>> -- , so his son was 18, his daughter is 16. and on christmas eve, 2020, so that's like a month and a half after the like a month and a haf after th christmas eve 2020, his 18-year-old son went online to the fbi website to tips.fbi.gov and he submitted a tip to the fbi about his dad. he told them that his dad was planning to do some things violent, that his dad was not only calling for there to be violence against government officials, the son told the fbi when he submitted that online tip that he believed his plan, his dad was actually planning to do something violent himself he told the fbi his father was planning to quot that was christmas eve 2020. when that young man submitted that tip to0. the fbi. i didn't hear back initially.

it took a couple of weeks. it took until after the january 6th 2021 attack on the u.s. capitol building, then the fbi decided.s that maybe that tip deserved some follow-up. by the time the fbi got in touch with the son, the son's father had not only traveled from texas to washington, d.c., to take part in the january 6th attack on the capitol, he had come back home to texas afterwards, and showed his teenaged kids video that he had taken of his part in the attack. he told his kids back home in texas that, yes, he had participated in the attack, and yes, he definitely had had a loaded gun with himye during th entire thing. he also then t threatened to ki his kids if they told anyone. he told his 18-year-old son and his 16-year-old daughter, quote, if you turn me in, you're a traitor, and traitors get shot. it was that same day, the day the father threatened to kill the son and his sister, if they

told anyone that same day the son said yes when an fbi agent called and asked if he would meet with him to tell him what caused him to send in that tip about his dad to the fbi. the sonat that same day, the da that his dad threatened to kill him, met with an fbi agent, told him what he knew about his father's activities on january 6th. and when his dad had told his son and daught ber having a loaded gun with him during the capitol attack, it turns out the son had been recording that conversation and that day whenu he metbe with the fbi agent, he gave the record together fbi. . and so that kid's dad, that was the first man who was put on trial for his role in the january 6th attack. a man from wily, texas, guy reffitt, the attack on the capitol building was january, 2021, he was the first one put on trial, put on trial march 2021, charged with five felonies. armed trespassing, guilty.

obstruction of an official proceeding, guilty. interfering with police in a riot, guilty. transporting a firearm for purposes of interfering with police in a riot, guilty. and witness tampering, found guilty of that. witness tampering of course for threatening to kill his own teenaged son and daughter if they told anyone what he had done. it emerged during guy reffitt's trial that he was doubly armed iny dc, an ar-15 assault rifle when he went to washington and apparently left that in the-1 garage of his dc hotel on the day of the actual capitol attack butda the loaded semi-automatic smith and wesson pistol, he had on his hip, and flex cuffs, and heavy duty zip ties to tying

people up and recorded video that he was looking forward to drags people out of the capitol building, kicking and screaming and wanted to specifically drag nancywa pelosi out of the capit building by her ankles because he wanted to see her head hit every step on the capitol building as he physically dragged her out. the part of the three t. percenters, well represented in washington during the attack. and a group that has surfaced in physical intimidation cases like rusty bowers. the first man put on trial for thers january 6th alleged crime and convicted on all counts, five fell nis and now time for the court to hand down his sentence.to his defense lawyers have asked the judge toen give guy reffitt less than two years in prison.

who knows. federal sentencing guidelines suggest a term of more like nine to 11 years in prison. but this is interesting. and this provides us some new insight. the federal prosecutors in the guy reffitt case have asked the judge for something called an upward departure from the sentencing guidelines. sentencing guidelines are nine to 11 years and they're asking for the court to consider a longer sentence than that, asking to add a sentencing enhancement to the case on the grounds of terrorism. onng the grounds what he did fi the statutory definition of terrorism. he engaged inst acts of violenc that were intended to influence the government through intimidation or coercion,o act been defined by statute as domestic terrorism. now, it is up to the court, up to the judge whether or not to actually do that, to accept this terrorism enhancement on guy

reffitt's sentence but if the judge does agree to prosecutor's request on that, the practical consequence is steep, and the practical consequence is that prosecutors are saying that this guy should get 15 years in prison, that would be roughly triple the sentence that anybody else has received so far for their role in the capitol attack. that incident, that handling of that one case tells us a couple of things. it tell us that the u.s. justice department has concluded that it is okay to treat the january 6thed attack as terrori, as domestic terrorism. they have concluded that the justice department, that in some cases, the perpetrators of that attack should be prosecuted as terrorists. and that should go off like the rockets red glare to the 300-plus other defendants who are still waiting to go on trial on charges related to january 6th. i mean the justice department, like big picture, right, they want people to cooperate with prosecutors. they want defendants to help prosecutorsos investigate the

