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merrick garland today dropping a legal and political bombshell, appointing a special counsel to investigate donald trump, citing donald trump's status as a presidential candidate, garland today did something that doj is typically loathe to do. he acknowledged the existence of a criminal investigation into efforts to stop the peaceful transfer of power in america, following the 2020 presidential election, and one who is focused on people who are not accused to have trespassing or being at the u.s. capitol that day at all. a group that notably includes the ex-president and some of his closest and most senior allies. the new special counsel is named jack smith, a war crimes prosecutor working overseas. he will receive control of the probe emanating from trump's hoarding of documents that reportedly contained intelligence about china and iran, and his apparent obstruction of that investigation. here's how garland laid out his

reasoning for appointing a special counsel today and the scope of the special counsel's work, which involves two of the biggest and potentially the most consequential investigations that the justice department has ever done. >> based on recent developments, including the former president's announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president's stated intention to be a candidate as well, i have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. such an appointment underscores the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. it also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously and to make decisions indisputably guided, only by the facts and the law. >> the special counsel will conduct parts of the first investigation i just mentioned. the investigation into whether

any person or entity unlawfully interfered with a transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, or with a certification of electoral college vote held on or about january 6th. this does not include prosecutions that are currently pending in the district of columbia, or future investigations and prosecutions of individuals for offenses committed while they were physically present on the capitol grounds on january 6th. >> so the new special counsel, jack smith, assumes oversight and authority over the mar-a-lago documents probe and the january 6th investigation immediately. here to help us make sense of what all of this means for those efforts to hold every american to the same standards under the rule of law, some of our most favorite reporters and friends. "new york times" justice reporter and msnbc contributor, katie benner is here. also joining us, mary mccord, former top official in the justice department's national security division. pete strzok is back. he's the former fbi counterintelligence agent. and joist advance is here,

former u.s. attorney, now law professor at the university of alabama, as well as an msnbc legal analyst, katie benner, much of what we know, we know from your reporting, take us through how this came to pass today. >> keep in mind, when merrick garland became attorney general last year, he was very loathe to appoint a special counsel. there was outside pressure to do so, of course, including from some of the panelists we see here today, but he really believed and i think does still believe that the justice department can investigate a former president. and that that is something that's well within its abilities, if they follow the rule of law. however, part of the calculation was that donald trump stopped being a former president and he became a presidential candidate who would be going toe-to-toe with merrick garland's own boss, joe biden, president joe biden, and the appearance of the conflict of interest was not something that the department would be able to create guardrails around. and that it then becomes necessary under the statute that created the special counsel, under that statute, to appoint somebody to take over these very

sensitive investigations. >> katie benner, there is, i think, a sense among some people who are impatient for justice to arrive at the doorstep of one donald j. trump that the last two years might have been a good time to maybe assume that he would run again, and do this before these investigations had been brewing for two years. why now? because it looks like he was played. trump did this speech that he had to lock his own supporters in a room to stay and watch, but merrick garland watched. mission accomplished. >> mm-hmm. yes, i know -- i totally understand what you're saying, and this is a constant criticism of the department, but i think that for both garland and other top officials at the justice department, they cannot move anticipatorily against donald trump. they can't say because they assume he will do something, they can act. they had to wait for him to declare his candidacy before appointing a special counsel. one of the things that makes

this interesting is that a lot of work has already been done. and i think that we saw jack smith, when he put out his statement today, saying that he was going to be the special counsel, and one of the things he says is that these investigations will not flag under him. he's really going to pick up the ball and keep running. there's a lot of work that's been done. he can be briefed up very quickly. he is a career prosecutor, a career public servant who's handled extremely difficult cases, including public integrity cases, investigation of public officials. he does not expect to have to do a lot of work to retread ground. he really wants to be briefed up quickly and start quickly. >> pete strzok, tell me how that works. if you're in the fbi and you're investigating donald trump and a special counsel is named, do you continue investigating donald trump or do you have to brief a new leadership team? what does that -- what happens? >> nicole, i think there are a series of things that happen very, very quickly. the best analog i can think of is when special counsel mueller was appointed.

we had at that point been running the investigations for ten months in the fbi. special counsel mueller was appointed on february 17th, and on the 19th, he was at fbi headquarters with his key leadership team getting briefed up. we saw no appreciable change in the pace of our investigations. what is different then from what exists now is that we had to bring on to the team a number of really great prosecutors. but again, that occurred in weeks. so in this case, we're not only the analysts have been going on full speed ahead in these investigations, but you have them teamed up with prosecutors who have also been working on these cases. i think it is a matter of days before the new special counsel has not only been briefed, but is in place. and once that happens, i think that has the effect of concentrating the work under a single chain of command, taking out all other sort of extraneous distractions, and if anything, increases the pace. i don't see a delay at all. in fact, i think the important thing is not to focus so much on the short-term of when indictments are, you know, charges might be forthcoming, but look down the line, and that

if charges are brought, there's a very real prospect, these aren't going to be quick prosecutions. there's the very real possibility that these are going to unfold in years ahead. and if cases are ongoing in 2024, going into 2025, that's when it becomes very, very important to potentially have a special counsel in place. >> i'm going to deal with who this new special counsel is in a second. i want to follow up with something that you tweeted, though, pete strzok. you wrote this. whoa, per attorney general, it will include, quote, any person involved in interfering with the transfer of power on january 6th, excluding existing cases of trespassing in the capitol. this will be a massive endeavor, the largest of any special counsel, independent counsel in history. this caught my ear, too. because the most notable person involved in disrupting the peaceful transfer of power who was not on the grounds of the capitol is, of course, donald trump. is this acknowledging the existence of a criminal investigation into trump's efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election?

>> well, nicole, i think that's certainly one of the implications. a lot of the criticism of what special counsel mueller did, people don't understand were key to what he was limited to do by the scope of his appointment order. and i'm very interested to see if doj does publish the current -- the new special counsel's order, because that will give us an idea how broad the scope of his investigations are. now, from the attorney general's comments, it certainly to me implied that it included donald trump's conduct, but more importantly, it included potentially a large number of other people around him. folks like mark meadows and roger stone and ali alexander and mike flynn and, you know, patrick bern and roger stone, on and on and on and on. these folks who were at john eastman and jeffrey clark, these people who were at the very close circle around trump, from what the attorney general said, all of those investigations, and my potential prosecutions relating to those investigations are also going to be taken on by

this new special counsel. >> so let me play some of what, a lot of what we know about the evidence that has been marshaled in terms of the congressional investigation into this very same period of time, and these very same actors that you just listed, pete. we know from the public-facing aspects of the january 6th select committee, here's liz cheney on "meet the press" explaining what she thinks should happen. >> i think it's very important for everybody to recognize that when you are faced with a set of facts, when you are faced with evidence as clear as this is, and some have said, well, we don't know what his intent was. maybe he really thought he won the election. we actually know that that's not the case. we've put on testimony that showed that he admitted that he lost. but even if, even if he thought that he had won, you may not send an armed mob to the capitol. you may not sit for 187 minutes and refuse to stop the attack while it's underway. you may not send out a tweet

that incites further violence. so we've been very clear about a number of different criminal offenses that are likely at issue here. if the department of justice determines that they have the evidence that we believe is there and they make a decision not to prosecute, i think that really calls into question whether or not we're a nation of laws. >> i don't think this is true all of the time, but i think on that specific point, many of my viewers and a lot of people on the left and even people -- liz cheney is as far right as you get in america under normal times -- see it that way. what do you make of this piece of the announcement that we're talking about right now, specifically that the special counsel will assume control of an investigation into, quote, any person involved in interfering with the peaceful transfer of power, excluding the current prosecutions and any people who are accused of

trespassing at the capitol. >> yeah, it's interesting, because i actually think that is the investigation that really caused merrick garland to decide that he needed to appoint a special counsel. he noted it as the first investigation and the mar-a-lago investigation as the second investigation. it is inherently more political. we're talking about an investigation into the efforts to obstruct the certification of the vote after the 2020 election, an election where donald trump was, you know, involved in. and president biden was involved in. and so, i think, you know, that may have driven this decision even more than the ongoing investigation into the mishandling of national defense information and presidential records and obstruction at mar-a-lago. so, you know, i also don't think it's entirely new to us that this investigation is ongoing, as we know that the deputy attorney general, much earlier

