your brother has landed in the dark lands. they're under bowser's control. [ screaming ] hang on, luigi. [ ominous music playing ] [ screaming ] yes! fire! [ chuckling ] it's he:00 in new york. we're at a clear influctuation point in what could very well turn out to be the single most consequential investigation in the 153-year history of the justice department. the investigation into january 6th and the twice-impeached

ex-president very clear publicly known efforts and plot to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. a series of court battles over the last few weeks have largely gone in special counsel jack smith's favor, resulted if a whole slew of new trump officials and allies now being ordered to testify. some big names, none of them bigger than the one, vice president mike pence, news broke on tuesday that a federal judge had ordered him to answer questions under oath regarding conversations that may involve illegality on donald trump's part. here's what mike pence told nbc news about all of that this morning. >> i'll be in washington, d.c., later the week. i'll be meeting with my counsel that week and we'll determine the best way forward. again, i have nothing to hide. i believe we did our duty under the constitution on january 6th.

>> nothing to hide, but that response begs the question, if that's the case, and frankly the fact that he wrote the book about it, why hasn't he testified already? the ball is in pence's court, as to whether he'll appeal this decision, he's previously hinted he's willing to go all the way, to the supreme court, at this point in time jack smith's prosecutors are on the verge of hearing from several other senior trump officials. in that group, john ratcliffe, and what cassidy hutchinson said about him. >> director ratcliffe didn't want much to do with the post-election period. he felt that it wasn't the something that white house should be pursuing. felt it was dangerous to the

president's legacy. he had expressed data that he was concerned it could spiral out of control and potentially be dangerous, either for our democracy and the way things were going. >> for the first time the grand jury will hear from director ratcliffe the head of national intelligence, who didn't want anything to do with the post-election period. why not, what did he know and when did he know it? he wasn't only one within the administration who was concerned about this january 6th ahead of time. here's what cassidy hutch yibson said about robert o'brien who had been called to testify. >> i received a call from robert o'brien, the national security

adviser, he had asked if he could speak with mr. meadows about potential violence, words of violence he was hearing that potentially going to happen on the hill on the january 6th. i asked if he connected with tony ornato because he had a conversation with mark about that topic. robert has said i'll talk to tony and then i don't know if robert ever connected with mark about the decision. >> two days ahead of january 6th. january 4th. the national security adviser knew there was a potential for quote violence on the hill. now grand jury gets to hear from them. arguably none of these officials are as important to understanding the story of how january 6th came to be than trump's role in putting it all in motion. than his former chief of staff mark meadows. he served as the con due it,

here's cassidy hutchinson on him. >> i remember leaning against the doorway and saying, i had an interesting conversation with rudy, mark, it sounds like we're going to go to the capitol. he didn't look up from his phone, he said there's a lot going on, cass, but i don't know but things might get real bad on january 6th. we need to do something more they're literally calling for the vice president to be hung. mark responded to the effect, you heard him, pat, he's still sitting on his phone and i remember pat saying to him something to the effect of, rioters need to get to capitol. he doesn't want to do anything.

>> ms. hutchinson did the white house chief of staff meadows ever indicated he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon relating to january 6th. >> he did speak on pardon, yes ma'am. >> new evidence in the form of testimony from the highest levels of trump's world. it circulates around the knowledge of violence, around intent and around donald trump's state of mind. that's where we begin today. joining us former deputy assistant attorney general, former u.s. attorney harry liteman is back. jackie, we know a lot about what these senior officials could

offer jack smith in front of the federal grand jury, because of what has been testified to by people around them and some of them in their own words. but just talk about what has been unlocked for jack smith. >> thank you again, nicolle. the question now is going to be just how cooperative are these witnesses going to be. i think mark meadows is arguably even more important of a witness than the former vice president mike pence who is going to be able to testify to his conversations with former vice president trump although his legal team did win in that they argued the speech and debate clause prevented pence from speaking about the events that played out on capitol hill during the certification of the 2020 election but he's going to have to speak directly to the

conversations that he had with trump, his frame of mind and, you know, the way that trump was behaving and the instructions he was giving ahead of the protests that then turned into violence on the capitol. i get back to mark meadows and as was made explicitly clear by cassidy hutchinson meadows was really key to this entire operation, whether he was the fly on the wall in some of these meetings and the leadup to january 6th or whether he was the actual person, facilitating certain meetings going on with some of these fringe players who helped, you know, several different threads pull off these efforts to overturn the results of the election. he was also the person who had the most contact with trump on the actual day of january 6th. so i think that these characters can really fill in what i think

this is still really missing in the grand scheme of things. despite, you know, two years' worth of investigations at this point and hundreds of thousands of documents transcriptions, et cetera, but there's still -- we don't have the exact sort of the play by play of former president donald trump during those hours when the violence was playing out. now this grand jury is going to potentially be able to hear from mark meadows, what he was doing as he was going in and out of the oval office, fielding these calls from panicked lawmakers on the hill and public pressure from former staffers, colleagues and friends who were calling on white house staff people like him, ivanka trump, those closest to trump, to very directly and explicitly call down the rioters and tell them to stop what they

were doing. >> miles, it seems like one of the pieces that legal analysts thought needed to be sort of a loop that needed to be closed or part of the case against trump in terms of the criminality that the congressional probe was able to establish and prove was his state of mind and his intent. it seems like this last list of witnesses, meadows, robert o'brien his national security adviser, stephen miller, dan scavino, sort of his human twitter fingers, these are the closest people to him. these people are his state of mind. >> nicolle you're absolutely right about that. you know, look, put january 6th aside, you know any time there would be a meeting in the oval office with the president, these were the types of players who would be there and hear donald

trump express his grievances, propose courses of action and really get insight into his intent. i was there on many occasions when he described things that he wanted to do that appeared illegal in nature. these witnesses could provide similar insight into and around january 6th what his state of mind was, his intent was in acting or rather not acting on that day and someone like cassidy hutchinson just scratches the surface, it's still phenomenal that item was made available, she provided insight, just that little crack of the door into what she might have seen or heard shows that these individuals really likely have a great degree of testimony to provide about the events transpired that day that we still don't know. now what you've seen in the short term these people used executive privilege like a get