overall crime, and help put other criminals away, and of course, you're under no obligation to cooperate, you're under no obligation to agree to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors in their efforts, if you're innocent there is no way that shoe plead guilty, you go to trial, youth fight the charg, you get acquitted, because you didn't do it. but if you are guilty, and you not going to plead guilty and cooperate, you're instead going to go to trial and yourself convicted, well, this new decision to seek a terrorism enhancement, this new decision by justice department prosecutors shows what you're going to face in that instance, it could be something very much like what this guy, guy reffitt is now up against, the terrorism enhancement, their a asking for 15 years in prison, which is no joke. that could change everything for, you know, every other defendant who rightyt now is weighing their options, weighing the risks of going to trial, versus pleading guilty, asking for mercy, and agreeing to tell the truth about what happened. if you know you could be facing

sentences that stiff, the previous stiffest sentence was five years, and they're asking for 15 years, and we can see how that15 operates strategically, terms of the justice department trying to get people to plead guilty and cooperate with them in their own ongoing investigation, of the people who physically attacked the capitol. this is also just a good reminder about how much leeway prosecutors have, how much of their own discretion the justice department and prosecutors can bring to bear in pursuing and punishing crimes like this through the courts. right? this is not, this is not just math. it's not just an automatic process. it is like x crime happens, thai produces y prosecution, and that produces z sentence. these are human processes. these are humans making strategic decisions for good and for m bad. and sometimes you know, they'll get it rirkts sometimes they won't. but right now we're at an inflection point, a crucial moment in americanbu history,

wondering if this justice department will use its discretion wisely, whether they will make good strategic decisions, are they going to get it right, or are they not. someto of the most crucial decisions toward those ends are being c made right now. "the wall street journal" for ted over the weekend, example, that the part of the justice department investigation that's looking at people higher up, looking at people other than those who physically attacked the capitol, that part of the investigation is getting larger, and getting more resources. quote, a justice department team focusing on elements of the investigation beyond the violence at theen capitol on january 6th has in recent weeks beennu given more personnel, mo office space, and an expanded mandate. okay. more resources. that's part of the justice department's strategic thinking here. now, whether that part of the justice department investigation actually does result in any prosecutions remain to be seen. so far, it hasn't. and as yet, the only prosecutions the justice

department has moved forward with, beyond people who took partrd in the capitol rite itse, the only prosecutions they're actually acting on is two contempt of congress, two former trumpnt advisers who refused to testify and hand over documents to the january 6th investigation in congress. prosecutors said in court on friday that the trump adviser peter navarro had refused their offer of a plea deal. they say he could have pled guilty to one charge of contempt and agreed to respond to the subpoena as he is legally required to do and in return they would have made sure he did no more than 30 days in jail. peter navarro, told prosecutors, he said no to that and go to trial and if convicted, he will be facing up to two years in jail. on the other contempt charges, jury selection was today for the other trump adviser who is facing criminal contempt charges, in the steve bannon

trial in washington, which started today. we are expecting opening statements tomorrow. and then, you know, blink and you might miss it, we expect for itd all to be over fairly quicy after opening statements. prosecutors have said in the steve bannon case that they think they will only need one day to lay out their whole case against him.e ay we don't know how long bannon's defense will take but the judge has already told bannon's defense lawyers in pretrial hearings that he doesn't have much of a defense to mount. he will be going to trial, and if convicted he will face a year ined jail. opening statements tomorrow in what is expected to be a fast trial of steve bannon in washington. so we're seeing prosecution of individual defendants who took part in physically attacking the capitol. we're seeing these couple of prosecutions for contemptto of congress, people not participating, not following legal summons that they need to follow related to the january 6th investigation and conduct. and t we're also seeing some