this year acknowledged an increasing the fraudulent elector scheme. we now know, at least from the house select committee's own investigation and the hearings that we've seen that that scheme, you know, went pretty high up into circles around president trump, a number of the people that pete just mentioned who are very close to president trump, they had a role in that fraudulent elector scheme, as we've seen -- or at least into promoting it and promoting to the president, to the former president, what he should be asking the former vice president to do. so, it was an acknowledgement, maybe a little bit more so than we've seen, but it wasn't a total surprise, i don't think, to most of us that that investigation is ongoing and that that is something that extends, you know, up to the very circles right around the former president. >> mary, were you surprised by this announcement today? >> so, i -- i did not think it

was mandatory to, you know, appoint a special counsel. it's never really mandatory. i realize the regulations use the word "will," but it's still about when there's extraordinary circumstances or a conflict and whether -- and when it's in the public interest. so that gives a lot of discretion to the attorney general to make this decision. i think that, again, you know, with respect to the mar-a-lago investigations, this is something that we just talked about a few days ago on your show, nicole, i thought that because this started long, long before the former president declared his candidacy, and it was the former president who changed the status quo, that it certainly wasn't necessary for merrick garland to make this appointment. that doesn't mean i don't think that he wouldn't have made the decision to do it for prudential reasons and for appearance reasons. and i think he's very conscience of that. and again, i think, also, the fact that this appointment extends to the investigation of any attempts to unlawfully

interfere with the peaceful transfer of power or the certification of the vote makes it even more, more of a good idea for merrick garland to have done this, to have taken the steps. he wants to assure that charging decisions are made by people who are career prosecutors, career investigators, not politically appointees. so by doing this, that will ensure some independence from the department. he only will have a role if he were to find that some action, the special counsel planned to take was so inappropriate or unwarranted that he had to step in. and if he were to do that, he would have to report that to congress. so it really does create a fair bit of independence when you appoint a special counsel. and i think it does make sense that the charge -- now that charging decisions will be made by people who are not politically appointed, who are not appointed by the current sitting president of the united

states. >> couldn't have that have been done at doj, mary? haven't most of the people involved in the investigative steps in the mar-a-lago probe been career prosecutors? >> most of the people involved day-to-day certainly have been. and those people i expect will continue. people like jay bratt, the head of the counterintelligence section, these are career prosecutors who have been with the department for decades. but others were involved, too. in fact, the attorney general himself, you may recall did a press conference to say that he personally had approved the search warrant of mar-a-lago. he, of course, is a political appointee. the deputy attorney general, lisa monaco, has been involved in these decisions. matt olson, the assistant attorney general for national security, also a political appointee. and these are all people with, you know, absolutely impeccable records and excellent judgment and they were all career prosecutors at one point, you know, in their department of

justice careers, but right now they are political appointees, so they will no longer be part of the decision making. and i expect that given the sensitivity of this investigation, they had probably been getting briefed pretty regularly, because this is so sensitive and so high-profile, that all of the decisions that were being made at the line level, if you were, the lower level, they would want to clear up the flag pole. so i do think that it makes a difference that that's being pulled out. i don't think that they could not have handled it at doj. i think they could have. but i understand why the attorney general made this decision. >> joyce, i know you are familiar with the new special counsel, jack smith. i want to read -- i have some of the scope of the special counsel appointment from the actual order. it says the special counsel is authorized to conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of

the electoral college vote held on or about january 6th 2021, as well as any matters that arose or might arise directly from this investigation. this authorization does not apply to prosecution of vigilance that they committed while physically present on the capitol grounds on january 6th, 2021. that's some of the actual order, but tell us what you know about mr. smith. >> well, he brings a very interesting background to this position that helps us understand why merrick garland chose him. i think mary does a great job of explaining it, and i completely agree with her about the importance of taking this decision out of the hands of political people. because even though people like mary and me spent much of our careers as line prosecutors, when you take on these higher-level roles, you're working, in essence, for the administration and you become a political appointee at some point. that's not the case here with jack smith. he's done his time in

washington. he was the head of the public integrity section, the folks who engage in investigations just like this. public corruption cases that involve elected officials. so he can see it from the main justice point of view. but he's also spent plenty of time as an ausa trying cases, knows his way around a courtroom, and spent some time down in nashville in the middle district of tennessee during the obama administration, as the number two person in that particular office, where he was highly regarded. where young lawyers joined that office in order to have the opportunity to work for him. so that's the portfolio of someone who will hold confidence inside of the department. but he also brings to this his experience in kosovo, as they call it, the specialist prosecutor, where he walked into an investigation, a serious investigation, a complicated one, that was ongoing, but where no indictments had been brought. and he began the process of

indicting cases. i think that there are well over 100 indictments in that international proceeding now. this is what you're looking for, if you're merrick garland. you need someone who has the ability to indict and the judgment to indict cases, if they need to be indicted. but who also knows when a case shouldn't be indicted. and that's that very important crucible that has to be dealt with here. you know, the reality, nicole, is, people will not be happy about this appointment. and people will not be happy about the work that this special prosecutor does. i'm sure that we'll see him swift voted by republicans in the next 48 hours. and democrats will be concerned that he won't move quickly enough. the reality is that when you can't make everyone happy or even anyone happy, what you need to do is just do the right thing and go straight ahead. that's clearly what garland thinks he's doing. he, i suspect, wonders how he will be judged in hindsight for the decision that he has made

here, the trump administration use special counsels in sensitive investigations. he is now doing the same thing and bringing in someone who's apolitical, who will run the show day-to-day, make the day-to-day decisions about how this investigation will proceed. although garland ultimately remains in control of certain decisions involving prosecution. >> i'm not sure if anyone's unhappy. this gentlemen sounds like the quintessential public servant that we're all fortunate to have working on behalf of the united states of america. exactly what you want to think doj is full of, a lot of individuals like yourselves. i think what has built over five years is that jeff sessions couldn't hold donald trump accountable because he was on the campaign, so he recused and appointed jeff mueller. and robert mueller couldn't do it, because jeff barr came along and stuffed his report in a hole, and congress couldn't get

him, because you couldn't get enough republicans to impeach donald trump, not once, but twice. now merrick garland comes along and everyone says the exact same things about merrick garland you just said about jeff smith. merrick garland couldn't do it because in a locked room, donald trump said, yeah, i'm running again. will anybody ever deign to hold donald trump accountable to the same rule of law that the same four, five of us are held to? >> i think that's absolutely right. and we are well past the point in this country that we can pretend that blind faith in our legal system is warranted. donald trump has challenged the rule of law and the way our courts and our criminal justice system operates in a really unprecedented way. and i think it's okay for people to question where we are and wonder if anyone will ever hold donald trump accountable. that's the challenge that merrick garland faces and that's perhaps why joe biden faces,

because of his reputation and biden's belief that he's up to the job. something we all wonder about is where doj was during the first year of the biden administration, the first year that merrick garland was in office. why didn't we sign of a grand jury investigation? why wasn't there a push? we still don't know the answer to that question. but what we do know now is that this mar-a-lago case just showed up from out of nowhere a lot of evidence. i was one of the co-authors along with andrew wiseman of a mock memo for the mar-a-lago case that concludes that there are multiple bases for prosecuting the former president. that seems like the case that could go ahead first. the january 6th matter is far more complicated. and so we'll get an opportunity to test whether my assessment and perhaps merrick garland's assessment of smith is correct when we watch how he handles mar-a-lago. you know, doj typically goes into a quiet period in december. people have government leave that they go ahead and take and things tend to slow down.