out of the jail free card, whether it was steve bannon, or peter navarro, or mark meadows, that's not why executive privilege exists, nicolle, it exists to protect branches of government from each other, to protect the executive branch from infringement from the others. it doesn't shield government officials from being held accountable for acts of legality. a significant development here. i don't know what pence means about he's going to review this with his counsel. this is an order to cooperate. the last thing i'd say, you have to know where this is coming from. these individuals aren't reaching these conclusions independently. this comes from donald trump himself. he also viewed the presidency as insulation from the justice system. i mean this is the same person

who said when someone is president the authority is total. and when he found out that wasn't true he really wanted to dismantle the justice system. he asked aides to put together bills to send to capitol hill to dismantle the courts and his subordinate have followed that similar mentality toward the justice department. >> i am not that interested in what mike pence means when he says i'm going to sit in a chair and review it because i think that's a verbal tick as you said. he's been ordered to testify and we'll presume that's what he's going on do. about illegality, a real bombshell from the first federal judge, that there's probable cause that donald trump and john eastman committed felonies. really escalated the power.

you had the congress and judiciary saying, clear evidence of a felony. a second judge's ruling, the reason pence can testify is because donald trump's illegality. mueller years and years ago, if trump had committed crimes i would have. in the sentencing memo that donald trump based on sdny's investigation directed and coordinated a campaign finance violation fraud. for all of the illegality that people in congress and the judiciary have said donald trump has committed to actually have a consequence. >> women, it seems quite evidence that the former president likely committed a crime, that's not just idle speculation, several judges have made that suggestion that the former president may have engaged in criminal acts and that's why they're making these

extraordinary orders for these officials to testify. i think that's much is clear. this also drives us back to the basics when it comes to an investigation. once these individuals come to testify they're going to be driven by a very simple human motivation, which is to keep themselves out of jail. and that's ultimately how you get a lot of the testimony you need to make the case against someone like this, someone against donald trump, you need to convince his subordinates they have the option to cooperate and save their lives and their careers. or the option to obstruct and possibly face those investigations themselves. they're going to get some of these people to flip. i feel very confident that once all of their legal remedies are exhausted and they've gone to every judge they can to try and prevent themselves from testifying they'll ultimately will testify and they'll testify against their former boss because they want to have

careers in presidential careers. that's going to require them to not be in a jail cell. i think you're going to see those basic human motivations come into play as they exhaust their remedy and harry, i hate turning these conversations into investigations jeopardy, mar-a-lago for 400, alvin bragg for 200, someone who has a little bit more standing than i do to sort of assess the different proebs. i'm going to play this sound in that spirit. this is judge ludwig on the right, you can't get much farther right than him in a pre-trump sort of ideological spectrum, he advised pence of the law, the limits of his authority, he testified before the 6th select committees. this what he had to say to charlie sykes about the

importance of this investigation and this prosecution of donald trump. >> i would have hoped that the first of any prosecutions of the former president would not have been either the stormy daniels matter in manhattan or frankly the classified documents from mar-a-lago. and that instead if there were to be procushions of the former president would be the by jack smith. if it happens to be the case that the stormy daniels prosecution and the classified documents investigation are the only two prosecutions of the former president coming out all of his antics and that he's not prosecuted for january 6th.

i will believe that's a great disservice to democracy and to the rule of law in america. >> harry, do you agree? >> yes. at least there has to be very serious accountability. that's the core wickedness of trump as president. smith took two giant steps forward, we were really focused on manhattan, he took two giant steps forward on january 6th itself, so first, pence is actually fighting a different fight than executive privilege the so-called speech or debate clause which he probably never heard of before but he's arguing he's shielded because he was also president of the senate. that's a loser. and it really the decision by the new district court chief judge really went against him, the question is whether a court

of appeals will be interested in the overall issue enough to sort of take it up. and then the most important witness and the second and third and fourth in january 6th is all mark meadows, he's been able to stay on the sidelines with some happenstance and now he's really pushed under the executive privilege claim which is a loser. on appeal it will be made quick work. however meadows may at that point invoke the fifth amendment and if he does the doj will have a very hard decision to provide him immunity, he's a very high up player to give immunity but it might be the least bad option. >> jackie, these are four crimes that is select committee, conspiracy to defraud the united states, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy

to make a false statement, inciting, aiding and comforting an insurrection. you look at the rulings that have gone jack smith's way. it seems that obstruction of an official proceeding is one that was almost established. by the congressional committee. you got people like general mark milley who testified that donald trump acknowledged that he lost. you have such ample evidence that the intent was to stop the certification and the plots and the actions that took place from the plot that he hatched. the one that was biggest reach was aiding, inciting the insurrection. you have a national security adviser who two days be ever the

insurrection wanted to see meadows because he was quote worried about violence on the hill. 48 hours ahead of time. where does based on your knowledge of the evidence we've seen in the congressional probe and the witnesses being freed up for jack smith, where do you think this is heading? >> nicolle, it's not just the congressional probe as you noted. you rev reasonsed david carter's ruling that came out over a year ago, that explicitly said he thought that former president trump were guilty and had engaged in crimes related to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and to defraud the american people and that was using the limited evidence that carter was reviewing at the time. and since then, the mountain of evidence that has been compiled on top of that i think really

bolsters that argument. but we do know the department of justice's sort of bar ultimately bringing some sort of charging decision is high. they won't bring a case they haven't locked down, that's not rock solid. as harry and all of the lawyers are much -- verse in this than i am have repeatedly said, you know, it's probably more strategic of the department of the justice, for the special counsel's office to bring charges on more cookie-cutter and cut and dry charges. things like obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the american people. which, you know, countless examples over the past few years of trump acknowledging privately, publicly, in lots of new conversations that cropped

up throughout the congressional investigation. the grand jury is hearing from the witnesses who have appeared before them about trump acknowledging that he knew he had lost the election but wanted to propagate these unsubstantiated claims that he lost. my colleague published really the latest example of that, trump's own campaign top consultant jared kushner commissioned a consulting group to do a proper report on the so-called election fraud and found nothing. and gave that report back to trump's top lunts and that report was obviously not utilized and these players continued to fund-raise off of these false crimes and engaged in everything that ultimately led up to january 6th. but, you know, there's no question that there's not a shortage of ed here.

