wannabes. and why i think this turn that she has taken is such an important test to -- people rally behind this because there is an appetite for this. or does she go down as a loser. you know? i think that is really an open question >> sure, we are talking about individual candidates. what happens if you have a rogue legislature? that is the more dangerous proposition. individual candidates,, one that does want to concede, that is bad. you know, that is bad form. eventually they're gonna have a backlash for that person. politically. what do you do if a handful of people in a swing state decided they don't want election to go that way it actually went. >> jelani cobb with the columbia school of university -- a great to have you. little in on this monday night, the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening, rachel. od evening, rachel the transgender day of remembrance, which remembers americans who have been killed for being transgender. a shooter carrying a long gun as well asre a handgun had entered

into a nightclub called club q in colorado springs and started shooting people. within minutes, five people were dead, another 18 people were injured. tonight local authorities announced theju names of the victims. this is daniel aston, he was a 28-year-old transgender man, a bartender at club q. his mother helped the police identifype his body by his tatt, which is a heart pierced by an arrow on p his left arm, wrappe in a ribbon. that's his mom. this is dare rump, another bartender at the club, 38 years ole.b,ar his friends told reporters he was known for blasting britney spears so blloud, you could hea them from the parking lot. this is kelly lovic, a 40-year-old transgender woman, she was visiting club q, in colorado springs on a weekend visit from denver. this is ashley paugh, 35 years

old, a35 mother and a wife. shean had stopped by the club tt night toby see a comedy show. and this is raymond green vance, just gr22 years old, he was at e club that night with his high school sweetheart and her family. they wered there to see their friend perform in a drag show that night. all those lives lost in just a handful of minutes. and at least another 13 victims remain hospitalized tonight. colorado officials said tonight that thelo suspected shooter is being held on s suspicion of fi counts of murder and five additional counts ofrd committi a bias-motivated crime causing injury. formal chargessi will likely be filed after the guy appears in court. as of now he still hasn't. as of now he's still hospitalized. now, how did he end up hospitalized himself? it is an incredible story. i mentioned that one of the victims, 22-year-old raymond green vance, was at the club thatas night with his high scho

sweetheart and her family. well, his girlfriend's dad was there, hisie name is richard fierro, he's a retired u.s. army officer, he uretired as a majo after 15 years in the army, three tours in iraq, one in afghanistan, a decorated officer, earned two bronze stars in combat. mr. fierro was at club q on saturday night withub his wife d with his family, supporting his daughter's friend, who was part of the drag performance that night. when the shooting started, richard told "the new york times" that he hit the floor right away. s he pulled a friend down with him. he said he then saw the gunman moving toward a door that led from the inside of the club to a patio area and he knew that wih dozens had fled out of the bar on to that patio to get away from the shooter.ad when he saw the shooter heading toward that patio, he chased them down. he raced across the barroom. the gunman was reportedly wearing body armor. richard fierro said he grabbed

the gunman by the handle on they back of the body armor and o pulled him to the floor and jumped on top of him. i want to stop to point out thau the suspected gunman is reportedly well over six feet tall and he weighed something on the order of 300 pounds. mr. fierro said he's 300 pounds and he said this guy was bigger. so tackling this man, under any circumstances, even if he wasn't armed and h shooting people, wod have been an impressive feat. but richard fierro was apparently able to grab him and throw him down and that apparently knocked the man's long gund the ar-15 style rifle out of man's reach. mr. fierro said in addition to f the ar-15, he had a handgun as well.n he grabbed the handgun away from the gunman and started hitting him with it. now, since the man was wearing body armor, mr. fierro said he was trying to hit the man whereg he could see and feel that the man wasn't protected by the bodt armor.'t

he hit him where he could find skin. he was hitting him with his own gun.it he ended up hitting him in the u head over and over again. he yelled for other club patrons to help him. phi one man was able to help. he grabbed the ar-15 from the man and moved it away to safety. he said one of the drag performers came out and stomped on the gunman with her heels. the whole time richard said he a kept hitting the shooter in the head. and he remained on top of the guy until the police arrived. he himself was covered in blood by that point.lf the police ended up tackling him, tackling richard fierro, ro putting him in the police car not knowing he was the hero and not another suspect. here's richard fierro speaking with reporters outside his house in colorado a short time ago.or >> i tried to save people and it didn't work for five of them. t there are five people that aren't home right now.

