also tonight, cnn has learned that former president trump s lawyers are now in direct talks with the u.s. justice department about the january 6th criminal investigation. stand by for our exclusive new reporting as sources now reveal that trump s attorneys have warned him that indictments, criminal indictments are possible and wnba star brittney griner is sentenced to nine years in prison after being convicted by a russian court on drug charges. the u.s. is now reviewing for moscow to accept a proposed prisoner swap aimed at bringing griner home. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news. let s get straight to the breaking news right now. a texas jury awarding more than $4 million to the parents of the sandy hook shooting victim suing alex jones over defamation and distress over his repeated lies about the tragedy. cnn correspondent drew griffin is working the stor
plan to keep him focused, walking americans through one rule of the law each day. and the biden administration is kicking off a new ad campaign to help sell the bill to a politically fractured nation. the resources in this plan will be used to expand and speed up manufacturing and distribution of vaccines, set up more vaccination sites to get the country in a place to get back to normal. this plan will get checks out the door starting this month. now, the white house says the checks for some americans will land as soon as this weekend. beyond the bill, the president is making some other big promises. in his first prime time address, he vowed enough vaccines to direct all states, tribes and territories to make all adults 18 and older eligible for vaccination by may 1st. and he set a goal of july 4th as the first holiday during the pandemic when small groups should be able to celebrate in person together safely. as my cnn colleague put it, the light in the tunnel may be fir
in argentina. let s bring in our chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin, our crime and justice reporter, and cara skinnell. how big a deal is what cohen said about trump s potential moscow deal? it s an enormous part of the story, and the main significance of it, i think, is it goes to the question of motive. like why was donald trump so obsessed with vladimir putin? why was he so solicitous? why did they change the republican platform at the 2016 convention? the answer at least in part now appears to be because donald trump s business interests required him to ingratiate himself with moscow. is that he was trying to get a deal done while he was campaigning for the republican nomination. and what s important to point out and what s what the president said today was very misleading on one point. is that he said, well, everybody
knew about this. no, that s not true. no one knew. no one knew he was negotiating a business deal in russia while he was campaigning across the country in the republican primaries. that would have been a major part of the story, and no one knew. that s a good point. cara, does what michael cohen now says square with what trump said in his written answers delivered just the other day to robert mueller, or could the president get caught saying something different? well, sources tell cnn that these questions that mueller posed to trump were broader, and there were subpart to them. it doesn t sound as detailed as the things that michael cohen said under oath. we re told that trump s written responses were also relatively broad. it s not clear, and as pamela brown was reporting, rudy giuliani told her they don t believe there are contradictions