i think that what the justice department is doing is really ensuring that they have whatever they do decide on it's rock solid and as close to perfect as possible, really. >> harry, i'll give you the last word. when you look at this list of witnesses and hold it up with public facing how the congressional probe used these witnesses, which story would you theorize jack smith is telling in front of a grand jury? >> well, besides the story, the stories, meadows is involved in georgia, he goes down, beside the stories i'm really interested in telling pence that's the feature that we haven't had. when you talk about the charges basically the two legal charges both have to do with trying to

scuttle the works for january 6th. what don't we know, the one-on-one conversations where trump in vulgar terms totally eviscerates pence, said he made a mistakes and that's overwhelming evidence of wanting him not to unconstitutionally gum up the works for the proceeding itself january 6th. that almost in and of itself brings them to the 1 yard line on the january 6th. that's the big untold story and that's because because pence alone heard and that's why that's going to be a really important piece once he gets through the potential appeal. >> harry, i have never heard you put these investigations on a 1 yard line. a little bit of news there. thank you for starting us off.

when we come back the republican leading the reinvestigation of the investigation into january 6th is out with what he's describing as quote findings. it's actually a five-page initial report that seeks to exonerate him. we'll talk about the gop's continued efforts to change the narrative and change the facts about what happened that day before all of our eyes. plus, democrat leading the charge today in the outrage on gun safety legislation, calling for people to be placed ahead of politics. it's another flashpoint for the party on the right remains completely out of touch and out of sync with all of the most extreme americans. eric swalwell will join us on that. later in the broadcast, key decisions are being made in a delaware courthouse having to do with that $1.6 billion defamation case against fox news. it starts in just a matter of weeks. we got our hands on some never

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♪ trump wants a pardon. convicted after seditious conspiracy. come on, what's wrong with you republicans? >> i think you're talking about the former president saying if he gets elected that he would issue some pardons to some of the people that were arrested and prosecuted on january 6th. not all were convicted of

seditious treezon, in fact none were. >> congressman, usa today had this headline back in november of 2022 that stewart roads was found guilty of seditious conspiracy. >> okay. i didn't follow that case. >> okay. >> missed that one, oops. hardly believable. that was far-right-wing republican congressman andy biggs getting a live on-air fact-check about who was at january 6th what they've been charged with and things that led to criminal charges of sedition. stewart rhodes is facing 20 years in prison. down playing the insurrection, the kind of whitewashing we've been seeing from the right on a

daily basis. there is this. today, congressman barry loudermilk released his report of initial reports of zero new evidence. he managed to discover that he did nothing by holding tours of the capitol the day before january 5th. taking pictures during the tour was a man who according to the january 6th select committee attended the january 6th rally the next day. claiming to be, quote, coming to take out democratic leadership. there's that. joining our coverage, democratic congressman from california, eric swalwell. miles is still with us. congressman, what do you make of -- i mean, the attempts to whitewash are so bad that they

almost affirm the reality of january 6th. what do you make of the tale they're still so worried about it? >> maga republicans absolutely have to whitewash january 6th because they don't want the alternative which is to accept it, condemn what happened and move on, right, nicolle. in november 2022 the voters across the country in every swing contest rejected election deniers, that big blowout that kevin mccarthy promised in the house didn't happen. we picked up a seat in the senate. they ran on january 6t and we ran on community. you're faced with a crossroads. you can reset and go in the direction that the american people are in or you can rewrite. now they'll double down and try to rewrite and what you're seeing here as you try to rewrite history it's very hard

to keep up with the truth. so many of my colleagues are trying to hold up the violence of the insurrection. >> something that your colleague jamie raskin said today. >> the very same members who have come together today to denounce crime in washington and the response of the d.c. government they know very little about, are astonishingly many of the same members who visited violent criminals in d.c. james and praised them as political heroes as if they were nelson mandela or navalny. >> the problem on the right is they can't decide whether they haven't heard of stewart rhodes or they're like nelson mandela.

their attempts at rewriting january 6th are handed at best. >> there's just no rewriting. we're in the 21st century, every american saw with their own eyes what donald trump did, what the mob did to the police officers and the trauma that the police officers have since suffered. and there's no rewriting that. you're living on fantasy island if you think you can get americans to reinterpret what happened on that day. for democrats we have to live in the great big center where most americans are and that great big center means just delivering on cost of gas, groceries, health care, bring down those costs, make our kids safe in their schools, make us strong in the world, help ukraine stay in the fight. show we're competent and contrast it with their chaos.

>> congressman, you have spent a lot of time using your bully pulpit to talk about the need for gun safety. your thoughts on the tragedy this week and the very polarized response and reaction to it. >> i just got out of a judiciary committee hearing, nicolle, where the republicans ironically called in the fbi for nonsubpoenaed compliance, the committee run by jim jordan, into nonsubpoena compliance. most importantly this was the first hearing since nashville and every republican on that committee when they go home this weekend and face their voters, many will ask them on the only committee that has jurisdiction over gun safety and they're going to tell them we sided with donald trump over your kids.

what's so maddening about that answer, everything we do in our daily lives, but everything we do focuses around protecting kids, right, so if you have little kids they can't open the cabinets, they can't go up the stairs, you keep any bleach or laundry detergent or tide pods away from them. everything we do is designed to protect them because they're the most precious people in our community, the most innocent people in our community, except protect them from the one thing that's killing them more than anything else and that's gun violence and that's what so maddening. republican allies here we could protect the children from what's killing them the most. you as a republican by your gegs in protecting them you can either side with the kids and protect them or we're going to

say you're siding with the killers because there's really no other way to describe who's benefiting from your absolute inaction. >> if you've got 85% of the public seeing this the way you see this, it's not a persuasion operation anymore, you got the country, you've got all the fringeiest on abortion it's the same conversation, you brought the country along. how do you go the last mile and affect change with legislation? >> there's an organization called 97% to focus on entirely on gun owners. they've been polling gun owners and what they've found is that gun-owning republicans at nearly a rate of 75% gun-owning republicans support background checks. almost 70% support red flag laws. again, the center of this country knows what it takes. so it's matter of getting the

majority in the house to pass background checks and getting a filibuster reform in the senate to make sure our kids are safe. gun-owning republicans know what the answer is. we're being governed by kevin mccarthy and the extremes. >> congressman swalwell thank you for joining us. onwe'll be right back. across town or across the country. pods, your personal moving and storage team. you need to deliver new apps fast using the services you want in the clouds of your choice. with flexible multi-cloud services that enable digital innovation and enterprise control, vmware helps you innovate and grow.