action around the fake electors part of the scheme and resulted a bunch of interesting activity by prosecutors in various places. in the state of georgia, three republican officials from the state of georgia, including the state republican party chairman, and the republican nominee for lieutenant governor in georgia, three republican officials in that state have all now been advised by the fulton county georgia district attorney that they might get indicted over their part in the fake electorsh scheme, indicted under georgia state law. we know that federal prosecutors are also looking at the fake electors scheme, because federal grand jury subpoenas have been served to people who allegedly participated in that scheme, not only ined georgia, but in multie states. we also know federal prosecutors are interested in the fake electors scheme because the chairman of the january 6th investigation, bennie thompson, has now told reporters that the committee is engaging with the justice department, on fake electors specifically. we think thatst means that the january 6th investigators in congress are giving federal prosecutors some of what they

have turned up on the fake electors issue. that issue specifically not anything else. so we see bits and pieces of this being moved on, and sort of different paces, right? and to different degrees. different amounts of resources being devoted to these various parts of the investigation. the justice department has a lot of latitude. they have a lot of discretion in terms of how they go after this stuff. how many prosecutors and investigators they put to work on any one part of it. how quickly they move to get investigationsw started, and tn to get them moved into search warrants and subpoenas and testimony, and to indictments ultimately, how aggressively they ultimately charge what they believe to be provable crimes in court. what kindey of sentences they a for when they do get convictions in court. given that, given the leeway they have, the discretion they have, is it worth worrying that they may be moving too slowly to ever even have a real chance to

bring charges against the people who are at the top of the conspiracy? well, to that end, we have something new. this is a document that we have just obtained that has not been published elsewhere. it is from attorney general merrick garland. it is addressed to all justice department employees. it is dated may 25th, 2022. so that's about eight weeks ago. but again we believe the first time this document has been shown to the public, as you can see, it is titled election year sensitivities. the department of justice employees are entrusted with the authority to enforce the laws of the united states and that the responsibility to do so in a neutralta and impartial manner, this is particularly important in an election year, now that the 2022 election season is upon us, and as in prior election cycles, i am issuing this memorandum to remind you of the policies with respect to political activity. this is from attorney general merrick garland. it has his signature on top of

it in blue ink. and then it says this, statements, investigations and charging near an election. quote, the department of justice has a strong interest in the prosecution of election-related crimes such as those involving federal and state campaign lines, we must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the department's reputation for fairness, neutrality and nonpartisan ship. simply put partisan politics must play no role regarding any investigations or criminal charges. law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select th timing of public statements, attributed or not, or background or not. and criminal charges or any other action, in any matter or case, for the purpose of effecting any election over the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party. suchag a purpose or the appearae of such a purpose is inconsistentof with the department's mission and the

principles of federal prosecution. if you facehe an issue or the appearance of an issue regarding timing, investigators steps, charges or other actions near the time of a primary or general election, contact the public integrity section of the criminal division for further guidance. such consultation is also required at various stages of all criminal matters that focus ones violations of federal and state campaign finance law, federalst patronage crimes and corruption of the process. and now this. finally, department employees must also adhere to the additional requirements issued by the attorney general on february 5th, 2020. february 5th 20, 20. governing the opening of criminal and counter-intelligence investigations by the rn department, including its law enforcement agencies, related to politically sensitive individuals and entities. see memorandum of attorney general william barr, february 5thmo, 2020. any questions regarding the scope or requirements of the february 2020 attorney general's

memorandum should be direct told the public integrity section. again, this memo from merrick garland to all justice department employees was sent out eight weeks ago in late may, and we obtained it and we believe it is the first time it has been made public. in larges part, this memo from the attorney general follows both the letter and the spirit of previous letters from other attorneys general around election time. basically says, look, we can't look like we're acting to effectuate some particular partisan outcome around election time, that means we may delay certain stepson we would otherwe take, in order to avoid even the perceptionta that we are tryingo influencerc election outcomes. we have seen that kind of guidance before from attorneys general of all stripes, that's fine, that's at least noncontroversion. but this last part, about bill barr's instructions from 2020, that is kind of a surprise. february,th 2020, trump attorne

general big barr put out new guidance, over and above what all attorneys general had previouslyal said. and what bill barr said in february,pr 2020, was specificay that in essence, nobody is allowed to investigate anybody connected to a presidential candidate without his permission personally as attorney general. barr'sca memo from february 20 20rk the language of it said no lly, it investigation including any preliminary investigation, may be opened or initiated by the department or any of its law enforcement agencies, of a declared candidate for president or vice president, or presidential campaign or senior presidential campaign member staff member absent prior written approval of the attorney general through the deputy attorney general. trump attorney general bill barr established that new rule in february 2020, no investigating any declared candidate for president, or anybody working for that candidate, unless i personally give my permission.

