Department in the closing days of the previous administration. He said that he had this information from his own secret sources that said the chinese intelligence had a special thermometer that could use to alter vote totals. The answer, of course, is they dont. But he asked his superiors in the justice department, Joeff Rosen and richard donoghue, to get a special classified briefing from the director of national intelligence to check this out. He went over for the briefing at the turn of the year, and was told that the intelligence showed there was no evidence that there was foreign interference that altered the vote total. Something weve known. And he came away not convinced. He kept pushing this idea, and we know he helped try to orchestrate a coup in the justice department, try to get trump to fire rosen. We know trump didnt do that, but it shows you how close things came in those crucial days. Its it just everything, it grows more absurd by the day. Cnn is learning that the Janua
Women. His lawyers attacking an investigation by the State Attorney General as flawed and biased just as one of governor cuomos accusers files a criminal complaint against him. Also tonight with the number of new covid19 cases surging to nearly 100,000 per day, hundreds of thousands of bikers gathering for the giant Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, which experts fear will be a Superspreader Event. Were going to hear from some of the bikers just ahead. And new Focus Tonight on a Trump Ally at the doj pushing the Big Lie and trying to overturn the election by claiming, without evidence, hacking by chinese intelligence. I want to bring in now cnns senior Justice Correspondent evan perez. Evan, good evening to you. So we are hearing more each day about what Trump Ally Jeffrey Clark was doing within the doj to overturn the election. This latest development may be the most wild of all of them. It involves listen to this a bogus claim about Special Thermometers from china. Take it aw
matter he calls private. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. breaking news in our national lead. just minutes ago we finally learned gabby petito, the 22-year-old woman found dead in a wyoming national park three weeks ago, was killed by strangulation. her death, according to the wyoming coroner, was ruled a homicide. petito was first reported missing more than a month ago after spending the summer travel with her 23-year-old fiance brian laundrie. the couple extensively documented their adventures on social media and stoked nationwide conversation about the tens of thousands of missing persons stories that do not garner such an intense interest. they also brought attention to the issues of domestic abuse and apparently inadequate police training on the matter of domestic abuse. cnn s leyla santiago starts us off from florida where they continue to search from laundrie, the fiance who disappeared after he became a person of interest. cause of death by strangulation an