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we gather here today not simply as elected officials and members of congress but more importantly as moms, as parents, as americans, demanding that house republicans put people over politics and put kids over guns. >> the level of gun violence in this country is unacceptable. it's un-american. >> that was democratic leader hakeem jeffries on the steps of the capitol today. calling on republicans to do something more than nothing following the horrific shooting in nashville, tennessee, just days ago. house democrats on the you dishry committee went a step further demanding that speaker kevin mccarthy scheduled a vote

on the assault weapons ban put on the table by president joe biden. one similar to the one he held pass in 1994 as senator. first lady dr. jill biden will be attending a vigil tonight for the lives lost on monday. eddie glaud from princeton university, miles taylor is still with us. miles, i wanted to pick up on the last thing that congressman swalwell said. the consensus in america, about doing more than nothing to deal with our gun violence epidemic, is broad. they're now focused almost exclusively on gun owners, republican gun owners, the democrats, the independents, you've got gun owners by and large are looking at republican house holds that own guns. talk about how careless the

politics of being -- i'm not putting words in any of their mouths -- this is what they had to say to stop another uvalde. they said, quote, probably nothing. talk about the politics of that as a stated public position for the republican party in 2023. >> i think it's probably the biggest freudian slip for them to admit that. you've got republican legislators who are more concerned about keeping teenagers from eating tide pods than keeping guns out of the hands of people. we have a mass shooting crisis in america. a national security crisis. you know this as well from republican politics as i do, they used to tell us to pivot and not talk about guns.

when i was working with republican leadership on capitol hill when there was a mass shooting the talking points would be to pivot to the words mental health crisis or school safety. don't talk about guns. you can't have this conversation without talking about guns. you're not trying to appeal the second amendment. because as eric noted the majority of americans, including lawful gun owners and supporters of the second amendment, believe there are commonsense solutions to this problem. to your question, nicolle, why don't those commonsense solutions get implemented? i have two words for you -- closed primaries. it doesn't happen because of closed primaries and our broken system. i mean that these republicans that i've worked with for years who won't even say the word "guns" when talking about this problem fear getting a primary challenger in their election. in closed primaries they have to

pander to the 20%, they have to pander to the 20% of most ideological voters in order to win their races. and that means they're going to just focus on the extremes and as long as we have closed primaries in this country, and those members of congress are catering to the extremes they're not going to take action on these issues. organizations like the nra having a say on this issue. >> the reality is, as we have this conversation again today, is that the gop has become so extreme they don't even have the 20% on abortion, bans eliminate exceptions, background checks is an 86%.

bump stocks is over 90. that analysis is correct, but the party is careening so far to the fringe they don't even have their 20% behind the stupid things they're doing. >> absolutely, yet they have the country by its throat. i was reminded of a quotation from james baldwin, thinking about political debate it feels like a mon trous song. this is the tradition of political theater around the question. it seems to me we have to generate a dramatic -- if this is the traditional theater, hear the same responses that 86% we'll have to do something in order to move the needle on this. maybe we have to engage in a general strike around assault bans. maybe students are going to have to walk out. that 86% we can't be beholden to

this radical fringe. we have to do something. if we don't we're going to be complicit in allowing this to happen again. >> a story i want to ask you both, centers around republicans making it harder for college students to vote. how most of them are failing. aig

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as republicans agitate more and more over how young people are voting in elections, a group that votes predominantly for democratic candidates. party officials across red states have tried to enabout new laws to prevent college students from voting or make it very difficult to do so. "the new york times" on what they say is a wave of recent setbacks in gop's efforts to make it harder to vote on college campuses. attempts in new hampshire and virginia for example to cornered off out of state students from voting have failed. even in texas, where 2019 legislation shuttered early voting sites on college campuses a new proposal would eliminate all college polling places seems to have an uncertain future. eddie, what's amazing is how far the goalposts have shifted. we're not trying to do this.

now they're strike to do it and they're sharing where they're working and where they're failing. when you look at the results of midterms and places where college students were activated by campaigns that engaged them, across michigan and other places, this really is a threat politically to republicans. >> right, and it also reveals that these folks aren't really committed to democracy in any substantiative way. it seems to be a dumb way in the sense of they're not cultivating young people to join their ranks they're trying to marginalize them from the political process. just another indication that these folk are ill liberal in every way that we can imagine. we need to call it for what it is. >> it's consistent, miles, voters suppression is the brand

of today's gop, they want to make it harder for young people to vote, harder for communities of color to vote. it's all out in the open. i wonder what you think to eddie's point about a party at odds with democracy, again, what you think the potential political cost is for that? >> it's enormous, nicolle. i think eddie's right on hitting on this notion that you shouldn't piss off the young people. bad for the gop politically, a party that spent the past decade or two trying to talk about bigger a tent party but at the same time is trying to literally shut the door and the ballot on the young people that could help that party get a much needed reset. it's rally dangerous from a civics standpoint and i think deeply hypocrite call for the republican party i was once a

part of, we spent years trying to prevent foreign adversaries from meddling in our lechs and making it harder for people to vote and now here's the republican party doing the job for them. i mean, our adversaries would love this sort of activity. the idea that certain segments of the population could be actively disenfranchised and they're doing in real time all across the country republican legislators are advancing this maga agenda to make it harder to vote. even though they have had setbacks in some places i still worry the trend lines are there that today's republican party the core base of it still wants to rewrite the rules in their favor. >> miles, you look you're on a hollywood set. what are we looking at behind you? >> this is the beautiful zion national park, i would encourage

anyone who wants a digital detox to come here and anger fiancee you'll do cable news. >> i'm happy you have a signal. happy you're far away from devices. i'm happy to see both of you. eddie and miles, thanks so much for spending time with us today. up next for us, dramatic evidence just made available to the public for the very first time today in the dominion voting systems and fox news. vot. and enterprise control, vmware helps you innovate and grow. we must finally hold social media companies accountable. it's time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop big tech from collecting personal data on our kids and teenagers online. ban targeted advertising to children. the new chase ink business premier card

