>> the. >> capitol to chants of hang mike pence. all my republican colleagues were here when a. >> capitol police officer. >> burst through that door to rush. >> us to safety before. >> the mob. attacked us, and republicans. >> all of a sudden. claim that. >> law and order is a priority, and we have to rush. through nominees. and yet. they stand. >> by a president who just threw. >> law and. >> order out. >> the window. by pardoning not. some of the rioters, but all of them. political violence in. >> this country. >> just became mainstream. it is now. >> a fact. >> of life in america. if you commit. >> an act of horrific. >> violence in the name of the president of. >> the united. >> states, that president will make sure that. >> you get away. >> with it. that is fundamentally. >> un-american. >> and it makes this country less safe.

>> that was senator chris murphy on the senate floor. a little bit of breaking news for you before we hand it over to nicole stewart rhodes, the head of the oath keepers, was just spotted on capitol hill. i'm sure we're going to get that video up for you in just a moment. that's going to do it for me today. deadline. white house starts right now. >> hi there everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. >> i know i. >> said buckle. >> up on monday, but. >> i'm going. >> to. >> maybe invoke the airbags today because. >> we have brand new reporting. >> on what the new york times. >> describes as the, quote, roadmap for retribution. it's an executive. >> order cloaked in orwellian. >> double speak that could lay the. >> groundwork for. >> prosecutions of biden administration. >> officials and. >> trump's political. >> critics. >> the times reports. >> this of the. >> order, titled ending. >> the weaponization of the federal. >> government, quote, trump's new executive. >> order directs. >> the attorney. >> general and the. >> director of. >> national intelligence. >> to investigate.

>> the previous. administration's actions, with the aim of unearthing. >> political bias. >> in the. >> agencies they oversee. >> as well as in. >> others like the. >> securities and exchange. >> commission and the federal trade commission. >> they will then report back to the white house, quote, with recommendations. for appropriate remedial actions. >> now, what. this amounts to. >> is an attempt to put trump's words. to paper in action. >> but those are cases. it's called weaponization never happened in this country. they weaponized the justice department. i think the people know it's a political persecution. it's a political hoax. they've weaponized the justice department. they've weaponized the fbi. >> that is. >> just a. >> minuscule fraction. >> of the. >> times that donald trump has alleged that. >> the government was weaponized against him. >> he said. >> it. >> over and over and over and. >> over again. without ever presenting a single scrap of evidence. in light of all that, the outcome. >> of the search.

>> for political. >> bias appears. >> to be preordained by donald trump. and this executive. >> order is just part of a series. >> of actions intended to punish critics, to silence them, and to embolden and empower his allies. more from the times reporting quote, they included a highly unusual, separate order that stripped the security clearances of dozens of former intelligence officials whom trump has viewed as his political enemies. another order gave the white house authority to grant immediate top secret security clearance to any official for up to six months, circumventing the traditional background process managed by the fbi and the intelligence community. it also includes stripping secret service protection for john bolton. he's trump's former national security adviser turned fervent critic. bolton has been the target of death threats from iran. in a statement, bolton said this quote, i am disappointed but not surprised that trump has made this decision. notwithstanding my criticisms of president biden's

national security policies, he nonetheless made. >> the. >> decision to once again extend secret service protection to me in 2021, the justice department filed criminal charges against an iranian revolutionary guard official in 2022 for attempting to hire a hitman to target me. that threat remains today, as also demonstrated by the recent arrest of someone trying to arrange for trump's own assassination. the american people can judge for themselves which president made the right call. that's just one of the many ways that we know about that team. trump plans to strike at their critics. new york times reports this, quote, even where the internal inquiries ordered by trump do not lead to investigations or prosecutions, they could yield information that he could use to publicly criticize or harass federal workers or officials he perceives as enemies, a practice he employed regularly during his first term and appears to be continuing. the new york times describes the building blocks of

the retribution campaign as, quote, payback dressed up in the language of victimhood, and no single maga fellow traveler exemplifies that better than this new at this moment, than the newly pardoned leader of the proud boys, enrique tarrio. listen to him. >> we went through hell. and i'm going to tell you it was worth it. because what we stood for and what those guys stood for was what we've been fighting for and what we saw yesterday on the inauguration stage. we need people like pam bondi, kash patel and the rest of trump's cabinet to. >> right all these wrongs. >> well, now it's our turn. now it's our turn. i'm happy that the president is focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but i will tell you that i'm not going to play by those rules. the people who did this, they need to feel the heat. they need to be put behind

bars, and they need to be prosecuted. >> donald trump laying the groundwork to turn the executive branch into a personal political weapon is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends, new york times washington investigative correspondent mark mazzetti is here. one of the reporters bylined on that reporting. we read from also joining us, assistant attorney general for national security at the justice department, now, an msnbc legal analyst, mary mccord, is here. she's the co-host of the podcast main justice, along with andrew weissman, a former top official at the department of justice, also an msnbc legal analyst. mark mazzetti, the reporting that you and your colleague mike schmidt have in the paper today is, i guess john bolton captures it, right? disturbing but not surprising or harrowing, but not a shock. talk about what it means that the sort of policy direction that has now been greenlit and unearthed for the

department of justice. >> well, i think one of the things that you're. >> seeing from these executive orders. >> is that this. >> is a. >> much more. >> carefully thought out plan to go. after potential enemies than. >> was carried out in the first. >> trump term. >> as you. >> recall. >> there were these haphazard. >> efforts. trump would tweet about the fbi. >> efforts by, you know, congressman. >> devin. >> nunes to. >> investigate so-called political. >> bias eventually. >> leading up to the durham investigation, which. >> didn't conclude. >> on president trump's political timetable. >> this time. >> around, from day one from the oval office, these executive orders show a. >> plan not only. to sort of root out. >> what they. >> see as. >> bias, but. >> also to. >> send a message and also. >> to test. >> the loyalty of. >> people in the intelligence agencies. >> in the justice department. and so these things are. >> all kind of. >> a piece. and it shows that they've thought.

