soaking the priorities of viewers, and then that's the mindset of primetime it really ignores the real issues and basically provides red meat to viewers. >> that's an interesting term. soaking the priors. and thank you for joining us today. >> my pleasure. >> that is all in on this good evening. >> chris, good evening to you. have a great night. thank you. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we had an entirely different show planned for tonight but a big news story just broke in the "new york times." the former fbi director james comey and his former deputy, andrew mccabe, both of whom president trump saw as enemies, well both of them faced rare supposedly random but highly intensive irs audits. you may remember back when the then fbi director james comey oversaw the early stages of the fbi's investigation into ties between the trump campaign and

russia, in the summer of 2016. with questions swirling about those ties as trump took office, comey dropped a public bombshell in the early days of the trump presidency. >> i have been authorized by the department of justice to confirm that the fbi, as part of our counter-intelligence mission, is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. >> it would later be revealed that trump had demanded loyalty from comey and repeatedly pressed him to end the investigation into trump's first national security adviser michael flynn. now, after comey refused to do so, trump fired comey, in

shocking fashion. in a remarkable oval office meeting, the following day, the day after he fired him, trump told russian diplomats that by firing comey, the previous day, quote, i faced a great pressure because of russia. that's taken off. around the same time trump all but admitted to nbc's lester holt that he fired comey because of the quote made up russia investigation. well with comey gone, andy mccabe became the acting fbi director and one of the first actions the very next day was to open up a counter-intelligence investigation into the president and his ties to russia out of fears that he, too, would be fired, and that investigation would be shut down. >> i was very concerned that i was able to put the russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were i removed quickly or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night

without a trace. >> you wanted a documentary record. >> that's right. >> that those investigations had begun. because you feared that they would be made to go away. >> that's exactly right. >> both comey and mccabe would repeatedly be targeted by president trump who assailed them in public and called for their prosecution. the following year, one day before mccabe was scheduled to retire and get the benefits that he had earned on the job, mccabe was fired from the fbi, amid accusations that he had lied to justice department officials. charges were never brought. and that case was later dropped. both of these men, whom president trump saw as some of his political enemies, as top political enemies, both of them ended up intensively audited by the irs. now you may be thinking, i've been audited, it's not that crazy, but this particular type of audit is different. according to the "new york times," tax lawyers refer to this type of incredibly invasive

audit as a quote autopsy without the benefit of death. and the odds of being selected for that audit in any given year are roughly one out of 30,600. now, in the end, these audits didn't finds anything. mccabe told "the new york times" he and his wife owed the government a small amount of money which they paid, comey and his wife actually overpaid their taxes and this audit led them to getting a refund. but it cost $5,000 in accounting fees and comey had to turn over personal information and bank statements and had to turn over a christmas card to prove that he had the children he claimed as dependents. >> how did two of president trump's top perceived enemies end up facing that kind audit? the kind of audit that seems designed to dig up dirt. how does that happen? >> a spokesperson for president trump said he had no knowledge to this but in a statement in

the "times," maybe a coincidence or maybe someone misused the irs to get at a political enemy. given the role trump wants to continue to play in our country, we should know the answer to that question, end quote. part of the story i don't think we should overlook we almost never learned about it. james comey and andrew mccabe had worked together for years and neither one knew that the other had been audited like this. both after they were fired from the fbi. quote, neither man knew that the other had been audited until they were told by a reporter by the times. that reporter was "new york times" michael schmidt, i don't know if there are other trump enemies who had undergone intensive audits by the irs, but if there are others, please email us. michael, thanks for joining us this evening. we mentioned this particular type of audit, exhaustive and

exhausting but can you help us understand how much in an audit like this the irs asks for and how much work it is to provide all of the material that they need? >> so most audits that the irs does are set off by an algorithm or a computer that catches something weird in your return. someone claims a 500,000 square foot home office, something weird, something odd and they send a letter, what is going on with this home office, can you help us clarify that and you have to explain that individual issue. that's what most audits look like. they're annoying, people don't like them, seen as invasive but part of the process for the irs to collect the money that it needs to run the government. a small percentage of audits are done to figure out what the tax gap is. and that's the gap between what americans do pay in taxes and

what they should be paying in taxes. so this is sort of a survey of the country, to figure out who isn't paying their taxes. and they go out and the irs says that they randomly pick americans for this. and because they don't know what they're looking for, right, they've randomly picked these americans, they have to turn over everything in your financial life. to recreate your financial year, to determine whether you understated or overstated everything on your taxes. so that means producing receipts, in the case of comey, there was a question about a printer cartridge he had bought two years earlier that i believe he had take an write-off and whether he could come up with that receipt, or if there was an annex statement to back that up. as you were pointing out, comey had claimed dependents to.