and i thank god, it's thanksgiving.an i went through in thanksgiving in iraq, man.vi we lost dudes.vi i don't know what else to do. i hope people use this and shake someone's hand, give someone a hug, give them a kiss.ha these are good people, man. these were all kids. the guy, joshua, who was dancing with my daughter, my wife and joanne, they went and hid. he saved my daughter's life, man. i couldn't ask for anything more.'t >> richard fierro talking with reporters just a few minutes ago this evening.o that man that he just mentioned, joshua, i should tell you, first of all i should tell that you s officials said tonight that a s second individual other than richard fierro, thomas james, was also credited by officials s tonight with helping subdue the

suspected gunman. in terms of police, they arrived quickly. they arrived six minutes after the initial 911 call.ft i said that initial 911 call ia came in four minutes before midnight. the police arrived two minutes after midnight. they were there very fast. even so, by the time the police arrived, the shooting had stopped.ol because these patrons themselves they're the ones who pinned the suspect down. beaten him senseless with his own weapon. officials are investigating this attack as a potential hate ar crime. they haven't confirmed any motive for the attack at this 'i point. but you heard there, he mentioned a man named joshua who was dancing with some of his family members. he grabbed his daughter and pulled her to safety. here is the man we believe mr. e fierro is referencing there. his name is joshua thurman. he was there saturday night.

here's him describing part of his experience saturday night. >> i crawled out literally on my stomach. i saw the police. they didn't know we were in there. once they found us, we were n escorted out.y when we were escorted out, bodies on the ground, blood, shattered glass. people dead. it was sad. yeah, it is a shock. this is the only lgbtqia space we have in the city of colorado springs. s we just had the remembrance or earlier this year, you know. like, it's a big shock. it's our safe space is no longer our safe space. we come here to enjoy ourselves, to get away, like everybody else

does. to get away from the bs. just for a couple hours. how can we do that now? >> how can we do that now? joining us now, matthew haines and nick grzecka, the co-owners of club q of where this mass shooting happened. i am so sorry for what you've been through. thank you for being willing to be with us tonight.so >> thank you. >> let me ask you first, i've tried tofi summarize the basicsf what we know of what happened and what we have been told by officials.e kn is there anything that i've gotten wrong or anything you can add that you think the country should know about what happenedy and what the response was like after this horrible incident got under way? >> i think what people need to remember the most are the innocent victims. they're no longer with us tonight. the 18 people that were injured,

the countless more people that l had trauma injuries. that's what i think everybody, that's the biggest part tonightd remembering. >> that's what we see behind us. that's what we see -- i will add that we have had tremendous community support. a we've had tremendous support from the local colorado springs police department.ep we've had tremendous support from the mayor and all the state officials. so we couldn't have asked for more support. the reaction that night was outstanding. we had so many police officers. we had such a response. we've had a very good history with the colorado springs police over the years and it really d shone that particular night. that tragic night. >> i know two of the victims wh lost their lives saturday night were your employees, daniel and derrick. can you tell us a little about them? >> they were wonderful.bo

they were, they're more than employees. they're family. they were the heart of what clua q is. they are what most of our customers would have had experienced. they both were incredibly passionate.te they worked amazingly well together.ke they were great friends. these are our true family members. so many people behind them. so many lives they've changed. i cannot do their memory justice. when you look on the facebook pages, you look at everyone on else, all the individual experiences people have had with these wonderful men, it tells an amazing story. and it is what the last 20 year of club q has been about. not just club q but they embody what this type of bar is.s what a community bar is. what community really is.