>> this out for some. >> time and. >> plan to. >> act on it. >> mark, what is the inclusion of the dni and the edict that shi investigate her agency for bias? what is that about? what is that rooted in? what is trump's perceived grievance there? >> well, a lot of this goes back really to the very beginning, right? this view that not only. >> in the justice department. >> but also in the intelligence agencies. there's this so-called. >> deep state of anti-trump sentiment that is trying. >> to undermine his agenda. >> right, that this. >> exists in the. >> cia. in other intelligence agencies. and this needs to be rooted out. i should add, of course, that this also is perceived to exist at the national security council. you recall. >> in the first. >> term, the nsc detailees from the cia. >> the pentagon. >> etc. >> were kind of seen as the locus of anti-trump support. and many of the key witnesses, witnesses of the first

impeachment about ukraine. right. so you see, a lot of. >> the nsc. >> allies today getting. sent home. and so the executive order monday night about the security clearances, which was basically we can give anyone a clearance who we want in part, is a way to get what. they see as their own people into the white house in the nsc and rooting out. >> the. >> career people, because they're seen as many of them are seen as disloyal. so these are all part of a plan, and it's all of a piece. >> i mean, mary, there were no enemies of donald trump's at the department of justice or the fbi or the cia. there were people who were loyal to u.s. national security objectives, to congressionally approved military aid for u.s. allies, to the facts and the truth. and i wonder what it means that the order adopts the language of politicization in such an

inverted manner. well, i mean, it's not surprising, given everything that. >> donald trump. >> said during the excuse me. during the campaign, but it is a little bit ironic that sort of the title is. about ending weaponization, and the mechanism for. apparently ending it is to actually engage in weaponization of the department of justice, or at least that seems. >> to be the. >> intent here. to your question about. >> the career men. >> and women of the department of justice and of our intelligence community. these are mission oriented people who, like. >> you said, their. >> allegiance is to the constitution, rule of law. protecting national security. >> and they are. >> very apolitical. i mean, i've worked with law enforcement, prosecutors, national security officials, intelligence community for decades within the department of. >> justice. and rarely did i have any idea. >> what political. >> party my colleagues. >> even you know, were members

of. >> it just was not. something discussed. >> many of us who've been there for a long, long. time had worked under republican administrations, democratic administrations. and it didn't change the mission, right. the mission was to protect national security, and to do so in a way that protects also constitutional rights that are so fundamental to america. so everything that he's suggesting doing in this executive order just sort of turns that on. >> its head. >> i'll note also that it. >> also shows. you that any. >> independence be, you know, between the department of justice and the white house, things that we've talked about on other shows of yours seems to be gone, because he's not. asking for a review by the attorney general and a report. >> to the attorney. >> general. >> so that the. >> attorney general can make recommendations. he's asking for a review by the attorney general and a report to him. so that he can decide what he wants to

direct the department of justice to do. and similarly with the intelligence community. so this is not the only executive order that actually directs conduct by the department of justice. the direction to dismiss cases against all of the january 6th attackers, the pending cases, people who were not pardoned or had their sentences commuted, commuted. that was also a direct order to the department of justice. so i. >> agree with mike. >> all of this is part of a of a much bigger plan. it feels andrew weissmann like this might be the hinge point to stop talking about the norms at the department. right. they're dead. they're gone. i think any viewer of this show knows what is supposed to happen. the agency, as it was conceived of, will not be that, at least for the next four years. absolutely. and i wonder if you can just take me through what that means and what it means with that stipulated, with this full pivot having taken place with his election, his inauguration, and these executive orders, and with

enrique tarrio making abundantly clear that what he has heard and again, we don't know what kash patel or pam bondi have said to enrique tarrio. but what enrique tarrio, the head of the proud boys, has heard and communicated to cameras is that bondi and patel are going to help him quote, right wrongs. >> so the. >> one thing i. think people should. >> note, and. >> i. >> completely agree with you. >> that the. >> what we think of as the independent department of justice, which existed, and i just want to make sure. >> people understand. >> under republican and democratic. >> administrations, i always. >> talk. >> about i worked on the enron task force that was. under the bush administration. >> there was not one iota of. interference from the white house. that was. >> a. >> third rail. it wasn't going. >> to happen. and that was a republican administration. >> the same. >> thing happens in democratic administrations. so i want to make sure people understand this. >> is unique. >> to donald trump. it is not a political issue.