show that those dependents existed, to show that they existed, he had to present the family's christmas card to the irs. it took the combys 15 months to get through this audit and it cost them $5,000. . in accounting fees. because they had to have an accountant that was going back and forth with the irs agent who was doing the audit. >> and the interesting thing about these audits is you can't sort of just say hey, you're the irs, you know i have kids why, don't you handle that. when they ask you for information, you actually have to provide it. the odds of getting selected for one of these random audits is one in 30,000 and a little bit according to your article. the odds that both of these men who have the same position, back-to-back, in the same administration, both scene as political enemies of the president in charge, and the irs headed by a man that president appointed, just makes it seem less than random. >> so we actually don't in the

story lay out what the odds are. we don't know how the irs actually randomly selects these people, whether it's weighted in a way, all we know is that the irs say they're trying to get a full picture of what the country looks like, they're trying to get people that are w-2 employees, people that maybe making millions of dollars a year, people that may be at the lower end of the economic spectrum. what the numbers we had in the number showed was, is that one out of how many taxpayers was subjected to this. so here was the number. for 2017, the year that they looked at comey's return, there were 5,000 audits of these done on individual taxpayers, so that could be, you know, a husband and a wife, or partners together, so it could be a little bit more than 5,000 people, but out of 150 million returns. so they're randomly picking 5,000 people out of 150 million

returns. in 2019, the year that mccabe was audited for, there were 8,000 returns that were selected by the irs for this, out of 153 or 154 million returns that were from that year. so these are very, very low numbers. and what i and former irs people that we talked to said, what are the chances that the people on top of trump's enemy list, people who had overseen some of the most controversial decisions in the fbi's history, remember a lot of people blamed comey for the election of hillary clinton, there's a lot of people that looked very negatively on the fbi from this period of time, and these two people were subjected to these audits. >> the defeat of hillary clinton. the current requires commissioner charles reddick appointed to the post in 2018 by

president trump and he had an op-ed that president trump did not have to provide personal tax returns before he was appointed. what do we know about him and any potential role of the selection of these two men to be part of this random audit? >> the irs in response to questions from us says the commissioner plays no role in the selection of this, that he had no discussions with the white house, any white house, about any particular type of audit, or law enforcement matter, so they pretty forcefully came back and said that on the record to us, and we included that in the story. we know that he is someone that advocated during the 2016 election that trump should not release his returns. he is an attorney who had dedicated much of his career to helping people that were fighting with the irs, often wealthy people that were fighting with the irs. and we do know that biden

allowed him to stay in his position. so when biden came in, he could have replaced pretty much anyone that he wanted in the executive branch. but i think going along with trying to restore some of the norms, he allowed the fbi director to stay in his position, even though trump had appointed him and he allowed commissioner to stay in at the irsz, his team is scheduled to expire toward the end of this year in the fall. so biden could have replaced him but allowed him to stay. >> michael, thank you very much for excellent reporting. michael schmidt a reporter with "the new york times," we appreciate you joining us on short notice tonight after the story was published. turning now to the other big story tonight, the one we were going to start with, i want to start with a meeting in the oval office. there's a lot of yelling in this meeting, it was a friday night, december 18th, 2020, about a month after the presidential election had been called for joe

biden. inside the oval office, president donald trump was in an unscheduled impromptu meeting with three of the most election conspiracy theorists in the country. mike flynn, disgraced national security adviser who had gone on news max the day before to call on trump to declare martial law to seize voting machines and re-run the election. also their lawyer sidney powell who was pushing the theory that the election had been hacked by foreign communists, somehow including the deceased former dictator of venezuela, and patrick berg, the founder of overstock.com, who was forced to resign from that company when it was revealed that he had had an affair with the convicted russian agent maria buchana, and had a new career funding election conspiracy theories. with a group like that, bound to be quite a meeting. sidney powell proposed declaring a national security emergency.