they were amazing. >> i wanted to say what we're learning as a country learns 'r more about this story, what happened at club q and what happened saturday night. one of the things people are struck by. all sorts of different people were there.y. definitely gay people there, queer people there, transgender people there, straight people with their families.re people in multigenerational groups enjoying the show. it just felt like the most diverse imaginable group of people there. people who have come out in support of what happened there tonight.f and i wondered if you could speak to that a little bit? especially given how much political hate has been directed at the queer community and the trans community over the past couple years from the political right? >> that is what club q is.

that is what a queer space is. it is a space where all of these can gather together without hate, without prejudice, to feel safe, and that's every night at club q. that's every night at every queer bar across the world. that's the devastating thing is this community has lost their space.hi the community that they've built inside that space cannot be taken away. >> we talk about hate. but for all the hate, there is a still so much love. and that is what we've had in this bar. that's what the saturday night was a representation of what every night is there.wh it is full of a community of people.ll when i say community, i don't mean just gay people.do all the allies. all the people and all the support that we have. this is 2022, after all, and we have come a long way than where we started 20 years ago here,

building this business.re so there is a lot of victories we've all had and we do receive so much support from so many walks of life. >> matthew haines, nick, the ew co-owners of club q. thank you for being with us. i know it is an incredibly difficult time. we appreciate you being here tonight. us. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> we have a lot to get to tonight. y stay with us. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: just stop. go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon. instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. away things. fit together with away things. ♪ ♪ that's our thing.

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are you traveling this week for thanksgiving by any chance? i have a thing to pass the time if you have a long drive or a flight to take. it's free. you don't have to sign up for anything to get it. there is an app on your phone even if you have never used it before. it's probably there. it's probably called podcasts or something like that. find that app. ask somebody else to find it for you if you don't know how. use the search function on that app. type in my name, maddow, and the word ultra, and there it is for free. you can listen to all eight episodes of my podcast, ultra. the final one posted today. we've been posting one per week since ultra launched which has been driving people crazy. if you've been waiting to listen to them all at once and you didn't want the week's delay

between episodes, you can binge them. you can listen to them in one felled swoop. i feel like i've just given birth to an elephant. we've been working on it for a year. it has taken over my life. i am so happy to have it out there in the world. now everybody can hear it. just search maddow and the word ultra in the podcast app that you never noticed was already there on your phone or you can listen for free off the website which is msnbc.com/ultra. so we know now that republicans are going to get control of the house next year barely. and because it is barely, because their majority is so small, that means any small group of republican members of congress, even sometimes a single member of congress will have the opportunity to monkey wrench things for the republican leadership. over the past few days, we have just learned that one of the things republican leader kevin mccarthy had to promise to do in

order to get one particular republican to vote for him to be speaker was that he had to promise her that once he becomes speaker, he will launch congressional investigations of the u.s. justice department over their prosecutions of people who participated in the attack on the capitol last january 6th. so the republicans now say they will launch congressional investigations of the justice department for prosecuting the people who attacked the capitol. that is a promise kevin mccarthy had to make to marjorie taylor greene, who has repeatedly defended and minimized the january 6th attack and praised the people who carried it out. and that seems crazy, i know. but it is not unprecedented. it absolutely has happened before. in the early 1940s, before the u.s. joined world war ii, the justice department brought a case against a whole bunch of americans for sedition. for allegedly trying to overthrow the u.s. government by force.

and the special twist in that case was that the government alleged these folks were not only trying to overthrow the u.s. government by force. they were trying to do so as part of a conspiracy with the nazi government in germany. now one of the defendants in that case was a high-ranking nazi agent. he was convicted of being a paid agent of the nazi government in this country. he had been running an operation inside the u.s. congress working with multiple members of congress and u.s. senators to use congressional offices to distribute million of pieces of nazi propaganda into american homes. lots of members of congress were implicated in that plot with that convicted nazi agent. lots of members were even being paid in various ways to take part in that plot. the agent they had been working with to do it was now part of this mass sedition indictment with the justice department. when that came together, implicated members of congress, some of them decided to lean on the justice department to try to