that new rule was established bi bill barr. when he was working for donald trump. merrick garland has just formally extended that guidance and told every employee of the justice department that it is still in effect. notice went out in late may. we are reporting the memo here, making it publicly available for the first time. well, what happened in the meantime since then, since the guidance went out from merrick garland to every justice department employee, telling them that the bill barr advice is still in effect, and any investigation, including the opening of any investigation, that applies to a candidate for president, or anybody working for a candidate for president, that hasyb to get his personal sign-off, what has happened since late may, when this went out? well, formersinc president dona trump has had the delightful experience of the january 6th investigation essentially rolling out a realtime prime time criminal referral of him to the justice department. justice department, which is

poking along with its own cases at its own pace, may be more interested inat the fake electo part specifically, maybe just spending a lot of time watching the january 6th investigators, marveling at all of the neat stuff they've turned up, that the justice department is learning a we all are during thee hearings, that happened since this memo went out. and since this memo went out, trump has responded to all of these revelations about limb and january 6th bit reportedly moving to speed up his own declaration that he will be a candidate for president again. and that of course is despite the interests of the republican party, which will likely not be helped at all by him telling the country formally that he intends to lead the republican party again right before this fall it will be decided whether to put republican candidates in congress. it wouldn't be good to announce he is candidate again before the midterm elections, it wouldn't be good for his own party and

keeping in his own interest in putting road blocks as possible in the way of any possible prosecution of himself. jennifer ruben writing at the "washington post" said theif january 6th committee's remarkable success in faction findingma against president tru, leaving the justice department on the defense and scrambling to staff up and face the prospect that trump will announce his efforts in the fall to keep from investigations. chairman bennie thompson was asked about this tonight. >> what do you think about the implication would be of a former president and a presidential run? n would be of a former president and a presidential run?

>> lack, we are a nation of laws, and if a person breaks the law, or is accused of breaking the law, he's not one who can just do what he chooses because he's running for president. so donald trump, is just like every other american citizen in this situation. >> if a person breaks the law or is accused of breaking the law, he's not one who can just do what he chooses because he's running for president. so donald trump is just like every other american citizen in this situation. yes, it would be unorthodox for him to announce two years in advance that he's a candidate for president, why we do that? well, now we know, now that we've obtained this justice department memo from a few weeks ago, now we know for sure that it does kick something into action, if he in fact announces himself as a declared candidate for president, that means any investigation that relates to him or anyone working for him has to be personally cleared in

writing through the very highest echelons of the justice department. the justice department has a lot of discretion in how it pursues criminal prosecution. how many resources to apply to a particular problem, how aggressive to be in charging and sentencing decisions, and honestly, how fast to move. are they being outflanked? joining us now is andrew wiseman, who previously served as the fbi's general counsel, a senior member of special counsel robert mueller's investigative team. nice to see you. thanks for being here. >> nice to be here. >> so we've obtained this relatively recent memo from attorney general garland and in some ways it re-ups what we've seen from previous attorneys general saying there are sensitivities around election years but he also extends a bill barr policy requiring a special highest level of written approval for any investigations of publicly declared presidential candidates. i just wanted to ask your

reaction to that attorney general. >> so i have to, i am sort of two minds about this memo, on the one hand, i think it is understandable for a reputable honest attorney general to want to make sure that there's no improper political interference by anyone at the department of justice, whether it's prosecutors or agents. on the other hand, the bill barr justice department was anything but a justice department, the rule of law was so flouted that the idea of re-upping something that he put in place is one that i'm not sure if i were at the department i would look at, you know, with anything other than saying i am not bringing a case against anyone at the white house until such time as i