granting her and her cabal top secret security clearances and using the u.s. government to seize dominion voting machines. in disbelief, a white house adviser yelled out to an aide in the outer oval office, get pat down here immediately. several minutes later, white house counsel pat cipollone walked into the oval office. powell continued to elaborate on a fan taft cal election narrative involving venezuela, iran, china, and others. by now, people were yelling and cursing. cipollone and other officials said that powell's theories were nonsensical. flynn went berserk. you're quitting. you're a quitter. you're not fighting. he exploded. and then turned to the president, sir, we need fighters. cipollone, standing his ground amidst this mishmash of conspiracies saying they were totally wrong. he aggressively dee defended the d.o.j. and the fbi saying they

had looked into every major claim of fraud that had been reported. they were now in hour four of a meeting unprecedented even by the deranged standards of the final davis the trump presidency. trump and cipollone who frequently butted heads went at it over whether the administration had the authority to do what powell was proposing. end quote. by the time cipollone and other white house officials left after midnight, they were quote fully prepared for the mad possibility that trump might name sidney powell special counsel. giving her the resources of the federal government to propagate her wild theories. just on the basis of that one meeting alone, december 18th, freeze december 18th, 2020, you can sunz why the january 6th investigation would want to interview pat sip lony. trump's white house counsel. that is one of the many, many crucial meetings and pivotal moments in which pat cipollone was in the middle in the days

and weeks leading up to january 6th which is why the january 6th committee subpoenaed him last week, after they're tempts to secure his voluntary cooperation went nowhere, and today, we learned that mr. cipollone, who is a lawyer, he knows the law, will comply with that subpoena. he will sit for a transcribed videotaped interview with the january 6th investigators this friday. now, pat cipollone met with the committee in april for what was an informal interview. "the new york times" reports today that the agreement he reached with the committee for that april interview included limits on what he could discuss. what we don't know is whether friday's formal interview will be subject to any such limitations. but even under the april agreement, mr. cipollone did agree to talk about one oval office meeting with president trump, the dramatic showdown in which president trump tried to install justice department official jeffrey clark as the attorney general because clark as you will recall, was

promising to send if he was an appointed an official justice department letter urging republican legislators to overturn joe biden's win in several states. at that meeting, the entire senior leadership of the trump's justice department says they would resign if trump put clark in charge and allowed him to send the letter. >> i made the point that jeff clark is not competent to serve as the attorney general. he has never been a criminal attorney. he has never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. he is not in front of a jury much less a trial jury and he kind of retorted by saying, well, i've done a lot of very complicated appeals, and civil litigation, and environmental litigation and things like that. and i said that's right, you're an environmental lawyer. how about you go back to your office and we will call you when there is an oil spill and pat cipollone weighed in at one point i remember saying, you know, that letter that this guy wants to send, that letter is a

murder-suicide pact. it will damage everyone who touches it. and we should have nothing to do with that letter. i would don't ever want to see that letter again. >> pat cipollone in the thick of it again. and and last week's bombshell testimony from the white house aide cassidy hutchinson once again highlighting pat cipollone's central role around january 6th. >> on january 3rd, mr. cipollone had approached me, knowing that mark had raised the prospect of going out to the capitol on january 6th. mr. cipollone and i had a brief private conversation where he said to me, we need to make sure that this doesn't happen, this will be legally a terrible idea for us, we have serious legal concerns if we go up to the capitol that day and then he urged me to continue relaying that to mr. meadows, because it's my understanding that mr.

cipollone thought that mr. meadows was indeed pushing this along with the president. >> and we understand that you also spoke to mr. cipollone on the morning of the 6th as you were about to go to the rally on the ellipse and mr. cipollone said something to you like make sure the movement to the capitol does not happen, is that correct? >> that's correct. i saw mr. cipollone right before i walked out into west exec that morning and mr. cipollone said something to the effect of please make sure we don't go up to the capitol, cassidy, keep in touch with me, we're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen. >> and do you remember which crimes mr. cipollone was concerned with? >> in the days leading up to the 6th, we had conversations about potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count. >> so this friday, the january 6th investigation will get to

ask pat cipollone about those conversations. did they happen the way cassidy hutchinson says they did? and when we refer to being charged with every crime imagine naebl, what crimes was he imagining that donald trump and the staff could be charged with. and while pat cipollone will not be testifying publicly we learned about another witness who will be. the trump white house deputy press secretary sara matthews has been seened to testify publicly as soon as next week. she resigned from the white house, the night of january 6th. last week, she publicly defended cassidy hutchinson against attacks from trump allies. matthews has already given a recorded deposition to the committee and the person who led her questioning was this man, john wood, a former united states attorney, brought on as a senior investigative counsel for the january 6th investigation, and he was questioning witnesses