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our house is on fire. and we are stomping ants in the driveway. we're not really focused on the arsonists who are right around us and police just identified a number of them. crowdsources is going to hang heroes on the wall. this is our mission. we're going to hang egos on the wall. keep identify our best leaders to get in a room and think through what can we do to regain our credibility and our culture with education, arts and entertainment, with media, policy and politics as well and others. >> hi, again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. we're not focused on the arsonists around us, those were the words spoken by ginni thomas, the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas.

brand-new investigative reporting in the washington post finds the little known group collected nearly $600,000, wow, $600,000 in anonymous donations over the last three years. the previously unreported donations to the fledgingly group were channelled through a right-wing think tank in washington that served as a funding conduit until last year. according to documents and interviews. the arrangement known as a fiscal sponsorship shielded from public view details about crowdsourcers activities, information it would have had to disclose publicly if it operated as a separate nonprofit organization according to experts. yet another shocking display of audacity by the spouse of a

sitting supreme court justice that raises brand-new questions about ethics and potential conflicts of interest. thomas' activism has set her apart from other spouses of supreme court justices. she has aligned with groups that have interests before the court and dedicated herself to causes that involve some of the most polarizing issues in the country. ginni thomas' involvement in the attempted coup by the twice-impeached ex-president to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost. ginni thomas not only texted mark meadows on ways to overturn joe biden's victory but press republican state legislators to choose their own slate of electors. from the washington post, when he text from mark meadows first became public. reveal an extraordinary pipeline

by ginni thomas and donald trump's top aide in a period when trump and his allies were vowing to go to the supreme court in an effort to negate if election results. on november 10th after news organizations had projected joe biden the winner based on state vote totals, ginni thomas wrote to meadows, quote, help this great president. stand firm, mark. three exclamation points. you're the leader. with him who's standing for america's constitutional goffer nance at the precipice. everyone knows that joe biden is attempting the biggest heist. this is where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. brian fallon is back, kimberly atkins-storrs is here.

kim and rick are msnbc contributors. brian, not for nothing, while the supreme court acts like it doesn't care about the public into them anymore, this is why they don't trust the public ips constitution. >> yes, nicolle. research that my group has done we noticed part of what is animating this downward shift in the opinion of the court is not just highly unpopular substantiative rules that are coming out of the court. they're pretty unpopular those rulings. also this idea is that the supreme court is behaving unethically. there's a feeling is not only reaching decisions that are questionable it's also reaching them through ill lis it means. majority that the republicans

have on the majority and the way it's going about its business of hearing cases is riddled with ethical complexes. this latest story that's divulged new information about the degree of ginni thomas' activities will just further that narrative in the public's mind. >> brian, the piece about funding is so stunning to me. because, you know, over here on earth 1 you would do the opposite, right, if there were a nonprofit that involved the spouse of a supreme court justice you would take the path that would bring about more disclosure, more transparency, she does the opposite, she basically buries and hides the funding through a work-around that may or may not be legal. certainly not ethical or transparent. what do you make of the demented approach toward ethics and

transparency. >> well, you know, i think nicolle, there could be a version of this situation with ginni thomas she was lobbying on behalf of causes that would rankle groups like mine but might not rise to the level of public attention that her actual activities are provoking. let's say for instance that she was going around making a living arguing on behalf of corporate interests that wanted to loosen regulations on businesses, i think that would pose an ethical compromise for clarence thomas. probably would stun washington to the degree that her activities here do, that's because she's a fringe figure, nicolle, the people that she brought together for this nonprofit that received $600,000 was a rogue gallery's of people

that didn't belong in washington, d.c. the head of project ver tas has been prosecuted for the shady activities. ginni thomas is in league with all of them. this should be shocking and appalling on both sides of the aisle. it should be 100% uncontroversial at this point to impose a mandatory code of ethics on the supreme court so that clarence thomas has to account for his wife's activities. >> not for nothing, cleat ya mitchell's cameo in donald trump's call with brad

rafensberger. >> how many ballots -- >> it's only two answers, dishonesty or imcompetence. look, there's no way. there's no way. there's no way these things could have been -- you have all of these different people that voted but they don't live in georgia anymore. >> they had a date when they moved from georgia, they registered to vote out of state. >> then they came back in and they voted. that was a large number, though. it was in the 20s. >> again it's important to always remind our viewers this is not an issue of democrats and republicans. brad rafensberger disputed those facts. >> right, and the key point here is that donald trump during this time himself was saying that he

needed the supreme court in order to help him win. with this effort to subvert the results of the election. that he was happen that he had three nominees on the court at that time and one of the challenges that made it to the supreme court, justice thomas did sit in on, so this is really clear to say this isn't just about spouses of supreme court justices being able to support whatever candidate they want or engage in political activity, that they can do it's about disclosing it and having a consequence for that justice that might say, you can't participate given the conflict of interest there, that's what needs to be done in order to protect democracy here in this case, donald trump still lost at the supreme court, the court was not willing to aid him in the endeavor. ginni thomas has been involved in cases going before the

supreme court on everything from guns to obamacare. and so this is something that has been going on for years. it just reached a really shocking apex with her involvement in the efforts to overturn the election results. >> you know, rick, she's not just she's involved in republican parties she sits at the farthest fringes to the right until trump wasn't considered acceptable to normal republicans, trump moved the fringe into the mainstream, but ginni thomas' causes and efforts have always been outside the mainstream, what do you think the sort of drag is, when you look at historical low numbers for the supreme court. this is gallup's numbers since they've been polling about the supreme court. 58% of americans disapprove of the u.s. supreme court. >> you know, we're only