personally approve it, no matter how much evidence seems to be accumulated in the january 6th committee hearings so you know, i think it is sort of plus-minus and it probably could have been traced a lot better and clearer to people at the justice department. >> you've been critical of what seems to be publicly evidence about the way justice department prosecutors have pursued january 6th. you've described how in lots of, in lots of criminal prosecutions, it makes sense to sort of approach this from the bottom up, to bring people at the lowest levels on board, as quickly as you can, and then pressure them to flip and tell what they know as you're moving toward bigger fish, you said that while that might be the most appropriate way to approach most big investigations in this case, that might be too slow and that might be in the prosecutors who are missing some of what's obvious. i wonder if you still feel that

way, and if the recent events have borne that out for you. >> the thing that i was really interested in, rachel, that you quoted from, in "the wall street journal" reporting was this idea of an expanded mandate. not just more personnel and more office space but an expanded mandate. and of course, everyone's question is what does that mean. is it expanded to include all of the evidence of criminal gnat -- criminalality of the january 6 committee and in other words not just who attacked the capitol on january 6th and fake electors but what was happening at the department of justice, and jeffrey rosen, and what was going on in georgia and other state, and the pressuring of the vice president of the united states, all of that seems to me to be appropriate for a criminal investigation. and i think to make people

understand the concern here, the concern here was raised when cassidy hutchinson testified and it was wide reporting that prosecutors in the department of justice who were listening to what she had to say were just as surprised by what she had to report as all of us, you know, who are just citizens and that's really surprising to me, i think it should be surprising to people, as to where was the department and why were they so behind in the investigation, and they were learning along with us, what she had to say, because obviously, what she had to say, i think, for most people, who are looking at this object tively, it was quite disturbing, about what was happening and not happening at the white house. >> andrew, former fbi general counsel, former senior member special counsel, robert mueller's investigative team and a veteran of lots of big

consequential complex investigations at the justice department, thank you for making time tonight. good to see you. >> nice to see you. all right. we have much more to get to tonight. stay with us. we have much more to get to tonight. stay with us

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thursday night this week is the next january 6th hearing, and perhaps the last one for a while. the united states secret service is facing a deadline of tomorrow to respond to a new subpoena from the committee. and of course, this is all happening now alongside the ongoing criminal trial in washington, d.c. of trump adviser steve bannon, who is being tried for defying his own subpoena from the investigation. joining us now is democratic congressman adam shif, a member of the january 6th investigation, and he also of course is chair of the house intelligence committee. mr. chairman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. nice to have you here. >> good to be with you. >> let me start by asking you first about what is going on with this subpoena to the secret service. a lot of this drama unfolded late last week, including the inspector general of the department that oversees the secret service coming in, i

understand briefing you and all of your colleagues on the committee about what may have happened at the secret service when they faced a request for information from your department related to january 5th and 6th, what can you tell us about the status of this conflict with the secret service and what you're expecting to get in response to that subpoena. >> well, my understanding, and this is still very much an ongoing investigation, is that some of these text messages were either lost or destroyed. now whether they were lost or destroyed because of negligence or willfully, we have yet to determine but there is a very strong conflict from what we're hearing from the inspector general, the department of homeland security, and what the secret service is telling the public. i have to say that statement that we saw from the secret service that basically there were messages lost and none of them pertained to what we're investigating, i don't know how if they're lost you can draw that conclusion, with such confidence. so something doesn't seem quite right. and we hope to find out as soon

as tomorrow what has been preserved, what was lost, and begin to find out some of the circumstances in which those percentages may have been discarded. >> we're getting a little more information tonight about what to expect on thursday. obviously, it's a decision of some consequence in its own right that the hearing on thursday will be in prime time, you can expect a larger audience for that, and i think, larger expectations to go along with that, we also have been told to expect a couple of, and this has been reported, a couple of live witnesses who are both inside the trump white house, and fairly high level positions, leading up to, and including the days of january, the days around january 6th, what should we understand in terms of how close to the end you are? we keep hearing from you and other members of the committee that there's still more to find out there,'s still more to get to the bottom of, that the investigation has turned up a lot of stuff actually in recent