at a hearing last month. mr. wood led the investigation's gold team which examined trump's involvement in the capitol attack itself. all of which makes him someone with unique insight into what the investigation might learn from pat cipollone and what we should expect from the next public hearings, starting next week. luckily, john wood joins us live next. g next week luckily, john wood joins us live next

every search you make, every click you take,

every move you make, every step you take, i'll be watching you. the internet doesn't have to be duckduckgo is a free all in one privacy app with a built in search engine, web browser, one click data clearing and more stop companies like google from watching you, by downloading the app today. duckduckgo: privacy, simplified. in addition to the news that the january 6th investigation has secured an interview with, on this friday with trump's white house counsel pat cipollone, we also learned that the committee has subpoenaed another trump white house staffer to testify publicly, possibly as early as next week. her name is sara matthew, she served as deputy press secretary until her resignation just hours after the attack on the u.s. capitol on january 6th, when she was first deposed by the committee, an investigation ergs named john wood led the questioning. you might remember her from the hearing last month when he cross-examined witnesses about trump's pressure campaign on

mike pence, to get him to block the certification of the 2020 election. mr. wood is no longer part of the committee. he recently left his post as senior investigative counsel to launch an independent bid for the united states senate in missouri. given his key role in the investigation, he has visibility that almost no one else has into what too to expect from future hearings and perhaps from pat cipollone, and sara matthews. joining us now is john wood, former senior investigative counsel of the january 6th investigation, mr. wood, good to see you. thank you for being with us tonight. thanks for taking time. >> thanks for having me on. i appreciate it. >> let's talk about sara math use first. what do you think we expect to hear from her if in fact she does turn out to be a witness next week. >> i expect her to be a very credible witness. she is very young, but she had an important role within the white house. i led the interview as you said conducted by the staff and i found her to be tre very credible. so i think she's going to help fill in some of the gaps in the

testimony that you've heard so far. and i think you're going to hear her focus on the days leading up to january 6th and really the minute by minute of january 6th itself. it may not be as explosive as what we heard from cassidy hutchinson but each of these hearings i think will provide additional information that the american people had not heard yet. >> the committee had heard from pat cipollone in what was called an informal interview, and then the cassidy hutchinson stuff came out and you what realized out of that, and other stories that we keep getting is that pat cipollone was central to a lot of stuff. he was around. and by the way, his testimony may lead him to, for people to think of him as being on the right side of history given what he kept arguing but he's agreed now to testify in front of the committee on friday. i'm assuming that's a product of cassidy hutchinson's testimony because so many references were made to him and things he said and legal exposure that he was worried about. >> so i think it's a combination of things. i think there was weeks back and

forth between the committee and cipollone's lawyers to try to get him to talk on the record and discussions and negotiations about possible accommodations because i think mr. cipollone for some of the information he has has legitimate privilege concerns but a lot of the information he has is clearly not privileged. and so it was really important that he eventually end up testifying before the committee on the record and video tapes so the american people can see it and i'm glad to see that is coming together this friday so hopefully the committee will show some of the key clips of that interview during the hearing next week so it is important that the american people hear from him. and you're right about the cassidy hutchinson point, i think one of the reasons why mr. cipollone's testimony is going to be so important is on some of the things that cassidy hutchinson testified about, mr. cipollone was in the room, and he will be able to either corroborate or reject some of the testimony she had made and which one of those he does will be very important in telling us

how credible cassidy hutchinson was, because to me, she appeared very credible. >> one of the things she said about pat cipollone is that he had come to her and said don't let this happen, don't let them go to the capitol, we'll be charged with every crime imaginable. does that statement, if it holds to be true, does that get, does that take away the executive privilege or any kind of privilege that cipollone had because obviously lawyers can't be involved in the commission of crimes. if a lawyer warns about the potential commission of a crime is, that privileged information or can he testify to that? >> so i will tell you that the conversation that he had with her probably is not privileged to begin. with i don't think you have to find an exception. the direct communications that he may have had with the president, so hypothetically if he said mr. president, shoe not go to the capitol because here are the reasons why it would be illegal, i think that might be privileged, but him just saying to another staffer that he thinks that it might violate every law imaginable, i don't

