domain says its associated but I cannot find it, neither can AI

Hello.

The error message indicating that the domain is already associated means that the domain is being used by CloudFront or another Amplify App.
If you have used Amplify in the past, please check if an Amplify App remains using the following command.
Please specify a region available in your AWS account.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/amplify/list-apps.html

aws amplify list-apps --region "your-region"

If you find an Amplify App, try removing it using the following command.

aws amplify delete-backend-environment --app-id "app-id" --environment-name "env-name"

The following is from the CloudFront documentation, but if you are unable to move the alternative domain, it may be helpful to contact AWS support.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/alternate-domain-names-move-options.html

Contact AWS Support to move an alternate domain name
If the source and target distributions are in different AWS accounts, and you don’t have access to the source distribution’s AWS account or can’t disable the source distribution, you can contact Support to move the alternate domain name.
To contact Support to move an alternate domain name Set up a target distribution, including the DNS TXT record that points to the target distribution. For more information, see Set up the target standard distribution or distribution tenant.
Contact Support to request that they verify that you own the domain, and move the domain to the new CloudFront distribution for you.
After the target distribution is fully deployed, update your DNS configuration to point the alternate domain name’s DNS record to the distribution domain name of the target distribution.