day, since the hearings have been in public, at the same time it does seem like this is going to be the last public hearing for quite some time. >> i think in the beginning of this process, when we were scheduling and sketching out the hearings, we did conceive of this as probably the end of this first set of hearings, even while we were considering another set of hearings in the fall that were focused on recommendations for protecting the democracy going forward. but as we've gone along, and new witnesses have come forward, and we've added hearings like we did with cassidy hutchinson, we realized that witnesses continue to come forward. and we may very well be adding other hearings to accommodate new evidence and testimony. you know, we haven't made firm conclusions about that. we want to give ourselves and the freedom and the flexibility to present to the public whatever we feel the public really needs to know. i think in the next hearing, you will hear a combination of live testimony, you'll hear part of video testimony that we haven't

seen before, and most importantly with the hearings we will try to weave it together just so people understand what happened during that lengthy period of time when donald trump sat in the white house and watched the capitol being attacked. >> in terms of that time line, one of the reasons that i'm thinking anew about the overall time line of your investigation is this memo that we just obtained from attorney general merrick garland, it's an all employees memo from the attorney general to everybody at the justice department, reminding them about election year sensitivity. reiterating the kind of advice we've seen from previous attorneys general about the department not taking any steps in election season that might look like they were designed to effectuate some particular outcome or advantage or disadvantage of some candidate or some political party. he also goes a step further and says that attorney general bill barr's advice from february,

2020, is still in effect, and is still justice department policy. and that new guidance from bill barr, as of february, 2020, said that any investigation involving a declared candidate for president had to be personally cleared through the attorney general in writing. a declared candidate for president or anyone at a senior level working for somebody in that position. with donald trump now openly sort of mulling the prospect of declaring himself once again to be a candidate for president, i wonder if you and your colleagues on the committee feel pressure at all in terms of the time ticking, the justice department, by policy, is a little more reticent, and has more, puts more hurdles in the way of bringing any sort of federal prosecution or opening investigations of people who are declared candidates, we're getting closer and closer to that each day with trump, does that affect your thinking about the timing? well, we are moving i think as expeditiously as we can and i

don't know how much it will affect our own timing but it does again raise the question of why the justice department was so slow to pursue these lines of effort to overturn the election. they did seem to proceed with alacrity when it came to the breaking in the capitol, but with respect to all of these other lines of effort, to pressure state legislators to find votes where they didn't exist or the fake electors plot ort pressure campaign against the vice president, any number of other efforts which many like judge carter in california believe violates the law, why it appears only now that that is give a sense of urgency, i will say this, to add on to what andrew weissman was saying, it is a bit rich to be citing bill barr for anything that has to do with the independence of the justice department considering how badly he disrupted the independence of that office. yes, we're glad that bill barr finally found a line that he wouldn't cross but he crossed a lot of lines before he got.

there and i agree, that's not the precedent i would cite even if that's the policy which the new attorney general wants to adopt. finally, rachel, i agree with the assessment, whether it's based on this memo or otherwise, that donald trump believes, among other things, that running for president is lucrative but it also may help him stay one step ahead of the jailer. >> and whatever the obscure and contested derivations of the justice department's decision to not bring political, to not bring prosecutions against people who are serving as president of the united states, whatever the derivations are of that policy, president trump, former president trump feels very, very, very aware of it, and seems to be factoring it into his future political plans in the midst of your investigation. democratic congressman adam schiff, member of the house investigation, chair of the intelligence committee, always a pleasure to have you here.

thanks for making time tonight. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. thanks for making >> thank you. >> we'll be right back stay with us

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with a qualifying bundle. in wisconsin, a woman had an incomplete miscarriage and bled for ten days after emergency room staff would not remove the fetal tissue from her uterus and believed there he could be prosecutored if they did so. doctors in michigan found themselves treating a woman from out of state, she had to cross

state lines to get care for a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. an ectopic pregnancy is never viable. doctors say that it could have caused a rupture at any moment that could have killed this woman but a doctor in her home state worried that the presence of a fetal heartbeat made a procedure to remove it illegal and wouldn't do it even throw it risked her life. in louisiana, a doctor described treating a patient whose water broke at 16 weeks, the fetus was not viable and continuing the pregnancy would put the woman's life at risk and they wanted a 15 minute abortion procedure but told under louisiana's new law outlawing abortion, she would have to have an induced delivery instead. the doctor said the patient quote was forced to go through a painful hours long labor to deliver a nonviable fetus, despite her wishes and best medical advice. she was screaming, not from pain, but from the emotional