koy kibosh that investigation, basically to save themselves. in fact a senator named marjorie -- i'm sorry, burton k wheeler, a senator from monday tan, a he threatened the justice department that unless they fired the prosecutor who led that investigation, he would launch congressional investigations over the whole justice department over their prosecutions of these seditionists. so that's pressure on the justice department to scare them out of pursuing the prosecutions. to make it seem like the prosecutions themselves were a scandal. which is exactly what the republicans are promising to do now with the january 6th investigations. back in the 1940s, when this happened then, senator burton wheeler was successful in his political pressure campaign when he threatened the attorney general that he would investigate the justice department if they didn't fire the prosecutor in this sedition case.

attorney general francis biddle caved to those threats. the justice department fired that prosecutor. and then when another prosecutor took his case, and his investigation fell devastating further evidence, including in the nazi's own files, evidence that the sedition defendants were working with the nazis. evidence that senator wheeler himself was more up to his neck in that plot than anyone had previously known, well, senator wheeler turned on the jets again. this time he didn't go just to the attorney general. he went to the top. to president harry truman. and he told president truman that he needed to fire the new prosecutor, too, just like the old prosecutor had been fired. and president harry truman caved to that demand from senator wheeler. he did it. he fired the second prosecutor. truman also buried the results of the investigation. the justice department had

reportedly planned to make public the finding of its investigation about the sedition defendants working with the hitler government and this nazi agent's work in congress and what the nazis' own files said. the justice department planned to do a public official report on those findings. harry truman instead ordered that investigation kept secret. he buried it. for 15 years it was buried. it's an amazing story. it's a story you might want to listen to on your thanksgiving. now the sedition trial of the january 6th paramilitary attackers continues. the jury is getting that case tomorrow morning. as individual participants in the attack on the government are continuing to be convicted in federal court even today. as a second special counsel is appointed to investigate among other things the former president's alleged involvement in the january 6th effort to overthrow the government. one of the things to know about

this type of american history, one of the reasons i did this podcast, ultra, is because the lesson here it is an uncomfortable one. in the face of an anti-democratic movement, anti-small d movement, a fascist movement with support from powerful elected officials, even when they go so far as to try to overthrow the government by force, in that instance, the criminal law has never proved to work all that well against it. and that's both because we've got constitutional protections under the first amendment that make it hard to convict people of sedition and seditious conspiracy. also because the justice department in these cases get subjected to intense political pressure and intervention, even intimidation from politically powerful elected officials who are themselves part of the plots against democracy. the lessons of history on this

stuff are worrying. the justice department, turns out, isn't great at resisting intense political pressure and intimidation. even though they think they are. they're not. so question one is, can the spines be stiffened? can they be bolstered against the powerful forms of political pressure? and question two, for the rest of us, does history give us any advice about what else can be done? how else to protect our democracy? particularly if we are up against the historical reality that the courts maybe can't save us. the justice department maybe can't save us. joining us now is historian bradley hart. if you have been listening to the podcast ultra, he is one of the historians you've been listening to. he is also the author of the excellent book "hitler's american friends: the third reich's supporters in the united states" which has been an

indispensable source for us in putting ultra together. >> congratulations on the podcast. it is a fantastic piece of work. i've learned stuff from it. what is amazing is to hear these people's voices. you've talked about it before. but a voice that sticks with you. even hearing john rogge, the prosecutor, i've never heard his voice before. it's amazing. >> since the podcast has been out there, one of the recurring conversations i've had, is that people even in the news business have come to me and said, where did you find these actors? no, no. this is all archival tape. you can't believe this stuff is, i guess, also, you want it to be ancient history. you can't believe there is tape of them. there were people alive when it happened. there aren't that many instances in history where we get people charged with sedition.