think that that itself is privileged. so the executive privilege has some gray areas, but at its core is that senior staff should be able to give candid advice to the president without it becoming public. but i think the comments that mr. cipollone may have made to somebody like cassidy hutchinson probably are not privileged. >> in previous hearings however the committee has cited several instances in which pat cipollone allegedly did raise legal concerns over trump's actions before and during january 6th. i guess it's going to be important for the committee to get him on the record confirming or denying specific statements that he said to have made in the presence of his white house colleagues like the one we were just discussing. >> that's exactly right. and i think he said earlier that pat cipollone may turn out to be on the right side of history and i think he will. and i think from everyone he said he was one of the good guys here and he tried to stop president trump and in some

cases did stop president trump from doing some things that could have been really harmful to the country. so i've heard other people say that he could be the john dean of this investigation, but he's different from john dean in a very important respect which is john dean was actually involved in some of the wrongdoing, here i haven't seen any evidence of pat cipollone was involved in any of the wrong doing, in fact, he tried to stop it but he is similar to john dean in the fact that he not only has the same position, white house counsel but in the room when some of these conversations took place so he could turn out to be a really central witness of this whole investigation. >> john, you had a really good seat to these hearings, you've been right in them, what's the biggest revelation out of the hearings so far for you? >> so, you know, i think the biggest revelation in general is just how close we came to having a constitutional crisis that was even worse than the one that we had on january 6th, believe it or not. so january 6th was absolutely

horrible, both in terms of what it meant for the functioning of our government, and of course, for the people who are injured or killed, but it actually could have been far worse and our democracy is very fragile, and there were some things that a few people, in these case, republicans, who are serving donald trump, and were appointed by donald trump, were able to stop donald trump from doing, and could have made it even worse than it was. so the pressure that he tried to put on the department of justice, ultimately was unsuccessful. because his justice department senior officials threatened to quit. he tried to place pressure on state officials who were republicans and they stood up to him and said mr. president, we voted for you, but we can't change the outcome of the election. so these are the kinds of things, and of course, you know, the vice president himself saying no to the president, saying that he would not change the outcome of the election, in each of those examples, our system held, but just barely. and our system is very fragile. so i think that's the key

take-away. >> and but for a few people who you just mentioned who did make choices to be on the right side of history, the system may be, might not have held and you left your very important work on the committee to make a run as an independent for missouri's open senate seat. is part of this motivated by this realization that you had about how close we came to losing democracy? is this your, is this your brick in the wall that you can put? >> it is. i feel like our country is more divided than it's ever been during my lifetime, and even got tonight point where our democracy is at risk. and nowhere is that division more evident than in the missouri u.s. senate race where my party, i'm a republican, i'm running as an independent, but i'm a lifelong republican and for my party, poised to nominate a disgraced former governor who resigned from office, because of a blackmail scandal, involving his mistress and has since been credibly accused of abusing his

ex-wife and child, he is still leading in the polls. he is unfit to serve in the u.s. senate. and we need an alternative. and i think i would best represent the views and values of missouri voters, which by and large are mainstream views, they tend to be right of center, but most people are within the mainstream, and reject the two extremes on both the left and the right. >> one of the things that was valuable about you being in the committee, the buzz was that because you're a republican, because you're a conservative, you might be able to back-channel to get a lot of republicans to testify before the committee. and actually most of the interesting testimony has come from republicans. is that your work? do you think that is important work? do you think there are enough republicans who come forward and said i've a conservative and a lifelong republican like you have said but this is democracy, this is not partisan politics. >> i certainly can't take credit for the many successes of the committee but the successes greatly outnumber the ones where they've come up short. there have been a few very prominent people who have

refused to testify, but the vaflt majority of the people that the committee has tried to talk to have cooperated either voluntarily or because they got a subpoena and as you point out most of those are republicans, a lot of them are appointed by and worked for donald trump, but they came forward, and they did their civic duty and they told the truth, and that's why so far this investigation has been such a success, in terms of finding out what happened, and now conveying it through these hearings to the american people. >> john wood, good to speak to you tonight. thanks for joining us. on wood, independent candidate for the united states senate in missouri, a former senior investigative counsel for the january 6th committee and we appreciate your time. thanks. >> thanks for having me on. up next, an interview with the district attorney investigating president trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election in georgia. s effort to overturn the 2020

election in georgia. i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance

on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling.

so call now for free information.