one of the things that i'll be looking for is whether smith and his team hit the ground running and continue to work straight through the holidays, garland seemed to suggest that that would be the case today, as did smith in his statement. but the american people will absolutely be testing the bona fides of this investigation and whether this special counsel can do the job that he's been asked to do. >> katie, let me ask you. we know this week that cassidy hutchinson was testifying before a grand jury in georgia. and it doesn't mean much. we can't extrapolate much, but we know that the members of the january 6th select committee, adam kinzinger told me that she was, quote, very dangerous to donald trump in terms of his criminal exposure. do we have any of the same kind of sense of the appearances or the names of the people who have been going in front of the d.c. juries? >> we don't have that same sense, but keeping in mind, cassidy hutchinson, some of her

most damaging statements were not things that she witnessed herself. we have to weed out what representative kinzinger accurately says is very dangerous in terms of statements that didn't sway the public, but what prosecutors have is firsthand information. so she becomes a somewhat different kind of witness. and still an important one, but not necessarily somebody whose statements were damning of donald trump. what we know of the investments, the mar-a-lago case to joyce's point earlier is moving much more quickly. and the january 6th investigation is murkier and it's not clear and has never been clear. . we've spoken with people with knowledge of the case and have been briefed on it, it's not something that they have that clearly ties donald trump to a prosecutable offense, something that strictly violates a statute. then the question is, is accountable for donald trump as much a political question as it is a legal question? and don't let the justice department off the hook, clearly, there are questions of

legal accountability and liability, sort of all over the trump administration broader universe and some that go closer to the president himself. but when you noted before how difficult it was to hold him accountable, you mentioned two impeachments. those are criminal processes. those are political processes, those are not criminal processes. and those couldn't happen either. it seems to be sort of a large mass failure of the system if we can't have any indication that the things that happened around the election are still wrong. >> no one's going anywhere. still ahead for us, we will have a chance to speak with two lawmakers who have a long history of doing just this, trying, seeking to hold the ex-president accountable and are familiar with the substance of the investigations that the special counsel has inherited. and we'll be looking at congressman eric swalwell and zoe loftgren will join us with their first reactions to this breaking news. we'll sneak in a quick break. much more on this busy friday

ahead. white house press secretary karine jean-pierre was just asked if president biden was aware of the justice department's decision ahead of time. here's that response for you. >> no, he was not aware. we were not aware, as you know, the department of justice makes decisions about its criminal investigation independently. we are not involved. we have not been aware about this particular investigation or any criminal investigation. i would refer you to the department of justice on any questions on this. but again, we were not given advance notice. we were not aware of this investigation. we were not aware of this instveigation.

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. we're back with katie benner, mary mccord, pete strzok, and peter vance. pete, you said something on the show i think it was yesterday with me and mary about the national security implications of a second trump candidacy. and your book is titled "compromise," and it really explores all of the trump questions, not through a political lens, but a national security lens. and you said something that's been haunting me since you said it. i think it was two days ago. you said, we still don't know. does the special counsel have the opportunity to maybe get to the bottom of those enduring mysteries of whether or not trump is, indeed, compromised? >> well, nicole, i think he has certainly the tools to try to do it. at the end of the day, there's a little bit of a split there. the special counsel's goal is to evaluate the evidence and pursue violations of law. that's different from sort of the national security and counterintelligence mission that the fbi and others in the intelligence community, but there is some overlap. and i think for all of us who

have been watching this from the outside, there is the looming unanswered question at the end of the day, why did trump take and keep all of these documents? and why is he working so hard to this day, apparently, to still maintain some documents, because doj seems to think that he hasn't returned everything that he has. it's important not just retrospectively, in the context of, why did he do it? does that represent a violation of law? but it's important because he's now announced he's a candidate for the president of the united states. he's going to be getting the presidential daily brief every month or however he chooses to get it, have access to all of this classified information all over again, with the same context that he's had with all of these foreign governments from saudi arabia to russia, to turkey, to you name it. and none of these questions have been resolved. this isn't just a historical concern. it's now more than ever a current and ongoing concern. whether or not the special

counsel gets to the bottom of it. he may get some insight, but that's not his primary task and goal at the end of the day. >> as you're talking, what mueller did find was laid out in volume 1 of the mueller report was the shared mission of the russian government and the trump campaign. you're talking about trump armed with national defense information that he didn't just take, he lied about returning. how quickly and with what sort of alacrity can a special counsel move to make sure that any sort of intention or plans to share a mission with the foreign government doesn't happen this time? >> well, i certainly think one of the things that i would hope would be taken -- would have action taken on it is if there was anything developed in the investigation that indicated that there was a purpose to maintaining informs, or that people who didn't have authority access the storage locations at mar-a-lago or whether there were folks who were coming in from the outside, be they a caterer

or plumber or member or anybody else, that if information had been accessed, that would be made known to the intelligence community, and any sources or methods that had been compromised, that actions were taken by intelligence community to protect those things. but at the end of the day, that's very hard to get, you know, you may or may not ever get to the bottom that. and i think the strongest deterrent is to make sure that former president trump never again has access to classified information because of the extraordinary threat to national security that he has proven to be. and that he continues to prove to be. >> mary, one of the -- you know, i went back and was looking at some of the -- my own notes from the mueller report release and the report itself. and one of the things that became clear in the months and years after mr. mueller's probe concluded was that this national security piece fell through the cracks. that mr. mueller, rod rosenstein gave him a narrower mandate to

investigate crimes, i think was the quote that katie's paper ultimately reported out and sort of stands as the answer of muellerscope. but it's clear from andrew mccabe and others that there were real questions about whether some of the conduct that was scrutinized as part of the obstruction probe was actually part of a national security question. what are the lessons learned from this very recent special counsel probe of the very same man doing some of the very same things? >> you know, i mean, as an initial matter, the special counsel regulations that apply here really are restricted to criminal investigations. so pete's right that the mandate for jack smith is going to be to complete the investigation, both of these criminal investigations and make a decision about whether to seek charges or not. and when i say seek charges, i mean, it would be up to a grand jury twil return any indictment and any charges. but you're right that in this

investigation, as well as in the mueller investigation, which was also over the same special counsel regulations, which applied to criminal investigations, both of these raised significant national security concerns. and i think many were highlighted in the mueller report, particularly volume i, but really both volumes. and i suspect that when all is said and done here, many of those things will be highlighted in this investigation as well. you know, the special counsel, when it completes its investigation, just like robert mueller did, jack smith will prepare a final report. and that report is a confidential report, but it's a report that the attorney general can determine to make public if it's in the public interest. now, of course, as you referred to before, bill barr decided to make it public, but only after he sat on it for 30 days and put out his own four-page summary that left out many of the very key and critical parts of the

mueller report. here, i think two things are possible. if there are indictments, those indictments will speak for themselves and in many ways, be the public final report. if there are not indictments, if there's a decision not to seek charges, there will be a final report explaining that. either way, i think we'll see a lot of reference to, you know, the national security concerns. i mean, pete pointed out things like who had access. what are the vulnerabilities here? but it really is our national security investigation that's ongoing with the intelligence community that's going to be digging deeply into that. and some of what they determine, we may know, we may find out in intelligence community testimony, to capitol hill or other reports that they determined that they can safely make public without further damaging national security, and there are some things that we probably won't ever know. and that does make it difficult for the reasons you indicated and for the reasons that pete indicated, because politically,

the american public should know whether this person who's running for election to be president again, to have access to all kinds of national defense information, the most critical secrets, the most sensitive information, they should know whether he can be trusted to actually have access to that. i think the answer to that is already "no." "no" based on what we know already. but that's something that, unfortunately, there won't be full transparency on because of the very nature of national defense information. >> so, joyce, how do you feel about this today? are you optimistic that the one, two, sixth time will be the charm? they'll finally get him? >> yeah win mean, it sort of feels like the 28th charm, right? it feels like trump constantly eludes any form of responsibility for his misconduct. so we're right to be cautious about this. but, nicole, i think back to something from the mueller report that stuck with me. and it's in the first volume, where mueller is reviewing the

evidence about whether or not there was what we all called collusion between trump and the russians. mueller viewed whether or not there was some form of a criminal conspiracy that could be charged. and when his report was released, there was this immediate wave from the then president that he had been exonerated and that was not what mueller found. and the part that has always stayed with me is how mueller says, this is how we view what happened based on the evidence that was available to us. but there was a lot of evidence that wasn't available to us. and the insinuation was that there had been, if not a deliberate effort to hide evidence from him, he referenced evidence that wasn't available because it wasn't in the united states or that it simply couldn't be found or that people refused to turn over. there's this baked in notion that there was obstruction of justice, the influence, the decisions that they made when they evaluated trump's conduct, back when mueller was the special counsel. we see that again at mar-a-lago, where that's part of doj's