>> it is, however, exactly. >> what happened. >> this is. >> the one area. >> where i slightly disagree with with mark's point, which is. >> this was. >> planned and something carried out in. the first trump administration. the john durham investigation. was just that. that was an investigation of the investigators in the same way that we have jim jordan, having done tried to find the same thing with respect to january 6th. here is the problem for them when. >> they. >> do it again, i mean, it's the exact same order that we're getting now from the incoming president saying, i want them to do this. as mary said, no separation between the white house and the department of justice. there's going to be this investigation. the problem for them is there are no facts that are anywhere in sight to support this. john durham's investigation managed to get 24 jurors to unanimously agree that there was not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, two acquittals. >> that anyone he investigated had committed a crime. >> yeah, exactly. there was one lawyer who pled to a minor

offense, but that had nothing to do with politicization or weaponization. and the two cases he brought complete fiascos. the jim jordan committee, nothing. so they can try and do this again. it is weaponizing, there's no question. the irony is it is, in fact, weaponizing the department of justice and saying that's what they want to do. we had we had the same conversation about jim jordan. the problem they have is it's it is a complete change of norms. it's a complete change of what we think of as america. but the salvation is there. there have been no facts. there still are no known facts. final quick point is i just want to be sure everyone understands why is this important? like why should you care about the separation of the department of justice and the white house? that is what separates us from a country that has no rule of law. so you don't sit there and say, you know what, i like nicole, so don't

prosecute her for x, but i dislike this person. so investigate and prosecute them for that. the sort of like go after democrats but not republicans. that is what we think of as what happens in russia, which we are unfortunately getting more and more alike. and that is why the cabinet level position of being the attorney general is different in kind in every other administration, republican and democratic, because presidents understand that is so important to the rule of law. >> margaret, i want to read one more quote from from your story. charles kupperman, who was the deputy national security adviser, i believe, to john bolton, under under trump, says this said he viewed the executive order as a first step in an effort that could result in criminal investigations. quote, it looks like the beginning of a retribution campaign because it's backward looking, kupperman said he's still grappling with the past four years, and this is not the right outlet for him to play this out. it plays to his maga

base, but it's not the right one for the country. with the totally compliant senate republican leader in a body that views advise and consent as rubber stamp and look away, what makes the handful of folks that are speaking out do so? >> well, i. >> think that what you'll see is that. >> that that. >> the message is sent from these executive orders, right? that even if there's no criminal prosecutions, even if there's no crimes committed, evidence found, what you do see or what you. what you may see is, is this sort of chilling effect, right. and a message sent that you should stay in line and get in line or, or there will be retribution. right. and so i think that's the impact of maybe doing this on day one and doing it from the oval office. i mean, i think going back to andrew's point for a second, i think one

big difference here, of course, is that, you know, with the durham investigation, this was still done. we all know what the what the purpose was, but it was still done through d.o.j. right. it was done. but the william barr appointed durham right. a special counsel. and what we're doing seeing from day one in this administration, right, is this is done from the oval office. it is done from the white house through executive order. and so in a way, kind of cutting out the middleman here, and it's showing what the president is expecting and what he's looking for. and there is this real convergence that andrew spoke about. >> all right. i need all of you to stick around because there's more. when we come back, the purge is underway, along with payback at the department of justice. what we're learning about the speedy removal and reassignment of many career doj officials, plus one of donald trump's many, many campaign promises, was to crack down on the deadly fentanyl epidemic in this country. so naturally, one

of his first orders of business was to issue an unconditional pardon for the so-called mastermind behind an online illegal drug marketplace. we'll bring you the facts on that pardon and continued fallout from his decision. with a sweep of his pen to release 1500 january 6th insurrectionists, some of whom assaulted police officers. we have all those stories and more when deadline st(tony hawk)ore when deadline whskating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body. i take qunol turmeric because it helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. why qunol? it has superior absorption compared to regular turmeric. qunol. the brand i trust. pause. >> my subscription when i. >> want and have. >> hundreds of free channels. >> sling lets you do that. >> sling lets you do that. >> choose and customize asthma. does it have you missing out on what you love with who you love?

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xfinity mobile was designed to save you money and gives you access to wifi speeds up to a gig. so you get high speeds for low prices. better than getting low speeds for high prices. right, bruce? -jealous? yeah, look at that. -honestly. someone get a helmet on this guy. xfinity internet customers, get a free unlimited line for a year when you buy one unlimited line. rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> now is the time. so we're going to do it. >> settle in the. >> rachel maddow show. >> weeknights at 9:00 on msnbc. >> what we do is. >> try. >> to cut right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. >> unyong choi. >> directs the justice department's crypto enforcement unit. she says the doj has learned how to use sophisticated software to track ill gotten crypto and then grab it. that's

a bad day for the crooks. >> it is a bad day for the crooks. we think we're. >> raising the cost of. >> their doing. >> business in this. >> manner. >> and preying on the united states public. >> if you've not spent time in the federal government, something that all of our guests today understand is that the justice department is filled with people just like unyong choi, people just trying to get the bad guys out of the way. hard working, dedicated public servants who work day in and day out to protect all of us in the public. but now many of them, including choi, have been removed from their positions inside the department of justice for the simple offense of not being one of trump's people. in his first week in office, trump's team has already made significant moves to reshape the department of justice, reassigning officials from the national security and criminal divisions to post considered to be less influential. and if there is any question that this is retribution, one of the officials who was reassigned was, quote, a senior

counelligence attorney who played a key role in deciding to search trump's mar-a-lago residence to retrieve the classified documents as part of the federal investigation. we're back with mark, marie and andrew and mary. what happens to the department when it's sort of intentionally put through a brain drain? so i just can't begin to start with how strongly i feel about this. i actually don't know miss choi because she came to main justice after i left. she was a prosecutor in the southern district of new york. so she has, you know, a lot of prosecutorial experience. but i know george toscas, the deputy assistant attorney general for counterterrorism and counterintelligence, who was just referred to in that last clip. very well. we worked. side by side every day that i was in the national security division. and george has been in counterterrorism and counterintelligence. in nsd, which is what the national security division is called