so the points on the number line, there aren't that many to connect. i have to ask you. i don't want to assume because you just said those nice things, that you agree with every point of it. let me ask if you agree with that basic thesis. the justice department clearly has a role but they shouldn't be seen as the silver bullet. there have been real weaknesses in the way they've approached it in the past. >> there's one thing. you point this out, a lot of activity we're talking about, up until the point where people are committing sedition or other crimes is constitutionally protected. first amendment, second amendment, a lot of the groups we're talking about are saying really nasty things about people. that's terrible. most people agree with it but it is not a crime. even some of the more militarized groups when they're training with weapons, it is still protected second amendment activity. so i think the important point here is that the law has a role certainly but there's a wider civil society role in sort of policing the spectrum of

extremism, the spectrum. our politics. >> in terms of that civil society role. one of the things that i was really heartened by and for anyone partially listened to the podcast and hasn't gotten to the end. there are ways in which it has a bad ending. but one of the surprise good endings is that there are all these members of congress who are really powerful, powerful enough to go to the attorney general and get a prosecutor fired. to go to the president and get another prosecutor fired. to get a justice department report buried that was otherwise going to be public. members with a ton of sway, nevertheless when their activities come to light, the voters throw them out. and it's surprising given how powerful some of them were. >> that's right. and you see these names are household names. senator wheeler whom you alluded to. one of the leading lights in the progressive movement, one of the leading lights in the democratic party being bandied about as a potential presidential contender.

this is a man who obtained semilegendary status. what is interesting, if he had died in the late 1930s, might well be a venerated figure today in american politics. because of what happens later on, he loses a seat in 1946, his reputation is tanked. >> given the challenge that's we've got, the sedition trial, pending charges against the president for his role in this. you get somebody like john rogge, the prosecutor who preceded him. william maloning, bringing them in court themselves don't end in convictions even though they implicate these members of congress. certainly those members of congress never find themselves in the dock, let alone in jail. but you do get them voted out. it is a civil society form of accountability that is driven essentially by journalism, by activism,

people coming to know what they did, and judging them for it, even though they're not locked up? >> ultimately, this is about the voters. there is a ton of journalism on this. there are hard-hitting ads when they're up for re-election during the war. but this is about the voters. and i think when i was doing this research initially, my first reaction is why isn't the story better known i think when i got to the end of it and realized there was a form of almost justice in this way against these individuals who engaged in pretty bad behavior in the 1930s and '40s, that was heartening. the voters did punish all the figures included in this. >> not all of them. virtually all of them. one of the things that maybe there will be an ultra season two someday. i don't know. and i know your research on this era continues. one of the things that happens to the sedition defendants who aren't convicted and kind of melt back into the sauce of american society is that some of them, at least, end up providing some of the core really radical basis for very far right part of

the american pro fascist, pro nazi, in many cases holocaust denying part of what becomes the next era of far right american politics. the members of congress get voted out and become obscure figures and die in obscurity. but some of these defendants end up becoming part of stuff that is really scary in terms of what comes next on the far, far right. >> like jared lk smith, a very anti-semitic inheriter of the huey long machine in louisiana. and will this rabble rousing style of speaking. elizabeth dillon is active until the 1960s when she dies of a red baiting conspiracy theorist. absolutely. many of the leading lights of this movement politically, specially america first

committee, they pay a pretty steep political price. the rank and file, that's one question in society. i don't have an answer for this yet. what happens to everybody else? we're talking hundreds of thousands of people involved in these things. >> yeah. america first had a million members. >> and the most popular radio host of all time. 30 million listeners a week. >> yeah. well, you'll know it before i do and hopefully i'll be right there on your heels. bradley hart, i really appreciate all that you did to help us tell this story. your work on this as an historian is absolutely totally invaluable. the book is called "hitler's american friends: the third reich supporters in the united states". sir, thank you. more ahead tonight. stay with us. . ♪ ♪