search warrant. part of the basis for the search warrant at mar-a-lago is saying, we have uncovered evidence that there is classified material at mar-a-lago and that someone, presumably the president, the former president of the united states, has tried to cover that up. and so because of obstruction of justice and an effort to lie to the american people permeates this entire environment, i think that we have finally hit the point where things begin to unravel. i don't want to be pollyannish and suggest that it's certain that there will be indictments and certain that if there are indictments, that there will be convictions. but at some point, the wool drops away from people's eyes. and where mueller may have gone into his investigation with the belief that there was still a place with the former president, with trump, to behave politely and within the bounds of the rule of law and to defer when former president said he didn't want to be interviewed under oath, now we know that the

gloves are off. and i think we'll see this special counsel run a gloves-off investigation. >> joyce, why not a -- if justice was obstructed over the summer, i think it was july 7th that we first learned about everything that you just described, why hasn't the obstruction case been charged yet? >> i think that's what we'll see take the lead. the most important thing here is that piece of the mar-a-lago investigation. i know folks get tired of hearing prosecutors say these things take time, but the reality is, you've got to put together all of the evidence before you indict the case. we see reporting that suggests that doj believes that trump still hasn't turned over all of the classified items in his possession. you've got to run that to the ground before you're ready to take this on in a prosecutive sense. we're out of the midterm election phase. there's no reason for doj to delay at this point. you know, this is the point at which the rubber sort of meets the road and it's time to go. >> we will be watching. my thanks to all of you for

talking us through it. katie benner for your reporting and for your years of expertise and expertise, thank you so much. next, how the news is being processed politically speaking, including some of the unsurprising responses from the ex-president's most extreme and loyal allies. and how democrats are planning to counter a new house gop majority. those stories are next. don't go anywhere. those storiears e next don't go anywhere.

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u.s. attorney general merrick garland today appointed a special counsel. that special counsel will determine if any charges are required in the two criminal investigations into donald trump. garland explaining his reasoning as a function of the, quote, extraordinary circumstances, as well as the ex-president's 2024 presidential campaign announcement earlier this week at mar-a-lago. joining you are coverage, congressman eric swalwell of california. he's a former impeachment manager during donald trump's second impeachment trial. i feel like you've been part of all of the efforts since the very beginning to get to the truth about sympathetic that pete strzok was just talking about, national security questions that were never answered about donald trump. and this feeling that another person has been tapped with doing what no one has been able to do thus far, and that is hold donald trump accountable or responsible, the way any of us

would have been. >> nicole, it's an turkey appointment for what has been an historic crime spree by donald trump. and i get temptation to be frustrated or to want justice to move at the speed of donald trump's corruption. and in some ways, it has to, but we have to put everything that happened under bill barr and other attorneys general in the past. donald trump was president at the time. so no matter what bob mueller found, he was always hitting up against the wall that the department of justice's position has been that a sitting president cannot be charged. he's no longer president and he has since committed the crimes of his involvement in january 6th, enticing or inciting or aiming the mob at the capitol and the mishandling of nuclear secrets and classified information. we have to put all of that aside. and we want him to get this right. we absolutely need to get this right. because he'll have to prove it

before a jury, perhaps a jury in florida and he's also going to have to survive appeals all the way up to a supreme court, where it's clear that the cards might be, you know, stacked against him. so there's no -- we should have no interest in seeing him rush this, just for the sake of sfig our own desire to see donald trump held accountable. we should see this as an effort that will survive the test of our justice system, an independent system, so i welcome this and i want to move expeditiously, but we cannot rush this to see a fumble on the one-yard line. >> i think you understand the democratic base better than i do, but my sense is you're giving it enough credit. i don't think they want to see anything rushed, but i think the escalation of the criminality. and the day after mueller testifies, trump calls zelenskyy and asks for dirt on biden. and the day after he's not convicted by the senate in the first impeachment trial, he moves on to try to corrupt cdc as the country is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic.

and the minute he ceases the coronavirus pandemic, means he will not be re-elected. he starts seeding the ground about the election. and the minute that he can read a poll in november, he goes ahead with plotting a coup. i think that what people are looking for is whether anyone, anywhere, will hold him accountable. >> and to quote winton churchill, this may not be, you know, the beginning of the end, but for donald trump and his crimes, it's probably the end of the beginning. and we're moving into a phase that we've never seen before, where you have a series prosecution tam that will be, you know, they're not going to be burdened by attorney general barr's, you know, restrictions. they will have the permission and freedom to pursue, you know, all of the facts in this case. and i do believe that we will

reach a crescendo that brings accountability to donald trump. but lasting accountable, accountability that survives a jury and the appellate system means that, you know, they were able to do their job with independence and nothing else. and i think that's where we're headed right now and i really do welcome that. >> well, i welcome your enthusiasm for it and your optimism that it will lead to justice. i think everybody does. congresswoman eric swalwell, thank you for joining us. joining our coverage, msnbc contributor, ana palmer is here. matt dowd is back, political strategist and msnbc contributor, and former republican congressman and msnbc political analyst, david chalian is here, cochair of fox first usa. we're glad to have you back. david chalian, your reaction to today's big news from the doj? >> look, i agree with the legal analyst over the last hour, nicole. i would say that we can't

overlook the reality that this will upend the 2024 presidential election, not just a the republican nomination, but the response is that this is trouble for donald trump in the republican primary, not necessarily, we have seen the former president be able to excite his base over these claims of victimhood and event vengeance by the department of justice. it also recognizes that mike pence and ron desantis knew that they were taking a bit of a good gamble, that perhaps donald trump couldn't finish. but bigger picture, this is important for a country as we begin to destill what could happen through the special counsel investigation. could 2024 look like a post-watergate election? if donald trump were to be indicted, this is not just on donald trump, right? this is on six years of the party that protected him, as you went through the list of how he was protected during the impeachment trials and frankly, the republican relationship with bill barr and his department of

justice, an indictment of donald trump could take down the entire party in the 2024 election, and ultimately, that might be the greatest justice that gets served out of all of this. >> that's the most interesting thing i heard all hour. matt dowd, your thoughts? >> well, i agree with most of that. i mean, me feeling about this is, i have two minds of this. one, i completely understand why merrick garland did in this moment, in this charged moment of why he would do this and what's transpired 19 last week and also the last year, year and a half in this. but i agree with david. i -- donald trump has operated on a victimhood and grievance place ever since he came down the escalator. and he's transferred that to the base of the republican party. anything they're angry about, he points and says, this is what you should be angry about. and this is one of those moments about him in his base, not talking about the broad general election, but in his base, they

left election day, a big part of it, angry, and they didn't know who fundamentally to be angry about. some of them were angry at donald trump, many were angry at mitch mcconnell, many were angry at the republican establishment. and i think donald trump has one of those windows to take this anger that came out of november 8th and the lack of success they had and basically take their anger and push it and aim it somewhere else. and he's been an expert at that kind of thing. is to take sort of an anger that is amorphous and he funnels it towards something. that is my concern. while i agree with david that if it's indicted and all of that happens. and we go into a general election, i am unconvinced that what we're about to see is going to be resolved before november of 2024. watching how donald trump has operated with his folks in the courtroom and all of that, that he could make -- he could maintain this grievance for quite a long period of time and

trust me, every single day, he's going to tell the folks, tell the base, yeah, you're mad, and this is who you should be mad at. and i think he's, as i said, his track record with the republican base is quite successful at doing that. >> ana palmer, what's the reaction on the hill today? >> it's interesting when you think about what a momentous occasion this is versus where the tribal politics on capitol hill are. the republicans continuing to be former president donald trump. we've had marjorie taylor greene say that, you know, attorney general garland should be impeached. but even a more kind of middle of the road or establishment republicans, john cornyn saying a special prosecutor should be put in place to look into hunter biden. so it's not as if this move has made republicans take a moment of reflection to say that they want to distance themselves from the former president. in some ways, really backing him up more son than we have seen in

the past couple of days, post-election, where there's been some kind of move and momentum to try to move beyond trump. this is really, i think, galvanized republicans in a way that they are just saying that the doj has politicized, that this is just another way for them to attack trump and republicans in general. not really that reflection moment that you might have expected. >> yeah, i mean, listen, to ana's point, david, one of the things that institutions have gotten wrong for years is the asymmetry of trumpism. garland did what a normal ag would be, let's bounce it off to a special counsel, which assumes that there's something sacred about a special counsel. have you watched fox news lately? there is nothing sacred anymore. they have burned it all down in sort of earth 2. and i wonder if you think that that benefits trump, to matt's point, this is a very clean