since its founding in 2006, much of that time as the deputy assistant attorney general. and that's a position that could be a political position. >> but it never has been. >> it has always been held by george, a career well always been. >> held by george. >> or another career person. >> i believe. >> but his. >> position there has always been career. and so he has the institutional memory. because even before he was deputy assistant attorney general, he. >> was still. >> doing counterintelligence. and even before nsd was created in 2006. >> he was doing that. >> work when it was part of the criminal division. so george has the institutional memory for how our government. handles its counterterrorism. >> program when it. >> comes to. >> criminal prosecutions. >> and he. >> and or counterintelligence program program, he's been involved in every major counterterrorism. >> and counterintelligence case. >> and as dag, every counterintelligence and counterterrorism case, no matter how significant or not significant, because those cases.

>> can't be. >> handled on their own by the. u.s. attorney's offices. they have to funnel through nsd. and that means through george. so he has that institutional memory. he's worked under democrats. and republicans throughout his career. he's about the most apolitical person i know, having worked very closely. >> with him. >> and george is all about the mission. he has relationships with the prosecutors in the u.s. attorney's office, with the fbi and all of its field offices, as well as its main office. he has relationships with our foreign law enforcement counterparts. he has relationships with our intelligence community. and, you know, when a prosecutor wants to bring a counterterrorism case, if there's any kind of information they want. >> to. >> enter into evidence that is classified, they've got to work with the intelligence community to determine, can we use that? right. they've got to get permission to even use that. george has all of that memory, all of that knowledge, and has done nothing in the entire time. i know him other than be committed to the mission, regardless of who's in the white

house or who is in the attorney general's office. so to lose that, to lose that consistency, that knowledge, that experience, that network of contacts of contacts, that's. >> an enormous. >> loss for the department. well, it's a loss if you want to continue to counterterrorism. i guess i want to ask the question, why would you do that if you did? >> if it's the one hand i i'm taking them at their word that they have this. better person, that they think there's a deep state and somebody and that these are removing people who somehow are not going to follow lawful orders because they have some political agenda and one that is complete misread, that is projecting onto the department of justice what you may be thinking, which is that you are all about transaction and politics and power and money. but that's not how you

think in the department. everything that mary said about george one, i second it completely. but it's true for so many people. >> has he been fired or reassigned? >> reassigned. >> and so will he leave? >> we'll see. i mean, but i just want the big picture is you are like, if pam bondi were sitting where you are, i would say to her, you are now making your organization less effective, dramatically less effective. do you want your agenda? are you do you want to counter drug gangs, fentanyl gangs, terrorism, organized crime, child predators? these are the people you need. and so you are now absolutely sort of pulling. >> the most talented. >> people from that mission. and some people who are listening to this may be going, well, great. they said the trump administration agenda will be now be less effective. but you

know what? those groups need to be targeted. there will be another katrina. there will be a terrorism events. you need to be proactive to make the country safe on the criminal side. on the terrorism side, it is. it is. i was trying to think of a word that's that's fancier and more erudite, but it's so dumb as a policy to do this. i mean, i hate to be that sort of, sort of course in the language, but it's just makes no sense at all. and i think it has to come from either. you just don't want the institution to work, or from a really misguided notion of what is animating these people. >> i mean, i guess, mark mazzetti, i want to come back to the reporting. i mean, donald trump is currently under threat from the iranians, right, for the killing of soleimani. i mean, that's why john bolton still had protection. that's why he took to every no get between john bolton and a camera when he went to attack joe biden. but

joe biden protected him with all of the might of the department of justice and secret service and everyone that could continue to keep him alive so he could continue to criticize his leaders. donald trump doing the opposite in in terms of leaving people in place who can protect everyone, including donald trump, from a foreign threat, is confounding. what is your analysis of the why? >> well. >> i mean, at face value, it does look like there's obviously a form of retribution here, right? but as we said, this is retribution dressed up in this language of, well, we were the victims. we trump and his team were victims of politicization, right? weaponization. and all we're doing is trump said in his inaugural address, is rebalancing the scales of justice. okay, so that's what they're arguing they're doing here. now, what the relationship trump will have with his intelligence agencies, with his justice department, we will see

the relationship is cabinet officials will have with the career officials is to be seen and how effective they will be in carrying out these basic missions that mary and andrew are talking about. i mean, that is that is to, you know, to be determined. and i think it's important for viewers to know. i mean, obviously, there is turnover at the beginning of every administration, right? u.s. attorneys leave, new ones come in. what's different here, right, is they're dipping deeper into the bureaucracy and making changes. right. the deputies deputy u.s. attorneys are not in charge. new interim political appointees are put in charge. this is a this is a sign that there's really not a that they don't trust the bureaucracy in many cases, that they're not to be trusted with the agenda of the president. and that's what we're seeing with these moves that have been made in the last few days. >> i mean, i guess the other thing that's different, just to bring this all full circle, is that you have a convicted felon

in enrique tarrio name checking the picks to lead the department of justice and the fbi under donald trump. i'm not aware of that ever happening before. mark mazzetti, thank you and your colleagues for their reporting. up next, for us, we're learning more about donald trump's pick to lead the fbi. that's kash patel and how he says he writes in a questionnaire that he was a beneficiary of a program he now my name's dan and i live here in san antonio, texas. beneficiary of a program he now publicly rails i ran my own hvac business and now i'm retired. i'm not good being retired. i'm a pain in the neck. i like to be able to have a purpose. about three or four years ago, i felt like i was starting to slip. i saw the prevagen commercials. after a short amount of time taking prevagen, i started noticing a difference-- i stopped taking prevagen and i found myself slacking back so i jumped right back on it. i've been taking prevagen for about two years now, and i've found a huge difference. prevagenat stores everywhere without a prescription. t-mobile's 5g network connects

