tree struck the car he was traveling on. Scary moments captured for workers at a recycling plant. Large pieces of sheet metal slamming into the building where they were sheltering in place. At least 42 tornadoes were reported according to the National Weather service Leaing Tens Of Thousands without power. Many are thankful to be alive. I heard a sound i never heard before. It sounded like a freight train. And the wind picked up so strong, i had to jump out and i ran because everything was shaking like never before. Joining us from selma, alabama, blayne alexander. Selma was one of the hashdest hit areas. Whats it like there today . Reporter i think where were standing gives you a pretty good picture. Look what the wind did to this building. So were standing in Downtown Selma right now. And really everywhere you look, youre seeing some example of the devastation that the storm brought to this area. You see this building right here. Its really just almost like somebody took a claw and dug through it. Just ripped away this side. Where im standing, i can see bricks that were ripped off the building. That shows how strong the wind is. We can turn our camera in new mexico almost any direction to see how much is hit. There is a lot of damage down here, but this is another pile of what were looking at. Power lines through the roads. A the lot of the streets are impassable right now. And officials are asking residents to stay inside because its not safe to come out. I think you see a picture down here, but when you look at a piture from up above that really shows you what were talking about. We can show you drone footage that we shot not long ago. That shows not only how widespread this path was of the tornado here in selma, but also just how it hop from place to place. Some places are not touched a at all. Others are destroyed. Now this is just the damage that were talking about, but the toll in the Neighboring County was greater. Were talking about six people who were killed. A total of seven deaths so far have been attributed to this storm. Including a 5yearold boy in georgia, who was riding in a car and the tree fell on that car crushing him and killing him. Unfortunately, Officials Say as they continue to survey the damage, they continue to try to sift through the wreckage, they do anticipate its possible that death toll could increase. Lets talk about the outbreak of tornadoes. It is official. This was an outbreak. Were talking about more than three dozen reported tornadoes across alabama, georgia, and throughout the south. Officials are going to be surveying, trying to decide what they are looking at. The National Weather service says that it could take some days before they are able to confirm all the tornadoes. One note i want to make about this is the timing of this. Were in the middle of january. This is the middle of winter. While its not unheard of to see tornadoes around this time, were talking about an outbreak and the ferocity of the tornadoes is something we typically dont see in january. New developments what may have caused the Computer Outage that led to chaos at airports across the country. Nbc news learned investigators believe one or more Contract Workers may have introduced corrupted software to the faa system damaging some files. Investigators dont know if this was a malicious attack or human error. Wednesdays outage caused delays and cancellations affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers. The Transportation Secretary tells nbc news the faa is reenforcing its computer and Cybersecurity Protocols to ensure this doesnt happen again. This morning russia is claiming its first victory in ukraine after a series of setbacks. The Defense Ministry is claiming it has taken control of the Mining Town Of Soledar in eastern ukraine. Ukrainian and Russian Forces have been locked in an intense battle where recent Satellite Images show the scale of devastation in soledar. Ukrainian officials have denied the claims of victory. Nbc news has not been able to verify russias claims. Earlier this week john kirby said if russia was to capture soledar, it would not make a significant change in the war. Even if both soledar fall to the russians, its not going to make its not going to have a strategic impact on the war itself. Joining us now from ukraine is matt bradley. Matt, what more can you tell us about the situation there . Its a really interesting situation because its been nearly 72 hours since we first heard wind that soledar might have fallen to Russian Forces. This came from a post on telegram by a notorious private military contractor. He said he single handedly taken city with his own private army. Since then theres been a lot of back and forth. Ukrainians deied it. The kremlin denied it. And the news today is that were hearing from the Russian Ministry of defense. Russias proper army, not some private military force, saying russians have take that eastern city of soledar. But as you were mentioning and as we heard from washington, why soledar . Why would they be exceling so much energy and so many lives in order to take a city that really is quite small. Its about 10,000 people. This is something that has puzzled ukrainians as well. The question is say and we heard from the Russian Ministry of defense say that will allow them to take the city, which is only about a 30 minute drive from soledar. But both of those cities taken together arent necessarily a strategic prize. What we have heard from military analysts is that really this is more of a trophy for the man who runs the private Military Group who has been boasting for the past several days that its his group, his army that has done this deed and has made the first real victory for Russian Torss ever since this summer. And since the summer, we have seen the russian miliary being pushed back constantly to much criticism from the military community in moscow. So really in many ways, this looks like a political Vanity Project by a man who is nothing more than an oligarch who is trying to rise himself up within the ranks of the Military Establishment in moscow on the backs of the corpses of his own men. Matt brad lee, thank you. I want to turn to the deadly tornadoes sweeping through the south. Joining us now is ernie bagot. Whats the latest from your county and surrounding areas . Well, were still conducting some Search And Rescue efforts right now. Were hopefully moving into the Recovery Phase very soon where well start doing some damage assessments, so we can get a better idea of what weve got. We are leaving one of ft scenes right now where unfortunately our total has just climbed by one more. So right now youre reporting Seven Fatalfatalities . That is correct. Talk to us about just the dimension of the destruction. Im sorry, i lost you there for a second. Describe f you would, the dimension, the size of the destruction. So what were seeing now is a 20mile path that has moved through the county. Were not sure on the width of it, but we have a 20mile path. This storm system left from selma and Dallas County and moved in all the way across diagonally and into el more county. Its a longlived storm. We did have seven so far, and we accredit the fact that that wasnt worse to the fact School Systems kept the kids in school and sending them out what can people do if they want to help . What sources dots you need . Were advising everybody that wants to make donations to move towards our county website. It has information on what they can do. Were asking volunteers to hold off until we have a center set up so we can actually process people in. I thank you very much for being with us. I know this is a very difficult time for all of you. I appreciate your time. Coming up, the Trump Organization was just sentenced. 