target for donald trump and trumpism. >> yeah, look, we can't overlook the fact that donald trump throughout his entire career has defied the administration of justice, largely in the civil capacity, but now we are talking what could be criminal charges brought by the federal government. but the greatest injury that donald trump may have brought in the last six years is exactly what you speak of, which is to discredit the institution upon which our democracy is held together, right? from last week's election, we discussed kind of the pillars of our democracy are only so elastic and can take so much stress, and what donald trump has done has begun to discredit those pillars so they can begun to be broken. and the fox news viewership will say, this department of justice, we don't have to pay attention to it. even though they got their special counsel in john durham and they thought that was credible, this special counsel will be dismissed as political. >> of course. to all of that, to everything all of you have said, we didn't

have enough time together. to be continued. thank you so much for being part of our coverage today. we have to sneak in a quick break. here's what's going to happen when we come back. our good friend neal katyal will be here as well as january 6th committee member zoe loftgren with her first reaction to this news, so don't go anywhere. thi news, so don't go anywhere ...thirty. ♪ they see me rollin' they hatin' ♪ ♪ patrollin' and tryna catch me ridin' thirty ♪ the 30-day money back guarantee. that's car buying reimagined. only from carmax. ♪ ridin' thirty ♪ if you're turning 65 soon or over 65 and planning to retire... now's the time to learn more about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan from unitedhealthcare and get help protecting yourself from the out-of-pocket costs medicare doesn't pay.

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such an appointment around scores the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. it also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work

expeditiously and make decisions indisputedly guided only by the facts and the law. >> hi, again, everybody. it's a big day of news. it's 5:00 in new york, when merrick garland first assumed the position of america's attorney general nearly two years ago, he underscored his commitment and dedication to the rule of law in america, and talked about how doj would always, in all matters, remain completely independent of politics, which is why, by his telling this afternoon, just days after donald trump's announcement at mar-a-lago, that he will run again for president, merrick garland announced the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the two investigations into the former president that are currently underway at the justice department. this newly appointed special counsel named jack smith will complete the investigations into trump's mishandling of national defense information, including classified documents at his private club in south florida, as well as doj's criminal probe

into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. regarding the special counsel's role, "the new york times" reports this. quote, under federal regulations, special counsels like mr. smith have greater day-to-day autonomy than ordinary prosecutors. but ultimately remain under the attorney general's supervision and control. among other things, if mr. smith were to eventually decide to seek mr. trump's indictment, mr. garland would still have the sign off. during his announcement, garland addressed concerns that this appointment would delay these already ongoing investigations. >> given the work to date and mr. smith's prosecutorial experience, i am confident that this appointment will not slow the completion of these investigations. the men and women who are pursuing these investigations are conducting themselves in accordance with the highest standards of professionalism.

>> that is where we begin the hour. mike schmitt is here, he's an msnbc national security contributor. david loveman with the export control section at the justice department's national security division. david win start with you. tell us anything you know about the latest man to be tasked with trying to do something to hold donald trump accountable. >> well, we know him to be an outstanding prosecutor. and not to mention he's been working with the international tribunal handling war crimes, which may prepare him for what he's about to take on in this job. it's not just about him and whether he is fully up to this job. the team he'll have working for him, they are career prosecutors who have been staffing this

matter from day one. how will we hit the ground running unless he has the continuity of the work and knowledge and the very culture of the investigation that they have already brought to bear. he's going to need a team that already understands, you know, the ecosystem of these case. and if you have too many of these cases that defeats the notion that it's an independent investigation. so we'll see how the attorney general and the department's leadership strike that balance, so that he doesn't lose precious time in propelling these cases forward to making charging decisions. >> there's this conventional wisdom that the mar-a-lago cases are much more ripe, much more clear-cut, and very plain. but it was striking to hear the attorney general really articulate the parameters and acknowledge the existence of a criminal investigation sbeefrts to overturn the results of 2020 focused solely on people who were not there.

people who were not accused of trespassing and who were not at the u.s. capitol. obviously, chief among them is donald trump. your reaction to that part of the attorney general's press conference? >> you know, i think he's made clear, we've always believed that lurking in the background is the extent to which the department, like the attorney general has said before, will hold everyone accountable. that no one is above the law. and of course, that has to mean anyone who has anything to do with planning or agreeing or sanctioning or conspiring to bring about an attack on democracy and the certification of electoral college ballots on january 6th, including former president. and that investigation, it could be said, has a more political component to it, perhaps, than the mere willful retention of classified documents in mar-a-lago or the obstruction of justice. and that investigation has been carried out to date by competent career officials in whom i have the highest confidence.

i'm not sure at the end of the day, in particular because the attorney general will reserve the ultimate judgment about whether to approve an indictment, that this decision can be insulated from the type of criticism that he is keen to avoid. the former president has already lashed out at this. members of his following will continue to lash out at it. and in the end, it's going to be the public-facing information that is most convincing, most pulveriing in the court of public opinions that instills confidence in the ultimate judgments made in these cases. >> mike schmidt, we played liz cheney earlier in the program, saying that if donald trump isn't held accountable for both having the knowledge that he's lost the election and the intention to overthrow the results of his own defeat, that we no longer live in a nation of laws. what is the sort of relation between all of the evidence that was presented as that, as evidence, publicly, by the

january 6th select committee and the very high-profile testimony of people like cassidy hutchinson and mike pence's most senior aides. and this new probe now known to exist under this new special counsel? >> well, they're fairly different. in a congressional hearing, you can present basically any type of evidence that you would like. you can present things that are not directly from an individual that, you know, someone heard someone else say about another conversation, not firsthand witnesses. and in a criminal trial, the bar is just much higher. and that is something that we've seen time and time again with trump. which is that it is very difficult to hold someone accountable, especially someone at the level, you know, as a president or a former president. and the bar to getting evidence in, to meeting the standards that the justice department needs in order to bring a criminal case is just much more difficult than, you know, people

would like for it to be made out to be. you know, certainly a significant portion of the country. and, while this decision today is certainly an attempt to shield the fruits of the investigation, the investigative work from the wind of politics, i'm not totally sure how much impact that will have. to the point that david was making, trump's supporters within hours of the raid on mar-a-lago were saying that this was politically motivated by biden against his enemies. a significant portion of democrats and anti-trump republicans have made up their mind based on his behavior in office and what were presented at the january 6th hearings. in the end, as david was saying, it will basically rest on what the public information is about the investigations, and how the public looks at that. i'm not sure that most people

will appreciate the distinction that, oh, this is someone who was appointed under the special counsel regulations and if he wanted to take an investigative move and the department overruled him, then congress would be alerted. it's a different situation than in mueller where you had a special special counsel investigating a president of the united states who could have great sway over the justice department. he could appoint whatever attorney general that he wanted. he could try to use his in the department to have people removed. this is a different situation in that sense. >> mike, with no disrespect to anyone that was involved in the mueller investigation, up to and including mr. mueller himself, i think there's a sense that nothing happened. the day after mueller testified, trump was on the phone with zelenskyy trying to extort him for dirt on joe biden.

is there any self-reflection, any after-action conduct or meetings at doj to say, let's make sure that this time something happens or it's taken seriously or the results are respected or the information is consumed. or do they sort of plow forward without ever looking over their shoulder? >> well, i don't think it's a controversial point that for those people who read the mueller report and thought that there was evidence of obstruction, that the mueller investigation failed to hold trump accountable. you know, mueller was out-flanked time and time again by barr. the way that they wrote the report was not particularly effective at reaching the public. some of their conclusions were difficult to understand. and overall, the package was something that trump was able to easily brush past, especially with the help of bar.