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at sittercity. >> there's some new reporting that pulls the curtain back on a rather fascinating and at times ironic series of responses from kash patel and his senate questionnaire. it's something he filled out ahead of his confirmation hearing to be donald trump's fbi director, according to the new york times. patel, publicly a fierce trump loyalist, submitted 24 pages of answers to the senate judiciary committee that, quote, taken as a whole, paints a far more nuanced portrait of the bombastic and combative mr. combative, one that mr. patel projects on right wing podcasts, or as a speaker at trump rallies. that includes the times reports, quote, patel's downgrading of his work as a justice department investigator on the 2012 attack in benghazi, after claiming he had been one of those leading that inquiry. end quote, one of the most intriguing lines is referenced to participating in the american bar association's judicial

intern opportunity program, a diversity initiative, while a student at pace university's law school in 2003, kash patel, benefiting in his telling from such a program, would be unremarkable. nice, actually, as the times points out, had not trump made a core pillar of his campaign attacking such programs diversity, equity and inclusion programs in education and in government. and on a day where agencies across the federal government are placing all dei office staffers on paid leave by 5 p.m, in accordance with trump's day one executive order, we're back with marianne, andrew, mary, you know, kash patel. color me skeptical, but someone filling out a questionnaire is has a single objective of trying to get confirmed. let me just play for our viewers and i'll let them decide which one is the real kash patel. >> we're going to come after. >> the people. >> in the media.

>> who lied about american citizens, who helped joe biden rig presidential elections. we're going to come after you, whether it's criminal. >> or civil. we'll figure that out. i shut. >> down the. >> fbi hoover. >> building on. >> day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. >> what you need. >> to show is whether or not the fbi and government agents. >> were using undercover. >> operatives and informants on the day of january 6th. once you prove that, then you defeat the insurrection narrative. >> we will. >> go out and. >> find the. >> conspirators, not just in. >> government, but. >> in the media. yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about. american citizens who helped joe biden rig presidential elections. we're going to come after you, whether it's criminal or civil, we'll figure that out. but yeah, we're putting you all on notice. >> and i think there's one more on treason. let me play one more for you, mary. there's one more where he says this. i think what so many of these guys did, whether it's brennan, clapper, comey, mccabe, strzok, barr, haspel, esper, what have you i

think there's a lot of rule and law breaking. and i don't know that it ever gets to the level of treason singularly with any of them. but what you have is a build up of so many actions by the deep state that it becomes borderline treasonous to allow those people and their activities in a collective fashion, ever to be applied to the united states. do you? did he work for you? do you know him? i do know him. he was in the counterterrorism section when i was part of the time that i was the principal deputy, and later the acting assistant attorney general for national security. and so there were times when he participated in briefings of cases and things like that. and, you know, ironically, i or maybe not ironically, when because he had a public defender background and had had experience with the death penalty. that's one of the reasons that he was at. >> at. >> for a brief period of time, the department, the. >> national.

>> security division, he was one of the cts counterterrorism section attorneys assigned to work with the u.s. attorney's office in d.c. on the benghazi case. >> i had. >> been the criminal chief in d.c. when we got that case. i moved over to main justice right before the capture operation in libya that captured abu khattal. cash was was made the sort. >> of nsc one of the nsc. >> terrorism prosecutors to coordinate with. >> the u.s. >> attorney's office. after that capture operation, after indictments and so on and so forth. so he. >> was not on that. >> very long. >> as. >> there's other reporting. >> to. >> say, because he let's just. say he and the prosecutors who'd been working on this case for a very. >> long time. >> it just was not a. a good working relationship. sometimes that happens. at the time, i don't think i necessarily thought that much of it, but now it seems oddly prescient. >> in terms of. >> kind of adjusting one's

personality to maybe get along where you need to and not. >> get along in other places. >> and so i. want to believe that the kash patel answering some of the questions. >> on the senate. >> questionnaire, including downgrading his. from what he reported. >> in his. >> book, that he was leading the benghazi case, downgrading that to something, i think a little bit more realistic. i want to believe that's the kash patel we would see if he were to be confirmed. but all of those other things you played all of those other statements right now, if he is confirmed, he's going to be thinking of himself as working for one man, and that man is donald trump, and he has demonstrated his loyalty. >> to donald. >> trump since he left the department of justice. and so i'm very worried about the prospect of how he would handle such an important and significant role as the fbi director. the thing about kash patel that's interesting is that people outside of the department of justice or the last trump administration, or i guess,

folks that knew him when he was a congressional staffer, that's not where the warnings are coming from. right. but people don't really know him. the most urgent warnings against kash patel are coming from people who've been in the trenches with kash patel. >> so i've been at the fbi. i was the general counsel and the director of the fbi is somebody who needs to be sober, diligent, experienced, mature. i'm sort of reading through what mary politely was was referencing. if i were in the senate, the issues i would have are one. did you lie in your in your book when you in terms of just like straight out, you said that you were leading the benghazi matter and you weren't and your questionnaire to us, you say you're not, but that's not what you wrote in your book. are you a liar? you know, that's important in terms of someone who's going to be the fbi