1. 6 million for a long running tax fraud scheme. Details ahead in a live report. Also up next, new reporting about the importance of a classified document found at one of President Bidens former offices. Plus calls continue to grow for embattled congressman George Santos to resign. What he is saying has to happen for him to step down. Youre watching jose diazbalart reports. Youre watching jose diazbalart reports. So its decided, well park even deeper into Parking Spaces so people think theyre open. Surprise. [ laughs ] [ horn honks, Muffled Talking ] cant hear you, jerry. Sorry. Uh, yeah, can we get a system where when someones bike is in the shop, then we could borrow someone elses . No no or you can get a quote with americas numberone Motorcycle Insurer and maybe save some money while youre at it. All in favor of that. [ horn honking ] theres a lot of buttons and knobs in here. cecily whats up, einstein . einstein favor of that. My network has gone kaput cecily you tried to save a buck on it . einstein not so smart. cecily well, there is a smarter way to save. einstein oh . cecily switch to verizon vo thats right. For a limited time get verizon unlimited for just 25 a line, guaranteed for 3 years. einstein brilliant vo only on verizon. Is a past the hour. Now to a growing questions about President Bidens handling of classtied information. Sources tell nbc news that document found at a washington, d. C. Office, the president used after leaving the obama administration, was marked top secret sensitive compartmented information. Thaps the highest classification level in government. The discloure came hours after Merrick Garland appointed robert hur to serve as Special Counsel to review the matter. The announcement that came after the white house revealed that classified documents were found at the president s home near wilmington, delaware. The president said he takes classified documents and information seriously. Some republicans are demanding an investigation. With us to talk about had this is White House Correspondent mike memoli, ashley parker, and and david weinstein, a State Prosecutor in florida. Mike, what more do we know about where things stand with the investigation into these documents. Jose, we still have a the lot of Unanswered Questions about this whole matter. Yesterday was an important day where we learned a considerable amount. You led with an important detail, which is that the highest level of classification was found on one of the less than dozen or so documents found in President Bidens office here in washington. Were also learning that officials outside of the Justice Department and the white house have been briefed on the content of those documents. So thats significant as well. We also reported yesterday that a number of aids to President Biden who were working in his office in the final days of his Vice Presidency have been interviewed as part of this investigation and this review of the classified documents. Were learning about the chain of custody. Many of these documents were among those packed in boxes brought to a Storage Location and provided by the government to facilitate the transition to mike pence and system of those ended up elsewhere. We also learned new information from the Attorney General as he announced the new Special Counsel, as well as from the white House Counsel responding to these claims as well. And whats significant is we know of three separate discoveries of documents with classified markings on three different dates. The first november 27bd. Thats the original one. Then on december 20th, when lawyers for President Biden discovered some at his home in wilmington, delaware, and just this week on wednesday, lawyers for the president found an additional document with classified markings notified the Justice Department of that as well. So a lot more questions to be answered. Do we know about why the president ss team was cleaning out the Cloz Sit In The First place on the 2nd Of November . What we understand is that this penn biden center, this part of the University Of Pennsylvania where joe biden served as a distinguished professor and led their washington office, its still in his name, but the University Of Pennsylvania was hoping to begin, frankly, clearing out an office that President Biden had used, which he hasnt been using for at least three or four years. The president prefers to use an ovalshaped office in the building behind me. So the University Of Pennsylvania. Ed some of their office space back. So lawyers for the president went in to begin clearing those out. Thats when they made the significant discovery. So why was that Special Counsel appointed . While it appears that there was no criminal wrong doing here, somebody needs to run it to ground. They need to find out everything they can about the people moving those documents, see if the president knew what was involved and the movement of those documents, and it needs to be somebody who is impartial and not beholden to one side or the other and provide that information to the Attorney General. The american public, everybody around the world want an independent answer as to whether or not there was criminal wrong doing here. It doesnt appear there was, but we certainly all want to know what the answer is. How concerned are the president s allies about these disclosures . Well, they are concerned politically. Because it really complicates whats going on now with the investigation into former President Trump and his mishandling of classiied documents. While it bears repeating that these two situations are in no way the same in terms of the volume of documents recovered, in terms of everything we know about President Biden, they followed every procedure to the tee. They turned them over. He defied a subpoena. There was reason to believe and hes now being investigated for obstructing efforts to get these documents back from a sheerly political term, this is a real problem for President Biden. It allows trump and republicans to weaponize us against him and say, wait a minute, this is a witch hunt against the former president. Theres this Committee Investigating now with republicans in control of the house. The weaponization of government, this is another data point they can try to use. There are some questions just about how these disclosures came about. They didnt get them out in the full transparent way they promised. Its been a drip, drip, drip of heres a new document and heres new location and heres a new batch and series of leaks. So not from a legal perspective, but a political perspective, they recognize that this is a problem. Calos, when you look at the cases of the trump situation versus the situation here with the president , other than the fact there were classified documents, theres zero similarities between them. No one was asking for the documents that President Biden had in the different places.