i'm not sure -- look, collectively, i think a lot of people learned a lot from the mueller investigation, whether it was myself as a reporter realizing and appreciating the difficulty of the law holding a president of the united states accountable. whether it was prosecutors who were watching and realizing that if the mueller investigation was there to bring clarity to a very messy situation, which i'm not sure it totally was, but to some extent it may have been, it wasn't effective at this. look, i think that people think that they learn time and time again from different investigations of trump the best way to do it, but at the end of the day, he has managed to get past and beat pretty much all of them. he did suffer the ultimate political consequence in losing re-election, but he has found a way at the local, state, and,

you know, federal level to evade accountability. and, you know, there's a whole list of individuals that fall into the pile of folks that have failed to do that. and lessons that have been learned from it. >> joining our conversation now, neal katyal, former acting solicitor general, now a law professor at georgetown university. he's an msnbc legal analyst. for the purpose of this conversation, he has probably more understanding of and acknowledge of the special counsel regulations having written them. neal, your thoughts about today's news? >> so, first of all, nicole, jack smith teams great. i don't know him, but he has the public integrity background. he's exactly the kind of person that you would want to be doing this. having said that, i disagree pretty strongly with the decision by attorney general garland to seek a special counsel. i don't think it's needed under the regulations and i think it risks delaying this investigation needlessly.

as you said, one of my first jobs at the justice department was drafting these regulations, and really the appointment of a special counsel is primarily about a circumstances in which you're fearing a cover-up, in which you're worried that the attorney general is being asked to investigate perhaps the president who appointed him or some other high-ranking executive branch official and you're worried that investigation will get truncated, short-circuited through a cover-up or something like that. and so the special counsel is the person to do that investigation. here, however, that investigation is already largely happened. particularly with respect to the mar-a-lago stolen documents piece. the january 6th one, i think, is somewhat different. but the investigation's happened. and so to me, i don't see what the case is for a special counsel. attorney general garland said it was because of a conflict of interest, because trump has announced that he's running and biden is evidently running in

'24, as well. that to me is tantamount to rewarding donald trump for all of the maneuvers that he's making, including announcing his election right now. you know, i don't really get it. you know, i think in the last hour, you had, you know, a description of how jeff sessions wasn't up to the task and then you said robert mueller wasn't up to the task, and bill barr certainly wasn't up to the task. now it seems merrick garland isn't up to it, either. now zach smith is up to it. i think he will indict, particularly on the mar-a-lago stuff, because that is such an open and shut investigation. but precisely because it's so open and shut, i don't see why a special counsel was needed. it doesn't make sense to me. and if it's because there's a conflict of interest, because president biden is going to run in '24, i would the end to think that means there is also a conflict of interest about the hunter biden investigation and a special counsel would be merited there, too. so i guess i just don't really

see it, but nonetheless, you know, the proof will be in the pudding. if this special counsel can move quickly and do an indictment on mar-a-lago, which, as i say, is a pretty easy case, you know, people like me, the critics will recede into the background, but if this is another delay tactic that will allow trump to stall out, even if he's indicted, if it's close to the '24 election, hope that there's a presidential election by whoever wins the republican party in '24, this could be a real fiasco for the rule of law >> neil, i think you put into expert words and have the receipts to know what you are talking about the exasperation that people feel. let me just follow up with you. what has been so clear in what what has been disclosed by doj

in the course of the mar-a-lago investigation, by releasing, taking extraordinary steps in releasing the affidavit and other documents is that the only people touching the mar-a-lago probe are career prosecutors, career investigators with the fbi. the only reason we know their name, the only reason that we were put in danger by being outed was to prove to the 40% of americans who probably don't believe empirical facts anyway that they were apolitical. and it seems like this justice department that has spent every day of the last two years proving over and over again to people who aren't even listening to them that they aren't political have just fallen in a trip. ivanka trump and don jr. didn't get to mar-a-lago for trump's investigation, but merrick garland was watching. it seems exactly like what donald trump wanted to happen this week. >> you got it exactly, nicole. that's how i see it, too. based on the publicly available facts about what we know in mar-a-lago, if this were you or me who stole those documents, we wouldn't have a special master, we wouldn't have a special

counsel, we would be in jail right now. and so donald trump is getting special, ultra-special treatment at every step of this. and it is, i think, disconcerting. as i say, there's a fix at the end of this. you know, as long as justice is done, but it's got to move quickly. and by appointing a special counsel, it's hard to see how it's not going to delay things, at least a bit. as i say, the mar-a-lago piece is a much more open and shut investigation, so i think that it can be done. the january 6th one, there's a lot more material and stuff to sort through, and that's going to take more time. and certainly, i think, will give trump his hope that if a republican wins in '24, and i suspect it won't be donald trump, but whoever wins could try to pardon him before his criminal trial, if any on the january 6th information. >> david, so much of what we talked about on this show and

other places after the court-approved search of mar-a-lago was the existence of the national defense information that was at mar-a-lago. there's been subsequent reporting by mark and his colleagues that the fbi still isn't sure that it has its hands on everything that was taken. and it's clear that they are certain that obstruction of justice is taking place. they have asserted that. they have alleged that. and subsequent court filings. why hasn't anything happened yet? why isn't there more urgency to get back things that they think are still there and why not charge the obstruction case today? >> well, you know, we only see a little piece of what surfaces above the ground. there's different pieces to ongoing investigations. they may believe that other classified documents or other presidential records may exist elsewhere, but they need probable cause to get a search warrant sworn out. so, there are ongoing investigative steps, i imagine,

that are still taking place. it wasn't that long ago that my successor told the court in florida that this investigation was still in its early stages. so, you know, in the order case, nicole, we want in a prosecutor to make a fully formed judgment on whether to execute prosecutorial, before they investigate the totality of all of the information before them, they can take into account potential litigation risks, in this case involving classified documents, they have to get the u.s. intelligence committee onboard to agree to use whatever classified documents the government needs to use in its case in chief. so there's a lot of moving pieces here. but, you know, i don't think that we're likely to see a piecemeal prosecution. if they choose to charge obstruction, and that looks like it's a pretty strong case right now based on what we see in the public record, that's going to be part of a mosaic of charges that come out contemporaneously in one piece.

and that makes sense to me. joub, with the appointment of the special counsel now, we need to see this case move forward. all logical investigative steps be pursued with alacrity. and as much sourcing -- as much resourcing as possible and hopefully at least with regard to mar-a-lago piece, which isn't contingent to figuring out the january 6th piece, we can soon see whether there's enough there for the attorney general to bless for the first time in american history criminal charges against a former president of the united states. >> mike, there are already some parallels emerging in terms of what mueller's -- the fruits of his labor look like afterward, when the report came out with volume i, the underlying questions about coordination and a shared mission with russia and volume ii, the obstruction of that investigation. do you have any sense from talking to sources that this could take the same shape, that there could be an investigation into the underlying crimes that we know about from the filings that we've seen of absconding

the documents and taking them to mar-a-lago and what was there and the assessment of what might have been jeopardized and then what's more more public facing, the obstruction of that investigation? >> well, i mean, on the first point, on sort of looking at mueller and comparing to mueller, i would be surprised if we ever saw a report similar to that, to mueller's report, the writing of the report in the public sense is not sort of something that we see a lot in major federal investigations. and i think there was an extraordinary naching of the questions of the 2016 election and trump's ties to russia that led to the disclosure of that. most times in federal investigations, the powers, the criminal powers are used to figure out whether there's charges and then if there aren't charges, then everything sort of goes away. which sort of brings us to, you

know, the question at happened here, which is that if the department were to not charge, i'm sort of thinking way ahead here, and you had a special counsel, how would you communicate that to the public? would you do that simply in a one or two-statement public release from the department? my guess is that would not satisfy a lot of people. do you head down the road of trying to explain it in the way that comey did. comey was widely criticized for doing that so you're seeing the difficulties that the department faces when it has such a politically charged investigation. and this one probably, the most politically charged that there could be. especially with a candidate running for office. it's not just how you investigate it, but even on the back end, how would you explain the fact of the charging decisions? could you simply tell the public, well, we didn't think there was enough here, so we

didn't charge, that's it, that's all we're telling you. in recent years, there's been some expectation from the public that they would have some understanding of what went into those decisions. so we're -- you know, this is just up with part, today just one part of the larger sort of myriad of issues that come up when you have these high-profile political investigations. they just have aspects to them that other ones don't. and the principle that everyone has looked at and treated equally under the law is a central tenant of the united states, but when it comes to people of real high prominence, we see things happen around the investigation. >> on neat, neal katyal, i'll give you the last word. >> so, i think one thing to think about about the special counsel regulations is the way they work, this appointment of a