interested in ginni thomas because she's married to the supreme court justice otherwise she would just be this fringe character as you said that people would either ignore or be horrified to. what it points to, the supreme court has no ethics rule. it's not transparent in any way. these are the head of the third branch of government who judge themselves. who make their own decisions about recusing themselves. there's no written ethics guidelines for the supreme court. for unelected lifetime judges. i think the american public needs to know that. she plays a useful role in realizing hi can do whatever he wants. i think this is a huge issue. it goes to this issue that we've been talking about for the last

five, six years, these norms that aren't laws. a norm for the supreme court that these guys -- observe ethics rules they need to have rules. >> people like senators calling for legislation ethics rules for years. why do you think that's never happened? >> nobody likes to have other people police them. the supreme court are the head of the third branch of government. they're like gods and they don't want to have these things tying them down. they need to. they need to have term limits, too, if you ask me. >> we often talk about the loss of faith the public has in the supreme court as an institution, but there are a lot of policy pieces that are in play pulling them down, one is guns. a case that end up before the court in the near term. this is from linda greenhouse

writing in "the new york times" on march 17th the biden administrations asked the justices to overturn an appeals court decision that violated a federal law that had prohibited gun ownership subject to restraining orders from domestic violence. there are more 1 million acts of domestic violence in the united states every year and the presence of a gun in the house of a domestic abuser increases the risk of homicide sixfold. will that matter to the supreme court? do facts still matter at all? the most urgent question this case presents not only to the court but to the country especially to women who are by and large the victims of domestic violence. brian. >> yeah, well, if you go back to the heller decision, the late antonin scalia in that case said there's a fundamental right to

bear arms in the home for self-defense. but commonsense restrictions on that right from municipalities and states to pass statutes for their skate. the current supreme court don't believe in that. they're highly interested in drastically and dramatically expanding that second amendment well beyond any reasonable interpretation of it. we're poise to see the logical extrapolation of that idea with this case that's arising out of the 5th circuit. the supreme court could presumably side with domestic abusers to continue to have a gun. that will further shock the conscience of the country but it goes to show how much these justices act with impunity when it comes to ethics and with respect to far-reaching nature of the decisions.

>> if you take their word for it it already has. >> they give speeches all the time, moaning, complaining about the public not liking them. part of the reason is because they're not bound by the same ethics. 73% of americans disagree with the decision they issued in with dobbs. i think until you have a consequence of a decision like this, arming domestic abusers they haven't become to see how the public recoil at this decision, where do you think we are in terms of the public's loss of the supreme court. >> i don't anticipate getting any better nicolle. not just the supreme court seems to be taking facts into consideration about how the impact of gun violence for example on our country, it's

that they're not being consistent when it comes to the law, that's why dobbs was so -- one of the many ways dobbs was so offensive, it completely disregarded the idea of the precedent is set you have to have an extraordinary change in circumstances or facts in order to overturn it. they can't just overturn it because they don't like it. in heller case about the right to bear arms if the home for self-protection. they struck down laws that made people have to show that they needed it for self-protection. they just threw out their own justification, no reason to believe they would pick up another justification in order to extend that law further. it's hard to sigh where the guardrails are constitutionally and that would make anyone trust the supreme court less. unless they change the way they're doing things i don't see

the trust of the people returning. >> even people who can't cite the cases understand when you point out something, how radical is it? it's so radical. how radical is dobbs? if you look at roe and casey, roe overturned by six republican appointed justices. the politicalization of the court is evident. >> as kim said, it threw a bomb into law about the second amendment and clarence thomas said you have to cite history in text and tradition, that caused these crazy gun laws where judges are like, banning guns in airports is unconstitutionally because there were no laws about

that in the 18th and 19th. when there were no airports. the problem that comes home to roost is the problem of originalism. the idea that we have to cite historical precedent all the time. it's foolish in the sense that, you know, people citing things that didn't happen in the 19th century, also a clear wrong reading of the second amendment. you're an originalist, the first four words of the second amendment. a well regulated myly sha. to have a state militia. not to have ar-15s in living room. it's clear misreading of it. it's a fraud perpetrated on the

american people. >> there's an untouchable nature that ties together these questions about no ethics and having to self-govern from these decisions. >> well, because the second amendment is like a religious principle for people, the only amendment people think is not qualified in any way. every other amendment is qualified including the second amendment. banning assault weapons, nothing in the 18th or 19th century about assault weapons. >> brian, thank you for joining us. kim and rick, stick around. when we come back, newly obtained evidence in the dominion voting systems' defamation case against fox news, what a top fox executive said about telling the truth about the 2020 election was quote bad for business. we'll tell you all about that.

we'll show you those e-mails after a quick break plus the pentagon is calling it a threat to national security. a maga republican senator blocking the promotion of military officials. what defense secretary lloyd austin is doing about it later in the hour. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere. so people t. surprise. [ laughs ] [ horn honks, muffled talking ] -can't hear you, jerry. -sorry. uh, yeah, can we get a system where when someone's bike is in the shop, then we could borrow someone else's? -no! -no! or you can get a quote with america's number-one motorcycle insurer and maybe save some money while you're at it. all in favor of that. [ horn honking ] there's a lot of buttons and knobs in here. with powerful, easy-to-use tools power e*trade makes complex trading easier react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders

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afternoon. dominion voting systems along with the network its currently suing, fox news, both sides made final preparatios ahead of that $1.6 billion trial that could start jury selection in just two weeks. today's primary order of business was setting up the chess pieces. and not just that, there's more new news from the courtroom today. mere hours ago made public for the very first time. nbc news got its hands on a number of slides used in pre-trial hearings. what fox's top executives were saying and writing to one another about election lies even after the network's so called brain room conducted a fact check. weeks after the brain room found

the claims were false. wrote to a colleague in primetime, saying, quote, this has to end now. this is bad business. clearly a lack of understanding what's happening in these shows. the audience is furious and we're just feeding them material. bad for business. end quote. what was bad was the facts. joining our conversation law professor at the george washington university law school and constitutional law expert catherine ross. kim and rick are still with us. let me share with our viewers some of these slides because i think hearing fox news executives in their own words is the most powerful window into the case that dominion may have against them. this an e-mail from suzanne scott following the fact checks from fox's own brain room, like their editorial hub for actual