director. he also there's reporting was very instrumental in the sort of reframing of the january 6th defendants as hostages and the sort of sort of embracing them. and i'd be really interested in getting him to talk about that. and also, what are the facts? and two, are you saying all of the fbi work that was done is for naught? and what are the facts? because you want an fbi director to be governed by, shockingly, facts and have him talk about that. and the third area would be with respect to something that we unfortunately don't know, which has to do with the mar-a-lago report, which is, you know, what you say, you have told publicly that, you know, that donald trump declassified all of this material. and to my mind that no matter which way you cut it, that is problematic either. if that is true, how could you go

along with that? how could you not object to that? when you think about all of the material that we're talking about, the sort of nuclear secrets of this country and our adversaries, how could you possibly want to have a blanket declassification if it's not true? we're back to the first topic, which is, did you lie for the president? >> i mean, can i just just ask a dumb question? one who's going to ask the question? and two, who's going to care? i'm listening to like, like, of course we should care if the incoming fbi director lied in his book. and if we are to believe kash patel's answers on his own senate questionnaire, the answer from kash patel is, yeah, i did right. because that's that's the only explanation for kash patel putting two sets of answers. but we've now got to trust that when pete hegseth tells megyn kelly he won't take another sip, that our secretary of defense won't be a drunk. and we have to trust that when kash patel puts a different set of answers on a senate questionnaire, that what he said in the book, i mean, where are we? >> so, yes. so, you know, you're talking to two institutionalists

here, and. >> that's why i love you. >> and so, you know, where are we? we're in a very, very bad place. we're in gotham. >> i mean, i mean, i mean, one of my producers sent me the four minute, 41 second clip from from from batman, where, you know, they're outside the prison and all the i mean, we're the world is on its head. and i guess i wonder, can we just be honest? we are all hoping for the best. what i hear from mary is that she's hoping for the good angels to prevail. and for the responses that kash patel, which seemed to, in mary's telling, hew closer to what she knows to be the truth. she hopes that the kash patel will show up. i guess what i want to understand from you is what happens to the fbi when it is led by someone who the senate republicans confirm, who, in his own telling, gave two versions of the truth of his life. >> i do not understand how a kash patel at the bureau in any way succeeds. no, maybe that's the goal. but to be clear, the fbi is so critical to, at the

very least, domestic security and on the national security side, works with the intelligence community in ways that are innumerable. it goes back to a discussion from the prior segments. it it is so detrimental to what you would think anybody would want to see. and so this anti institutionalist mentality that we're seeing right now and people seem to be sort of sleepwalking through ignores i keep on saying this. the katrina problem that you you you you are playing with the national security. just take that of the country by not putting in the best, most competent people. and to parrot you, which is always a safe thing to do. you do not. these are not the best people. no one is even arguing that that

these are. and that is what you should be looking at. and you know, if you think about the difference between trump .1.1.0 and 2.0, that is the big difference. >> that's the frame, right? i mean, because i feel like we are still here on i know it's only the third day of trump's second term, but people are sort of grasping for frames. and look, whatever you think of jim mattis, he was confirmed 98 to 1. whatever you think of john kelly, i think he was confirmed 88 to 11. i mean, these are not nominees designed to do that by trump. and i think what we what i want to try to get to understand is why? why? >> because, look, you really get the sense that it can be a variety of things, but you understand that loyalty is the preeminent issue, and that's not something that helps the public. >> we're going to come right back on that. i have to sneak in a quick break. also ahead, another shattered one time norm another shattered one time norm has been broken at the justice (husband) we just want to have enough money for retirement. (wife) and travel to visit our grandchildren.

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according to a memo sent to staff by acting deputy attorney general emil bové last night. you may remember him as donald trump's defense attorney in the new york criminal hush money case, as well as the federal election interference cases. mary and andrew are back. and mary, what is so what is the potential friction with the directive like this? well, so let's just. >> be clear. >> this is this is not only. >> a directive. >> to the department of. justic. attorneys, prosecutors and civil division. >> this is sending a message. >> out to the many. >> many local. >> jurisdictions who have. their who are not defying federal law. >> they are saying we're going to do what's necessary. >> to keep our community safe. >> that means. >> we will comply with federal law. we will not prohibit the sharing. of information about the immigration or citizenship status of people. with the immigration service, with the department of homeland security, if asked. but we're not going to

proactively ask the people we encounter as law enforcement officials, as public officials, for their immigration and citizenship status. federal law does not require that. dhs guidance. >> says there's no authority. >> for state and local officials to do that when there's not a purpose related to their mission. and so these officials have said, look, we've got to protect public safety in our communities. that means law enforcement needs to build relationships with a trust with the communities they serve. and the way to do that is not going around asking everybody. >> for their. >> proof of citizenship. the way to do that is to build trust so that. >> they will report crimes. so they will show up at court as witnesses. >> in trials of people who commit. >> crimes. >> including committing crimes, people who are unlawfully present. >> report those. crimes to. >> right. and so law enforcement officials across political parties have been very strong. >> on this. >> we're representing a sheriff in. >> in indiana right. >> now who has this policy and