if you can't admire joe biden as a person, that's probably, you got a problem. you need to do some stuff on that evaluation. what's not to like? he's the nicest person i think i've ever met. >> is that right? >> he is as good a man as god ever created. >> a good a man as god ever created. >> south carolina senator lindsey graham getting emotional about his relationship with joe biden, and here he is again on january 6th of last year speaking with a reporter with "the new york times" after the attack on the u.s. capitol. >> what this does, this there

will be a rallying of the law. >> and biden -- >> yes, totally, maybe the best person to have, right? >> how mad can you get at joe biden? >> how mad can you get at joe biden? >> those words are more interesting as we learned from the 2020 election in november and january 6th senator graham made calls to key election officials in key states that donald trump lost, most notably that georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger days after the election, he told the "washington post" that he was stunned that senator graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. in public, senator graham brushed that call off as nothing more than being interested in election security.

>> why is the republican senator talking to the -- >> did you or did you not ask him to throw out votes? >>, no that's ridiculous. i told him how you verify -- >> as much as i wish it weren't the case, my colleague interviewing senator graham, garrett haake, does not have subpoena power and a big difference how much of a story you might share with a reporter, and how much of a story you have to share with a prosecutor and a grand jury if you're under oath. brad raffensperger has already given his account of what happened to fulton county district, zbra grand jury, on the record, he spoke for five hours about the infamous phone call with president trump and presumably his interactions with the south carolina senator as well, it is a fairly thorough investigation, i'm sure they got to the point about senator lindsey graham. so what about senator lindsey graham of south carolina?

well, he was among seven trump allies subpoenaed yesterday by that same district attorney, you might think that because of senator graham's supposed interest in the election integrity, he would be very interested in cooperating with the district attorney willis' investigation in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election in georgia, but today, senator graham and his lawyer said he will not comply. they said the investigation is a quote fishing expedition and that senator graham plans to go to court and challenge the subpoena. today my colleague blayne alexander got an exclusive interview with the district attorney and got her response on what she will do with witnesses who defy subpoenas and specifically lindsey graham. >> if you are met with resistance, how would you respond to that, if you're met with resistance, people who say they don't want to come testify? >> nobody wants to come to the prosecutor's party.

that's kind of part of the work that we do. we'll take it before the judge and the judge will make a ruling if we have a legal right to bring them before the court, but i mean i've been a trial lawyer a long time, and most times, people don't want to come, but that's why you have power of the state and the power to subpoena people and bring them here. >> lindsey graham actually put out a statement, essentially saying that this is all politics, fulton county is engaged in a fishing expedition and working in concert with the january 6th committee in washington. do you want to respond to that, him calling it a fishing expedition saying this is nothing but politics. >> what do i have to gain from these politics? it's an inaccurate estimation. it's someone that doesn't understand the seriousness of what we're doing. i hope they don't, i hope they will come in and testify

truthfully before the grand jury. >> and if not, that's why prosecutors have the power of the state to bring people in, strong words from the fulton county district attorney. and again, lindsey graham is one of seven trump allies that willis subpoenaed yesterday. we will have more from that interview, including what may be in store for donald trump after the break. including what may be in store for donald trump after the break.

i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions.

your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information. we talked about specifically

the investigation into the president. >> i know i'm a black woman, i'm proud to be a black woman and insulting me with racial slurs may be entertaining them but no consequence to me. >> fulton county district attorney willis in an exclusive interview with blayne alexander earlier today, in addition to talking about the threats should he is facing as the lead prosecutor investigating donald trump's potential criminal interference in georgia's 2020 election, the district attorney also talked about where the investigation goes from here. >> do we expect to possibly see additional subpoenas from people in former president trump's inner circle or trump associates? >> yes. >> are we talking about family members, are we talking about former white house officials? >> we will have to see where the investigation leads us. but i think that people thought that we came into this as some kind of game. this is not a game. at all. what i am doing is very serious.

it's very important work. and we're going to do our due diligence and making sure that we look at all aspects of the case. and so all you see as a prosecutor doing their due diligence, i was, i had a team that was here, that was investigating, that was speaking to people, some people decided that they wanted a subpoena to talk to us, it was enough people where i thought it was important to bring them before a special purpose grand jury where they could gain the information and the special purpose grand jury could advise me. and so that's the process we're in. >> might we see a subpoena of the former president himself. >> anything is possible. >> we're not ruling out it is a possible? >> no. >> in an interview recently a few weeks ago, you estimated that it could wrap up by the end of the summer and that could bring the decision on indictments sometime in the fall. is that still accurate? >> i think that's still a realistic goal, with the progress that we're making. >> there's a lot in there that we need to break down.