special counsel doesn't insulate merrick garland from all the accusations of politicization. we're already seeing it with people saying, impeach garland and stuff like that. but the special counsel regulations do no give a special counsel the power to indict by himself. the attorney general has got to effectively sign off on that. and that's part of our constitution. it's not the special counsel regulations, but the way in which our constitutional structure works. so if garland thought by doing this that he's going to insulate himself from criticism, as i suspect there will be an indictment on mar-a-lago, no way. if there's one thing we've learned over the last years it's that trump and his base are going to absolutely criticize anyone who goes against donald trump's wishes. it doesn't matter if it's merrick garland, doesn't matter if it's jack smith, doesn't matter if it's trump's own vice president. they will attack anyone who disagrees with trump in appointing a special counsel as

garland did today does nothing to change that fact. i think we're going to see some delay, unfortunately, as a result of this. but at the end of the day, i think jack smith sounds like a very qualified individual and i believe there's only way, just based on the publicly available evidence from mar-a-lago to read it, which is that donald trump will be indicted, it will just take longer. >> neal katyal, mike schmidt, thank you so much for starting us off on an extraordinary day of news. we're grateful. ahead for us, we will get reaction to the news that merrick garland has appointed a special counsel in the investigations into the ex-president, from january 6th select committees zoe loftgren, what can only be described as a slow-motion train wreck, we're talking about twitter led by elon musk increasingly looking like it's on the verge of collapse. we have new reporting on that story to tell you about. and the brand-new documentary, split screen, which chronicles everything that led up to the insurrection at the capitol on january 6th.

it is a story about polarization and disinformation going back years. and in some cases, decades. the film's director will be our guest later in the hour. you won't want to miss that. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. coinntues aft. don't go anywhere. you could manufacture a whole new way of manufacturing. you could show them how to transform a company ...not just how to run one. you could disrupt buying habits before they disrupt your business. and use technology better, instead of just using better technology. you could fire up a new generation of start-ups. diagnose problems before they become issues. and fuel the search for what comes next...

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capitol. as we all know, the january 6th select committee has been a source of the most information we know about that. data, evidence, testimony, they have enlightened the nation and the world. joining us now, congressman zoe loftgren of california and the senior megaof the house judiciary committee. when you said happy thanksgiving, i thought, uh-oh, what if we need her again before the holiday. my first question for you, did you know of the existence of a criminal investigation by the doj into the conduct of people who are specifically not accused of trespassing or on the grounds at the capitol that day? >> no. >> you know, we've just been doing our investigation, like everyone else. you know, we read the newspapers and we could see from the news that people were going in to the grand juries and you could put two and two together and

speculate, but no one told us nor should they have told us, that's not what doj is supposed to do. >> does it make the work that could go into a criminal referral, should there be a criminal referral, and i know we're on the subcommittee of the select committee, that will be responsible for that, does the work become more specific now, that there is one individual, jack smith, in charge of looking at potential crimes on the part of donald trump? >> you know, i don't know. obviously, this just happened. we haven't had a chance to discuss it, as a subcommittee, whether it has an impact on any referral we might make, obviously, we don't know what evidence they have and we have a lot of evidence that we've compiled. much of which we've revealed in our public hearings. but i think we strongly believe that all of the evidence, subject to, i mean, we're not going to publish people's cell phones and email addresses, and things like that, but, you know,

after it's vetted for personal information, we plan to make all of the evidence publicly available. >> i mean, it is clear that you were light years ahead of doj. and we know that, because we know what donald trump and his cronies look like when they're under investigation. we all watched it, watched rudy giuliani throw sand in the gears. we watched them leak when they came out. we know they weren't. do you believe that they now are ? i mean, do you believe that they are moving more quickly because of the evidence that you all put into the public arena? >> well, i think, some of our excellent staff and attorneys believe, many of them have a background in the department of justice, that the information that we uncovered did play a role in opening eyes at the doj, but that's just speculation, we don't know. i do think, the fact that the special counsel has been approved, i think it's significant. i'm not speaking as a january

6th committee member, but it was pretty obvious that the form president was at the heart of the issue about the documents at mar-a-lago. a lot of people speculated, obviously, i think it's pretty clear that he was at the center of the coup plot, but when he didn't know that doj was investigating him, as part of that. and we don't know that for a fact now. but that was felt necessary to appoint the special counsel and referencing the fact that the former president is now a candidate, you know, leads you to speculate that he is very much going to be under their scrutiny in terms of potential criminal liability. >> you led the hearing that focused and really presented to the public, drilled down in terms of the details, but also lifted up into public view the

grift, both how it worked and how lucrative it was. between the grift -- >> still going on. >> it's still going on. just talk about that, that the criminality and corruption aren't a thing of the past, they're a thing he's carrying into the future. how does -- committee captured that. how does doj, which is meant to look back at crimes that have been committed, how do they do their work amid crimes that are ongoing? >> well, i mean, i'm -- we never alleged that the big grift and the big lie were criminal. that's for someone else to decide and certainly in the tiny fine print of many of those misleading e-mails, there was a disclosure that might have met fec requirements, but they were certainly misleading and the donors were misled and they were ripped off. whether that's part of this probe, i have no idea. but when they talk about the

january 6th insurrection, and they need a special counsel because the former president -- you know, it just makes one thing that they're taking a pretty deep look at him. >> if jack smith wants to meet with you or any members of the select committee, will you meet with him? >> i would be inclined to do that, but i doubt very much that he would. and certainly, we would want to get the advice of the house counsel on whether or not that's appropriate before we would agree, we always get the house counsel's advice when it comes to separation of power questions. >> do you have confidence -- i think a lot of people are, have the utmost respect for exactly the kind of resume that mr. smith brings to this newly appointed job. it's interesting that they had to go abroad to find someone to do this job and interesting that he's a war crimes prosecutor. time will tell if those things

were related or coincidental. are you optimistic that this investigation by this special counsel will result in accountability for donald trump? >> well, i don't know mr. smith, never met him. i heard his name for the first time today, so i have no opinion on him. i assume that he is a careful prosecutor. and i assume he's been selected for that reason. i heard on the news that he's a registered independent, so i think that helps take the steam out of people who would say that he's on some partisan course. you know, these prosecutions take time, but they've had a team of investigators working. and we know from the press reports of all of the people who have been into the grand jury and since, you know, we know some of the people we

interviewed, you can speculate what they're asking these witnesses about, from what we did. so, you know, he's not starting from scratch. the question is, how much more is left to do? and when you're a prosecutor, you don't prosecute unless you think you can convict. and the bar for conviction is beyond a reasonable doubt. so he's got to go through that, see if the investigation is done, if the evidence is there, and i assume from what the attorney general said, he'll follow the facts in the law. and if that means that he should indict, he will. >> congresswoman zoe loftgren, we'll try again and wish you a happy thanksgiving and hope that we don't have to disturb you again. happy thanksgiving. thank you for spending some time with us today on this news. when we come back, tracing the roots of january 6th back years. the director of the new film "split screen" on the deep polarization in this country brewing for many years before the insurrection. she'll be our guest after a quick break. insurrection shlle' be our guest after a quick break. up an athlete,

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so, i know it doesn't feel like it, but it is friday. we have a nice long weekend on the way. it doesn't feel like that, either, right. if you have a few minutes, consider watching a remarkable new project from our friends at msnbc films. it is a documentary by trevor noah and director rebecca getlitz, did i get that right? one that does an extraordinary job working through vital issues

that we talk about on this show every single day. in short, "split screen" positions the attack on january 6th, not as a stand-alone moment in time, but a culmination, something we built up to, a nightmarish new data point in a decades-long trend of harmful, dangerous disinformation. from radio broadcasts in the 1940s through the reagan years, all the way through charlottesville, virginia, and the pandemic. the documentary walks all of us through all of these flashing read lights that we largely ignored that led us to this moment. it premieres this sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern. you don't want to miss it. watch. >> knowing what i know about how misinformation spreads, i think it was pretty obvious that there was going to be a massive push to support a narrative of a stolen election. >> i told the president it was [ bleep ] and the claims of fraud were [ bleep ].

and, you know, he was indignant about that. >> president trump had asked bill barr to look into whether there were any votes that were cast for trump that were counted as biden, and essentially, he found bumpkiss. and when he told the president that his investigation didn't come out with any goods, trump was very angry. >> we're going to walk down, and i'll be there with you, to the capitol. [ chanting: usa ] >> i think perhaps one of the most fundamental examples of a difference about what happened were the events around january 6th. i think that is a fundamental moment in this country's history. and as we have seen, there are people who have tried to downplay it. they have tried to marginalize it. they have tried to mainstream the conversation around it. and there is another side that is being much more clear about

the threat january 6th poses to our democracy and what was at stake and who's responsible for it. >> joining us now, rebecca getlitz, director of the msnbc film, easy for me to see, "split screen." congratulatios on the film and thank you for being here. >> thank you so much for having me. >> what's so amazing is that this is the first time i've seen this on a continuum. i think we know about disinformation, we know how toxic donald trump's politics were. we knew how he would stoke the base. but you widen the lens even further. explain. >> i think it's shortsighted to look at what just happened in the trump years and think that that's how we got to january 6th. because it goes much deeper and much further than that. so what we tried to do was deeply examine each step of the way that led us to this pivotal moment in our history. >> talk about sarah palin. i know she's one of them. >> yeah, i think that sarah palin came in like a whirlwind, right? >> oh, yeah.