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usually the lead up to thanksgiving is a little bit of a fallow period for the news but not this year. there's a ton of news going on right now and apparently more is on its way. the criminal trial against the business of former president trump is heading toward its conclusion. the prosecution, somewhat surprisingly, rested its case today in new york which means the defense will get its turn. but even as new york state prosecutors wrap up that criminal prosecution of trump's family business, "the new york times" reports today that the

same new york prosecutor's office, the same new york d.a. that brought those charges against trump's business is apparently now considering bringing new criminal charges against the former president himself. the new york d.a.'s office is reportedly looking at potential criminal charges in conjunction with the hush money to the porn star case. from ages ago. from 2016. you will remember this. these were the campaign finance felonies for which trump's former lawyer michael cohen already went to federal prison. he admitted to the felonies in court. he stated under oath in court that he committed those felonies on behalf of and at the instruction of former president trump. given how clear he was about that in court, frankly, no one has ever given a satisfactory explanation as to why the federal prosecutor's office that charged michael cohen with those crimes never charged anybody else. why they inexplicably never charged trump or the people who

participated in those felonies at the truck organization, including the people who signed the bogus checks. more than that, the federal prosecutor's office in new york, not only did they not charge trump himself for those felonies, they apparently leaned on the new york state prosecutors that they shouldn't bring state charges in that matter either. now, new york state prosecutors are reportedly thinking that maybe they will bring those charges after all against trump. again, this is a crime from 2016 for which one person, michael cohen, has already served a federal prison term. if new york prosecutors do pursue trump for it now, that would mean that as trump is now running for president again, his potential criminal legal exposure will extend to potential criminal charges in the state of georgia, and potential federal criminal charges both for the classified documents case at mar-a-lago and for his alleged incitement of the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol, and now potential

criminal charges in the state of new york. campaign finance felonies related to his 2016 campaign. i will mention that the recent revelations about trump asking for irs audits of his political enemies, that's another area potentially for further criminal investigation. that's clearly a crime and there is clear evidence in the public record that trump both asked for and got those irs audits against those whom he had a grudge. the two definitely existing criminal investigations of trump that we know already. the classified documents one. the january 6th one. those have been handed off to to any special counsel, jack smith, who was appointed special counsel on friday. this of course makes trump the first president in history to be subject to not one but two impeachments and not one but two special counsel investigations.

the previous special counsel investigation of trump was of course the mueller one into russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election to try to get trump into the white house. you will recall that investigation was effectively knee capped by political intervention. trump's hand picked attorney general william barr was installed in office roughly a month before mueller turned in his report. barr then submarined the report, released a false summary of the findings, proclaimed trump exonerated and then attacked both the investigation and its findings. this wasn't the first time a justice department investigation has faced political interference and sabotage from the parties and their allies. that's what my podcast ultra is all about. the rich american history of this happening to the justice department before. but now, we do have the lessons to learn from, right? we have the lesson from the 1940s that i did this big project about.

we also have the lesson of the mueller investigation. so now as this second trump special counsel starts on his work, can this one benefit from lessons learned about how to resist that kind of interference and political pressure and intimidation that we know is coming and that has undone high profile political investigations of this kind in the past? what can the special counsel do right this time to avoid getting knee capped like the investigators who have gone before him? one man who is a key senior member of the previous effort joins us next. stay with us.

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now that a new special counsel has been appointed to oversee ongoing criminal investigations into former president and current congressional candidate donald trump, are there lessons learned from past special counsel investigations that could guide the new special counsel's work? like for example, how to deal with political pressure and political interference and gamesmanship? likely to come his way. joining us now, andrew wiceman, long time prosecutor, robert mueller's special investigation. thank you for being here. >> great to be here. >> i'm glad you intersected with bradley hart on your way in. >> i am, too. >> i feel like i've been making a proxy style investigation. your line of work.