facts and information. quote, i can't keep defending these reporters who don't understand our viewers and how to handle stories. the audience feels like we crapped on them and we have damaged their trust in us. we lost 25,000 subs from fox nation. we can fix this. we can't smirk at our viewers any longer. rick, this is a clear orientation around a single axis. >> yes the brain room, facts are for smart people. what's been so disheartening about it having been in the news business my whole life, it's a business. i have never seen people make decisions about coverage based on business, based on profits, based on ratings. in the news business people care about news. what we've seen from tucker carlson to the ceo all of these

decisions are based on pure numbers and revenue and probably overseen by the wizard of oz himself, rupert murdoch, i still don't understand why fox hasn't tried to settle this. it's going to be hugely embarrassing for them to be in court. they'll have carlson talking and having to testify to this. >> it seems like all of the acknowledgment in their internal communications that the facts were indeed the facts they just quote pissed off the viewers, seemed to settle any questions about the intent to lie, they all knew the truth was, that biden won. rupert said there were zero questions after fox's own decision desk called the election for joe biden. >> absolutely right, nicolle. but it's also important to remember that dominion doesn't have to show any intent.

what they have to show in a defamation case is reckless disregard for the truth and if this isn't at a minimum reckless and a clear disregard knowing in fact they are lying and they are presenting guests as alleging facts, their guests are lying, if this doesn't meet that standard then there's no defamation in american law. this is the most extreme case we've ever seen. >> to your point, they used those words. let me read one more slide. the highlights are in the e-mail from when they released. an e-mail from tucker carlson to sydney powell. quote, from tucker, you keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software, i hope you'll prove that very soon.

you've convinced them that trump will win, if you don't have conclusive evidence at that scale it's a cruel thing to say. he keeps saying what she's doing is cruel and reckless. i want to understand why that's been release tdz and why that single communication for tucker to powell is part of the legal case. does it matter that he uses that word. >> absolutely. the standard we have pub lig figure and fox news is being treated as a public figure as well as the broadcasters named in the suit, the standard is something called actual malice, that's not what we mean in english when we say actual

malice, it's legal standard that provides a level of first amendment protection for news organizations when they're talking about important public matters and public figures and actual malice means either they knew or they proceeded with reckless disregard for the truth. so when tucker says about a guest who's -- he's now saying, oh, i was just letting her talk and now we see not only did he know that she was lying which we saw in the other e-mails but he's telling her you are being reckless in the speech that we are facilitating on my show. i think that's very legally significant. >> kim, let me read one more of these brand-new slides to you. this is from november 21st, 2020, e-mail, again from tucker carlson. to a different trump lawyer, jenna ellison.

tucker writes this, quote, circumstantial won't work with this story, if there's no one inside the company willing to talk or internal dominion voting systems couples this seems reckless to me. you know there isn't. tucker acknowledging that he knows and that trump's lawyers know that there's no ed that dominion switched any votes. he continues to showcase and platform the lies. >> yes, absolutely. when you are a news organization and you keep publishing this knowing that it's false, they can still be liable for defamation. why this hasn't settled given how clear the evidence is of defamation, dominion want to go

to trial. they want this to be as public as possible to see exactly what fox news did. there were settlements with other news organizations, they had to read on air what they said was false. this is so shocking. i think if i were dominion's attorney i would advise against settling, too. >> okay, let me read one more. we have to go to break. before these two e-mails are sent by tucker carlson. the first one was sent by carlson to powell on november 16th. back on november 13th, fox's brain room, their editorial hub, an employee there circulated fact checks from dominion. something that dominion points to, there were 2300 communications from dominion to

fox news with the accurate information. even if the first lie was broadcast 2300 attempts were made to inject or inform fox news of the facts. here's what it sent from a fox news employee. around the company. circulated at fox news. debunking these claims about dominion. quote, the facts there's no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020. sent by fox news' fact-checking editorial hub to the fox news shows. >> you've seen in the e-mails and the debriefing from the witness testimony tucker carlson from on down saying i didn't believe for one second that the election had been stolen or that there was any fraud. what these e-mails show is awareness they were lying, which is the actual malice standard. knowing you're telling lies. that seems evident.

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we're back with catherine ross, rick, we're pouring through newly released original content, original e-mails from inside fox news' most senior executives and anchors about what was going on in produced in this $1.6 billion lawsuit from dominion. let me read one more to you.

this is every anchor's nightmare. this is from november 20th, 2022, an e-mail from jeannine pirro executive to a pretaped monologue. quote, the brain room is going through this now. jeanine dictated it to tom. it's yet another example of why this woman should never be on live television. i think i said the wrong year. i believe this was from november 20th, 2020. not 2022. that's stunning thing for anyone's executive producer to say about the anchor, that it's another example of why this woman should not be on live television. >> it really hammers home just how clear-cut this case is.

i think it's important for the american people to understand that while generally speaking i would be for the broadest protections for a news organization possible they're not limitless and this goes far beyond the limits in understanding why defamation cases are important, they can be just as important to upholding democracy as other rules, this is a civil case. >> let me read one more. it maligns all of the people who peddled the lies. kevin mccarthy is part of this document. these are from november 7th 2020 pre-interview with kevin mccarthy. you believe biden won free? mccarthy said according to notes, a few issues i don't believe there's math cheat. i haven't seen any proof so far of ballot fraud. someone's public posture was to

allow donald trump to cry it out. in the earliest days after the election. they knew there wasn't fraud. >> he spoke on the house floor saying there was no fraud that biden was legitimately elected and then turned. i want to go to kim's point, a lot of people or some people in the progressive media or mainstream, a loss for fox would be a loss for all media. i completely disagree with that and i think kim does, too. i mean, you don't want to protect a media organization that knowingly lies, that does the exact opposite that journalism is supposed to do in a democracy. they need to be punished. the trial itself will be an educational experience for americans in what journalistic should not do. >> can you give us some context for understanding these e-mails

in their entirety, what is dominion sort of establishing in this bucket of evidence? >> yes, it's starting before the e-mails the fact that dominion, thousands of times, told fox you are not telling the truth and showed them what the truth was and provided information, thousands of times and fox continued to allow its stars to go ahead with these lies is absolutely astounding. now we have evidence as rick said earlier they didn't just have actual malice in the sense of reckless disregard, they knowingly lied and they ignored they had lied. and as you began with earlier in the show, they did it only for profit and that goes to rick's point, that this is not -- if