>> you know. >> yes. >> and, you know, in that first election, but again, during the second obama, you know, after mccain, when obama became the president, you know, she started stoking the flame very heavily on social media. she was one of the first politicians to really ignore the broadcast media networks and take to social media and say, these are death panels. you know, you're not going to see that anywhere. so she sort of went against the grain into her space. and then it exploded. from there. >> is the -- does this happen without trump or is trump the x-factor? >> i don't think that this happens without trump. i think that he really gave oxygen to people that were mostly living underground. you know, it's shortsighted to think that fringe and white nationalism wasn't there at all, because it is. and we talk about that at

length, but i think that he gave it a voice and he gave it legitimacy. we saw it after charlottesville. when you have the president of the united states say, there's good people on both sides, that opens the floodgates, right? and that let's right-wing media sort of come in and say, look, you know, this is okay. >> come out of the shadows? >> yeah. >> so where are we heading? >> listen, i truly believe after making this film and really looking into this that we're at a crossroads, right? but what we saw with the midterm elections was really encouraging. >> people don't want to be here. >> but also, i think that they want to sit at a thanksgiving table again and have a unified conversation. this is not about ideological divides. this is about a loss of truth. >> and shared facts.

>> right. we can have different opinions and still have a conversation. so i'm optimistic about what we saw. >> are you going to not boost? not, oh, no, that's a tracker in my head. the pandemic is such an important point to explore, too. and i know you. >> and we do that within the lens of a split screen, right? that's what's cool about this film. and it's tricky, because when you talk about two sides-ism, right? and you talk about giving voice to some of these lies, we really wanted to show the pandemic for what it was, right? there was truthful sides, and then there was this ability to spread massive amounts of disinformation and misinformation, because we were in our side lows. we were in our bubbles. and, you know, katie couric has this great line that when we go to social media, we're getting affirmation instead of information. and the pandemic exacerbated that. >> it's so amazing, it's so important. congratulations and thank you for being here to spend some time with us. >> thank you so much for having me. >> everybody watch this, "split screen" airs sunday at 10:00

p.m. right here on msnbc. and it will be streaming on peacock, as well. rebecca, congratulations and thank you. >> thank you. when we come back, the situation over twitter goes from very bad to very, very bad and much worse. we have new reporting on that after a quick break. goent anywhere. this is the sound of nature breathing. and this is the sound of better breathing. fasenra is a different kind of asthma medication.

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verge of collapse. the latest crisis for the site, which has been in turmoil ever since elon musk took it over a little more than three weeks ago, a wave of mass resignations from twitter's workforce, which was recently cut nearly in half by mass layoffs. "the washington post" reports, hundreds of twitter employees refused to thursday to sign a pledge to work longer hours, threatening the site's ability to keep operating and prompting hurried debates among managers of who should be asked to return. the number of engineers tending to multiple critical systems has been reduced to two, one, even zero. it comes as musk appears to be opening the site up to much more hate speech. he tweeted earlier today that he was allowing far-right extremist jordan peterson back on the platform and says he will soon make a decision about whether to allow the twice-impeached disgraced ex-president. joining our coverage, nbc news senior reporter ben collins. is it time to get off? >> i'm not going to begrudge you

if you do. but look, it hasn't collapsed yet. we will say this. it is not -- it has not gone down that path yet. i will say i'm not sure where the plan is here. i don't know if you remember a couple weeks ago he said there was going to be some sort of council, and then today he just unilaterally let people back on, and we'll talk about trump later. this doesn't stop it from working as a website right now. it will have more hate speech on it, more tough stuff on there to sort through. in the next few days, though, engineers have warned that basically keeping the wheels on the track might not be possible. >> and what does that mean for the safety of your information or the caliber of the information you're consuming? >> just for example, the chief information security officer, the guy in charge of all that stuff, they left two weeks ago and then the replacement left earlier this week. so, there's not a lot of people worried about that sort of thing right now, and there are people in elon's orbit who really want

to get into fights with the federal government over regulatory stuff, so i wouldn't say your data is the number one priority of elon musk at twitter right now. >> what do -- what can consumers do? is there any power left in sort of a consumer revolt? >> it goes somewhere else, but the issue is, the somewhere els aren't really up to snuff yet. and you can't do anything as a shareholder or anything. it's a private company now. he took it private. you actually don't really have any -- like, if they start doing nefarious stuff with foreign governments or something, allowing them on the platform and playing with their numbers and stuff, we wouldn't even know because they don't have to release anything about daily active users and things like that, who's a bot, who's not. it's a pretty grim reality. i mean, everybody i know who's left says that this is not the website that they created, and whatever happens next, we had nothing to do with it. they want hands off this thing. >> i mean, it's almost, though,

like we see some parallels to trump and mar-a-lago. we know he has stuff. we don't know why he took it. we know that musk is cratering the company. we don't know why he bought it. what is -- what are the theories? >> there are a lot of different theories out there right now. he hangs in the circle in silicon valley of right-wing silicon valley people who are obsessed with this thing called the cathedral or the professional managerial class. these are all people who read, like, the same blogs, the right-wing blogs. >> what do the blogs say? >> the cathedral is the idea that the media is coordinating with both intelligence agencies and also all of these companies, like nike and stuff, to work together to make it so everybody sells you the same product and all -- it's a conspiracy theory. but it's huge on the far-right parts of silicon valley. it comes from a white nationalist guy from years ago. it's big in the spaces that surround elon musk. that's what the cathedral is, the professional managerial class. really quickly -- >> tell me. >> it's the idea that silicon

valley is filled with all these middle managers and almost everyone's a middle manager in silicon valley, they're keeping back the people who work hard core all the time. he thinks there should just be, you know, just engineers and a boss. you can run all of these websites, all these services with, like, 50 people. i guess we're going to find out together if that's true, because he's really -- he's taking a race car as fast as possible down that path. >> and i guess what i think people are going to be looking for, for people like yourself, to tell us when it's just no good, when you're in a bad neighborhood -- a bad digital neighborhood. >> we're driving towards that. we are headed towards the cliff, and i will let you -- i will do my best. i will raise the alarm if two wheels are over it. if we're thelma and louising this thing, i'll let you know. >> i feel like the call could come at any moment. ben collins, thank you for your reporting. we'll be right back. ins, thank reporting. we'll be right back.

you're less intimidating. you don't find me intimidating? no. it's a height thing. hi. -hi. we're from the new york times, i believe you use to worked for harvey wienstein. i can't believe you found me. i've been waiting for this for 25 years. we have decades of accusations of assault. wienstein's on his way here. let him in... this is all gonna come out. hi, my name is tony cooper. and if you have both medicare and medicaid, i have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plan you choose, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. all of these plans include a healthy options allowance. depending on the plans available in your area, you could get up to $1800 a year to help pay for essentials like eligible groceries, utilities, rent, pet care and over-the-counter items. other benefits on these plans may include free rides

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it is friday, and we want to thank you for letting us into your homes for another week of shows. we're so grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. happy friday. >> happy friday, nicole. busy news friday. i hope you have a great weekend. >> you too. >> absolutely. welcome to "the beat," i'm ari melber. a new special counsel to investigate donald trump. this is the breaking story. this is the big story. for the unprecedented second time a special counsel has been named to oversee criminal investigations, and the possible indictment of people around donald trump or the former president