luckily i've got just the person to speak with. joining me is a senior reporter for the atlanta journal constitution, who broke the news this week that the fulton county special grand jury, about which the district attorney was speaking, had subpoenaed the members of trump's legal team, as well as the south carolina senator lindsey graham. ms. hallerman, thank you for being with us tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> you just heard some of what the d.a. had to say. she had quite a bit to say about this investigation. what's your reaction to her acknowledge can the possibility of subpoenas either for president trump or members of his inner circle? >> it's both surprising and it's not surprising. she's long told us here in georgia that she is willing to potentially subpoena donald trump, and she's also willing to potentially indict him, if she feels like the elements of a crime have been met. at the same time, it still is a shocking possibility because there's no precedent for this in u.s. history, no u.s. president has ever been indicted for a

crime, the fact that she is moving up the pyramid getting closer and closer to donald trump is certainly notable. i think the time line that she mentioned hopefully being done by the end of the summer, i'll be curious if she will be able to stick to, that especially given what we heard today from senator graham, that he plans to fight the subpoena in court. >> and his attorney, lindsey graham's attorneys, have said they're going to do. >> this the district attorney does seem prepared for that fight. what's your sense of how that is going to work? >> well, my understanding is that there's going to be hearings in the states of jurisdiction where these folks, where these different folks live. lindsey graham being in south carolina, or potentially in washington, d.c., depending on where he served, john eastman being in new mexico, rudy giuliani being in new york. they will have a hear wrg the local superior court judge there, or if they are claiming some sort of privilege, attorney-client privilege, legislative immunity, they can argue their case, there will be

a representative from the d.a.'s office who will be arguing why those folks are necessary material witnesses and must be brought to you to testify. >> what do you make of d.a. willis saying that she is making progress and that the time line does seem to be about a decision on an indictment by fall? i think what blayne alexander was getting at there is that anybody who thinks this is political is going to think it is more political if there is an indictment of donald trump or someone in his circle around fall prior to there being elections. >> absolutely. and that's a criticism you've heard from republicans for months here in georgia, they believe this is the partisan witch hunt that is being designed for maximum political effectiveness for the democrats. d.a. willis has long denied. that she says she is letting the evidence take the prosecutors wherever it goes. she says she has no pre-determined kind of outcomes in her mind. that said, she did kind of pause or at least delay bringing in witnesses until after our may

primaries here in georgia, and i believe she also mentioned to your reporter today that should this not be resolved by october, which is when georgia begins early voting, she will also pause until after the elections are passed, just to kind of prevent the perception that she is playing politics. but no matter what she does, people are going to accuse her of playing politics. >> true. thanks for being with us tonight. senior reporter for the atlanta journal constitution. we'll be right back. us tonight. tonight. senior reporte that's been saving people money for nearly 60 years. i gotta go, ah. for a great low rate, and nearly 60 years of quality coverage, go with the general. journal minutes more restful sleep per night. and now, the queen sleep number 360 c2 smart bed is only $899. only for a limited time. we'll be right back.

this is xfinity rewards.

our way of showing our appreciation. with rewards of all shapes and sizes. [ cheers ] are we actually going? yes!! and once in a lifetime moments. two tickets to nascar! yes! find rewards like these and so many more in the xfinity app. >> today we learned the identity of the seventh victim killed in the mass shooting in highland park illinois, eduardo uvaldo, pronounced dead just before 8:00 a.m. this morning surrounded by members of his family, members of his family including wife and grandson were injured in the shooting spree. he joins the list of seven people murdered by the highland park gunman, those killed ranged

in age from 3 35 to 88 and leave behind parents including the parents of a toddler. the gunman has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. prosecutors say they don't plan on stop. there that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. >> the seventh victim identified from the fourth of july highland park massacre as the suspect in the case is ordered held without bond, prosecutors say he confessed to the attack and considered committing a second. we'll have the very latest. plus, two fbi directors who found themselves on donald trump's bad side gets swept up in highly invasive and rare tax audits that are supposed to be random. the question is, were they deliberately targeted? and the latest on the investigation into election interference in georgia, and the d.