in terms the justice department contending with national security threats of this kind, people who seek to undo our system of government, people who are in powerful political positions when they seek to do it. and i feel like a version of the pitfalls that i've seen in historical investigations of that kind happened in the mueller investigation as well, essentially a political appointee of that president interfering to submarine your work and make sure that it disappeared from the public view. do you think that's fair? >> yeah. i think the analogy is, i mean, palpable. you have people from outside the nation seeking to interfere and you had people inside the nation doing the same thing in the white house and actually at the justice department. that is something jack smith is not going to really have to contend with. it is really important to see

there is a huge difference between his situation and the mueller situation. because you don't have this sitting president using pardons to try to get people to not cooperate and threatening and dangling pardons and you don't have the constant threat of being fired. from every single day we were sitting, wondering whether we would be there at the end of the day. i remember meeting with rob mueller where he sort of announced saying you've done a great job and we all knew that was the last day. and then lo and behold, we were there the next day. so he doesn't have to deal with that as well. he's no longer a sitting president. a former president. and then you don't have to white house and at times the justice department on the opposite side trying to actively curtail and thwart what you're doing. here you have the white house saying they'll be completely hands off. and you don't have bill barr in the justice department working to undermine what they're doing.

so he has -- >> but you do have a congress now, a republican-controlled congress where they're explicitly saying we want to investigate the justice department for even prosecuting january 6th attackers, let alone about bringing any investigations of trump. what is the -- what is the difference in how it feels to be getting that kind of pressure from capitol hill versus the pressure from inside the justice department and the white house? >> i think you're seeing it, actually. i think you're seeing signs that merrick garland is figuring out how to deal with this. i'll allude to history in a moment. having just listened to you, which is merrick garland when there was this huge brouhaha after the search in mar-a-lago did have a public press conference, and when he said, you know, we only speak through our filings, not quite. he actually then spoke. and he made it clear, i made the decision. i, the attorney general, made the decision to do this. not anyone else. he made it clear that there was

no planting of evidence. he vouched for the agents and prosecutors on the case. he made it clear that it would be routine to try other steps before that. meaning this wasn't the only thing we did. we didn't go from zero to 60. this was a long-term effort. and i think the less, to directly answer your question, i think it is useful to look back to archibald cox. and there you don't have to have a press conference denigrate someone who is uncharged. you don't have to do what jim comey did. it is the symbol of what not to do. you don't have to do that. you can still do what archibald cox did. he was in a situation where he was being vilified by nixon and his allies for not allowing a compromise and not seeking

transcripts of the nixon tapes. he wanted the tapes themselves. he gave a long press conference where the public could see him and evaluate him and judge him, the man, instead of just reading a brief. >> so he was defending that decision and why it was a priority to him. >> exactly. it was long and in very plain language. and as the medium, he did it on television. wasn't just a written brief. if you're trying to counteract the forces of congress, the forces in donald trump and his allies in already spinning what is happening with jack smith and the justice department, it is useful to take your opportunities where appropriate to explain what you're doing. to have more of an educational communicative function as the special counsel. >> so robert mueller and the

investigation you were part of never spoke until he spoke before congress in his retort. you think that special counsel jack smith should speak to the public about key moments in the investigation regularly? daily press conferences? weekly? >> i don't think i would say daily or weekly. if you look at archibald cox, that was a key moment where it was really important to explain to the american public. here's an example of something really useful. if there are charges that are brought, let's say the mar-a-lago case. i think there will be. i think it would be really useful to do something that we actually did at nyu. we put together a list of all the comparable doj cases. and it would be really useful for jk smith to explain why he is treating donald trump identically to other people. and there would be nothing wrong, and nothing that would

violate department of justice policies there. you're not taking this jim comey model. you're not just denigrating somebody. >> not trying the case in public. you're explaining why charges are being brought. >> exactly. and i think this is a golden opportunity given that you have so much public interest and it would be so important for the public to understand what's going on and then they can evaluate it. >> a man who knows of what he speaks. we'll be right back. away things. fit together with away things. ♪ ♪ that's our thing. ♪ ♪

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all right. that will do it for me for now. happy thanksgiving. if you're traveling for thanksgiving week, be safe, be extra nice to people, everybody's really stressed out, not just you. be extra nice. even if you have to fake it. "way too early with jonathan lemire" is up next. i tied to save people and it didn't work for five. there are five people who aren't home right now. i thank god and it is thanksgiving. i went through this