is being sued. >> by the state attorney general. and so this is really trying to. >> my mind. >> this is a. >> scare tactic. >> to. try to get. cities and. >> local, other. >> local jurisdictions. >> to just. >> sign up to be really part of the federal immigration enforcement scheme. something i will say the supreme court has said state and local authorities have no. >> authority to enforce, absent a direct. >> agreement with. federal immigration, because these are federal matters, not state and local matters. andrew, it feels like one of the early themes is friction within the law enforcement community, both with the j. six pardons and with us. >> absolutely. and, you know, i'm very interested in this memo because the department is supposed to be very careful about what it can require and what it cannot. and you would think an apolitical memo would say what the careful distinction that mary said, you know, there's no question the

elections have consequences. you may not like it, but that's the truth. so it's fine for the department to say we're going to have the following policies, lawful ones. and it's fine to say to state and locals, you can't intentionally interfere with it, but to create the impression that it's somehow illegal and you could be prosecuted for not helping. well, that's the that's a different. >> moonlighting, right? >> you don't have to do that. like you have no obligation to be assisting them. and that to me is where the department of justice that i know and that mary knows in any administration would be very careful about not abusing its authority and not creating that false impression for your political end. >> well, let me just ask, what is the remedy? where do they go? >> so the unfortunately, the issue is the damage is the is the threat is the fear is the fear exactly is like, you know, stand down. but i do think that

one of the things that will happen because of groups that that mary works in and lots of people do, is getting information out. and, you know, this is since we're dealing with state and local law enforcement, they have the ability to talk to experienced, courageous lawyers and others to say, you can do x, but you can't do y. and again, there's i'm not saying that there isn't a legitimate trump administration policy here, but you can't mislead people into thinking that you actually have to be, you know, complicit with it. >> it's just it's just amazing how many different examples there are of the fear and the threat being the whole point. >> yeah. >> mary and andrew, thank you so much for spending the hour with us. i feel like you guys are going to have to stay free between 4 and 6. there is a new episode of their vital podcast, maine justice, that is ready, right? ready for download. >> ready.

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incoming trump administration. >> donald trump. >> wants a presidential cabinet full of loyalists. >> don't miss the weekend, saturday and sunday mornings at. >> 8:00 on msnbc. >> what we do is try. >> to cut. >> right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. ross ulbricht. >> who. >> is the. >> founder of the silk. >> road online drug bazaar. >> he has. >> been sentenced to life in prison. you might recall he was arrested in october of. >> 2013 and. >> then found. >> guilty on seven charges in february. >> of this year. >> ulbricht operated silk road, which is basically. >> as i. >> mentioned, an online drug bazaar and a bazaar where you could also. >> buy other. >> illicit goods. >> and services. including murder for hire.

>> and. >> fake. >> ids. >> etc. all of this done on the dark web. >> hi again everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. almost ten years ago, a 31 year old man named ross ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for, as you just heard from that report on cnbc running a website called silk road on the dark web, it was a place where buyers could purchase illegal things anonymously. at the time of his sentencing, judge judy forrest called ulbricht, quote, the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug trafficking enterprise and said his actions were, quote, terribly destructive to our social fabric. silk road is the new york times reports, quote, became an international drug marketplace, facilitating more than 1.5 million transactions, including sales of heroin, cocaine and other illicit substances. new york times also notes this quote in court. prosecutors claim that mr. ulbricht had also solicited the murders of people. he considered

threats, but acknowledged there was no evidence that the killings took place. so why did we just take that little history lesson into the dark web and silk road? well, here's why. because that guy, the one who was, quote, terribly destructive to our social fabric, was just pardoned from his life sentence yesterday by none other than donald j. trump, despite trump's campaign promise to root out fentanyl and drug related deaths in this country, donald trump just freed a man who was called by the then u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, preet bharara, as, quote, a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people's addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people. pardoning ross ulbricht was among the things donald trump chose to do. on the second day of his second term in office, because it was a promise he made to a group of voters once he was desperate to win

over the libertarians. here's how they responded to him at the libertarian convention in may of 2024. >> now, i think you should nominate me, or at least vote for me, and we should win together. you heard those words. nominate me or vote. vote for me because the libertarians want to vote for me, and most of them will. and it's very important. >> so listen to what happens to change the energy in the room, if you will. when he brings up ulbricht. >> and if you vote for me on day one, i will commute the sentence of ross ulbricht, who was sentence of time served.

>> free four. three. >> 43434. >> venmo see the little thought bubble i got him. so ulbricht was also a symbol for the crypto movement, as his site used bitcoin for its transactions. and we saw this election cycle. the crypto industry spend more than $100 million on their preferred candidates textbook donald trump right? do you give me something that helps me or votes money? i'll give you what you want, no matter how dangerous to the rest of the public. the transactional president is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. nbc news justice reporter and author of sedition hunters how january 6th broke the justice system. ryan riley is here. plus, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi.y analyst frank figliuzzi is back and with me at the table. former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst christie greenberg

is back. ryan riley, i start with you. i think the political transaction is obvious. what's amazing to me is the metamorphosis of donald trump, who was so triggered by any notion that russia had done anything to help him win in 2016, and now is just doing his, you know, ious to all the groups with whatever he promised them for their votes. and this perso, described by a judge as a drug kingpin, basically in the online version, was not a bridge too far. >> yeah. i mean, pardons are where i think donald trump has the most unchecked power. i mean, just constitutionally, that's where he does. it's something that he can do whenever he wants, whenever he wants, and kind of any form that he wants. right. there's been some discussion, legal discussion about whether or not someone just declaring something out a window could be declared as a pardon. right. so he could, you know, he could put these on truth social theoretically, that would require a little bit more effort. you know, it's easier just to sign that piece of paper and do a dramatic ceremony like he did with the january 6th defendants. but that's something