trauma she was experiencing. and then she hemorrhaged nearly a liter of blood. the doctor said quote, there is absolutely no medical basis for my patient or any other patient in this state to experience anything like this. this was the first time in my 15-year career that chi not give a patient the care they needed. this is a travesty. . one of the ob-gyns in texas described a patient who started to miscarry and developed a dangerous infection in her womb and the fee hus had signs of a heartbeat and an immediate abortion which is the usual standard of care, that would have been illegal under texas's abortion ban. the doctor said quote we physically watched her get sicker and sicker and sicker, until the fetal heartbeat stopped the next day and then we could intervene. the patient developed complication, required surgery, lost multiple liters of blood, and had to be put on a breathing machine, all because we were essentially 24 hours behind. those are just a handful of the stories that doctors have been willing to put on the record

about the practical consequences all over the country of the supreme court overturning the right to an abortion. it is not theoretical. it is happening now. and we've got more on that straight ahead. stay with us. w. and we've got more on that straight ahead stay with us

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we are already seeing mass chaos among ob-gyn and pharmacists, ob-gyns seeing patients sitting in emergency

rooms while they bleed and become unstable. >> that is dr. colleen mcnicholas who practicing in missouri and illinois and telling a senate hearing last week in states like missouri where abortion is now illegal the landscape for pregnant women with medical emergencies in her words quote, mass chaos. joining us now is dr. colleen mcnicholas, chief medical officer at planned parenthood of the st. louis region thanks for joining us. >> thanks so much, happy to be here. >> so in missouri, one of the places you practice, abortion is now illegal except in medical emergencies that cause irreversible medical impairments a major bodily function of the pregnant woman. you said that standard in missouri is causing mass chaos at a practical level in terms of what care doctors can provide and what woman have to go through. is anything resolving over time? is anything becoming more clear?

>> we heard, you opened with lots of stories from not just missouri but from across the country, where physicians are really struggling, because this medical emergency exception are totally unworkable. and folks are not practicing best medicine because they're afraid of going to prison. >> in terms of what remedies are available here, i was curious, when you talk about hospitals' lawyers and health systems' lawyers, particularly big hospitals and big legal departments, big institutions that are considering issues like this, couldn't they be taking a more proactive stance on, this instead of telling doctors, wait for a patient to be sick enough, could they say give your best care and if they come after you, if it comes to it, we will defend you? is there a way to be more forward leaning on this, particularly doctors who have more institutional support than people who are operating in private or small practices?

>> sure, it's always great to have the support of your institution and the lawyers there, but the truth is, if you live in a state with an aggressive and rabidly anti-choice attorney general, no reassurance from your hospital or from your hospital legal system or lawyer is going to make you feel comfortable enough to continue to provide that care when the reality is, is that it's a criminal penalty to violate this law. and so it's just totally unworkable and has led to, as i said, in the hearing, total chaos, among a group of health care professionals, who in this case want to help people, and not to have to sit there and wait for other lawyers, or attorney generals to tell them how to proceed you. >> told in that hearing, that you wanted congress to do every bit of your power to do something, what do you think they could do, given what the supreme court has undone? >> you know, we've seen a big

statement of the enforcement of the emergency medical clause that does say that hospitals need physicians, when presented with a patient in an emergency situation must be treated but the truth is that only affects the small minority of folks who need abortion care. we need the administration and folks at the state level and when states say there is further opportunity to further protect assets, to do so, to allocate funds and resources for patients who need that care and to provide security for patients crossing state lines to get that care. we need a whole of government and truthfully a whole of medicine response to this public health emergency. >> dr. colleen mcnicholas, chief medical officer of planned parenthood in southwest missouri, this is a difficult and chaotic time, thanks for helping us understand. thanks for what you do. >> thanks so much. more news ahead.

stay with us. thanks so much. more news ahead. stay with us

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that. is going to do it for us tonight. that is going to do it for us tonight. i will see you thursday night, for the next january 6th hearing. see you then. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. what you guys going to do to make sure that i don't have to watch my friend die? what are you going to do to make sure i don't have to wait 77 minutes, bleeding out on my classroom floor just like my little students? >> over 400 law enforcement officers there. not one was man enough to go in there. 77 minutes. 77 minutes. >> i want the resignation of every single one of you board members because due give a damn abou