dominion succeeds and i think they will, every indication is that they will, then they will not damage the news they will safeguard our news sources. the whole purpose of defamation law is to ensure that we have meaningful realistic, truthful, factual discussions about politics and public policy. and so while we want the news media and real opinion writers who based their opinions on facts rather than lies to have the first amendment coverage they need so we can have robust discussion and meaningful disagreements that doesn't mean that we want to welcome a free for all where people who call themselves news media get to just lie all the time every time

they open their mouths. and it's very interesting to me that in an earlier e-mail tucker carlson laid out his defense, we're not news people we're entertainers. >> the internal disdain for the brain room, the fact room, these are their own resources, the only thing that matches it is their disdain for it. thank you for helping us to put it all in context. kim and rick stick around. when we come back the latest stunt by a maga republican senate is causing the head of the pentagon to sound the alarm over national security. don't go anywhere. go anywhere.

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recommendations for promotions actually creates a ripple effect through the force that makes us far less ready than we need to me. >> impacts readiness that was the defense secretary lloyd austin during a senate hearing yesterday urging the republican senator to stop holding up military promotions for that reason. senator tommy tuberville of alabama is at the center of issue. blocking 150 promotions for generals and officers over the defense's policy permitting service members to travel to receive health services, specifically abortion health care. joining our coverage someone who has warned about this is amy mcgrath, the co-founder of

operation liberty, a plan to protect troops and veterans no you that roe v. wade has been overturned. we have in the form of testimony from lloyd austin confirmation that is now happening. >> yeah, and senator tuberville is just putting our national security at risk to further his radical right-wing agenda and here's the thing, senator tuberville is not a veteran. he's a former football coach. the folks in the pentagon have worn the uniform, defended this country. this is their life. they don't tell football coaches how to he should be telling secretary of defense how to do his job. but we did see this coming. that's why i started operation liberty. we knew that the republicans with the repeal of roe vs. wade, it would have repercussions for

military women. we're a unique group where we don't get a choice to what bases we get assigned to. 20% of our military force are women, and, you know, to hold up these positions in order to protest a d.o.d. policy that's simply there to protect military women it's absolutely absurd. and i just want to make one really important point, too -- the military's policy is not radical left. it allows women in the military to get abortion health care in the event they are raped or in the case where there's a risk to the life of the mother, and that's it. so there's nothing new here. >> amy, i don't want to skim past this, and i just want to you elaborate on something i

understand from my time in government and from some reporting on this era. folks like secretary austin and general millie do not have any part of their dna that welcomes participation in the incredibly polarizing and distasteful states largely manufactured by tuberville and tucker carlson who seem to relish dragging the military. but your point is spot on. the military is not to the left. they're frankly to the center or right of where public sentiment is on this. and the republicans in a lot of red states are pushing to eliminate exception for life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest, and those policies draw the objections of 93% and 87% of americans respectively. so talk about how difficult it is so navigate these extreme

policies for the military. >> you know, when i mentioned there was nothing new here, remember, prior to the repeal of roe vs. wade, if you were a woman in the military and you were raped or pregnant and had a pregnancy that, you know, where your life was at risk, the military would take care of you if you were overseas, if you were based in a country that did not allow or didn't have this care, the military would fly you to a place where you could get the care. we now have a time in our country where we have southern states that deny this care to women, that have banned it. so what the military is doing is just allowing women who are stationed in these bases to move -- not to move, but to go to states where they can have this health care and then return. and think about how radical senator tuberville is -- he wants to stop that from happening. i mean, it's really absurd. it's a slap in the face to every woman who has served in our

military, to every woman who is currently serving. they wear the uniform, put their lives on the line to protect and defend this country, to defend the right of senator tuberville, and this is how they're repaid. i mean, it is absurd. >> and amy, it sounds like what the testimony of secretary austin is is it is now at this point we have this conversation today that it is impact readiness. that used to be a circuit breaker. that used to make the asinine politic and antics in our politics stop. doing it will? >> my hope is senator tuberville's republican colleagues will get to him and tell him, hey, enough is enough. you know, this has direct effects on our military readiness, because we have leadership positions that are not filled in key places like in the pacific where we have an aggressive china that we have to

deter, in places like the middle east where we have iran that we need to deter. and as the secretary of defense has said, it has ripple effects. when you're in the military, you are -- you have to go where the military tells you to go, and your family has to do that as well. so when these positions aren't filled, you know, your whole family is stopped. you may be stopped from starting your kids in school. you might -- it just -- it's terrible. it's a terrible precedent to send, purely for political reasons, and my hope is that his fellow republican colleagues who say that they are pronational security and for the military will come and tell him, hey, senator, football coach, this isn't something you should be doing. >> kim, if the shoe were on the other foot and democrats were doing something that the defense secretary testified under oath

impacted readiness, the politics would be cataclysmic and i wonder what you think sort of the appropriate rebuke is for people like senator tuberville. >> i think that we have been saying it. once it affects readiness that should be the kill switch, but we've seen with the republican party, particularly elements that include senator tuberville, that what was the norm is no long for norm. we used to say that -- republicans used to say they were the party of law enforcement. well, that was until january 6th and we see them still explaining away the horrific attacks on law enforcement that day. republicans used to be the party that supported the military, but that is unless not supporting them furthers what they see as their political goals. so i think just the hypocrisy here is screaming volumes. >> staggering. amy mcgrath, thank you for being part of our coverage. you did warn this would happen, and we are on the record bringing people back to that

moment. kim atkins and rick single thank you for being part of our coverage. we have to sneak in a break, but we'll be right back. neak in a bt we'll be right back. between stains and odors, it can handle double trouble. for the #1 stain fighter and odor remover, it's got to be tide.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we are grateful. beet with army earl starts right now. >> welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. we begin with fox news facing new heat in the billion dollar case over lies and conspiracy theories. the chief, rupert murdoch and top anchors are facing legal demands to go do something you really rarely see in modern media, which is