that he can do. and i think that that's sort of where this where the rubber hits the road for him. you know, i spoke to a justice department official, a trump justice department official today, you know, talking about the pardons and how wide they were, if they were sort of surprised by how how big they went, you know, whether or not they were surprised, whether they thought there was going to be sort of 700 or something along those lines because originally, you know, i thought, i think there was a thought process that if you pardon these 700, 700 people, those would have been people who had already served their time. it would have been a big number that you could have given him. so, you know, someone might have been working behind the scenes and advocating for just, say, 700 pardons. but he went with everyone. and those are people who committed vicious assaults on on law enforcement today. and this trump justice department official said that they're done with being incremental. and that's sort of what the new policy is within, within this new administration. now that trump has seized power once again. >> well, i mean, you can call it being incremental or you can call it not putting people who's

drug trafficking led to the deaths of young people. i mean, this is this is again from from the case that was brought against ulbricht. at least six deaths were attributable to drugs bought on silk road, according to prosecutors. addressing the court, the father of one of the people who died said, quote, all ross ulbricht cared about was his growing pile of bitcoins. >> this is. >> this was an incredibly serious crime. i mean, silk road was essentially a criminal's playground, and you had about $200 million in the. sale of all kinds of illegal drugs, you know, heroin, opioids. like it's amazing that last week we were just watching pam bondi tout her experience in taking on the. >> opioid epidemic. >> and, you know, how. >> does she. >> do that when you just let this person free, who's responsible for six overdose deaths? it's really remarkable. and it sends such a clear message. it sends a message to the those those prosecutors and all the law enforcement agencies

who sought to convict him. and donald trump said those who worked to convict ross ulbricht, he called them scum. right. that's the fbi, dea, homeland security, u.s. marshals service, secret service, foreign law enforcement partners that helped at in iceland and france. i mean, this was a massive, massive investigation. and to call them scum, i mean, you don't back the blue. you're not the party heading the party of law and order. if you say something like that, i mean, that's awful. and then you have, you know, the other message that he's sending to the criminals, which is, you know, it's open season for you. go do whatever you want to do. as long as you put on your red maga hat, at the end of the day, you support me and i'll protect you. and it is, as you said, transactional. and quite frankly, vile. >> again, i understand the politics of the moment. i understand who won and who lost frank. but it's not going to stop us from making arguments

about hypocrisy when we see it. here's what donald trump says he's going to do about illegal drugs. >> i want to stop the drugs and fentanyl pouring in and killing our kids and killing our families. one of the very first calls i'm going to make, because we cannot let fentanyl come into our country. i can't let it come in. i will stop the drugs and fentanyl pouring into our country, killing our kids and our families. we will stop it. how many people? everybody you meet said, i lost my daughter. i lost my son to drugs, to fentanyl, mostly to fentanyl, but to drugs. families are being destroyed and we're going to stop it. >> and again, this isn't about me. let me just put this back on the father who who lost someone in this crime on the prosecution of russ albrecht. six deaths attributable to drugs bought on silk road, according to prosecutors addressing the court at the time. the father of one of the people who died said

this, quote, all ross ulbricht cared about was this growing pile of bitcoins. these were victims of illegal drugs and drugs being in this country, too. but silk road is okay. i mean, what what what i understand what message it sends. but where do we go from here, frank? >> yeah. >> look, if you. >> want to. >> see how unserious trump. >> is. >> about what he pledges. >> and cares. allegedly cares about, just look at who he pardons. >> as has. >> been said. >> if he pledges. >> to take. >> on violent crime, understand. >> he's he's. >> pardoned 6 or 700 people from january 6th who were charged with violence. if you if you want to examine whether he's truly serious. >> about. >> drugs, look. >> at. >> what he just did with. >> silk road. >> hundreds of kilos of illegal. >> narcotics, traded, bought and sold. if you wanted to buy something. you would find it in this dark corner of the web. >> and what. >> really intrigues me is not only is there the bitcoin thing here, we can see that that's transparent. trump is all in on his bitcoin buddies and. the

libertarianism. >> yes. >> the libertarians want freedom from government. they don't want government interfering with their activities online. okay. but there's another element that i've identified here, which is the conspiracy theories and disinformation theories ring very true with regard to supporters of silk road. when you try to engage them in civil conversation, they tell you, you know, you and literally you. regurgitate the indictment from the southern district of new york to them, that's fake. that's that's fake news. >> that's the deep state. >> no, no, no. ulbricht didn't understand what was going on on his site. he, you know, he was overcharged. his sentence is too heavy. he can't possibly have stopped the drug trading. and, you. >> know, the. >> murders for hire that were being hired out online. and so there's this. >> it's a. full holistic trump menu. when you look at. >> silk road. >> the conspiracy theories and disbelief, the. bitcoin fans.

and the libertarian. >> fans are all there, and. >> it just. >> simply signals. the lawlessness period that we are about to enter. and god help any of us. if our family members are victims of a crime and the criminal is somehow affiliated with a cause that trump likes. >> or as you. >> said, you know, just wearing a red maga hat. >> you can kiss. >> that goodbye. the memo that went out in the last 24 hours to. fbi field offices. that said. according to my sources, we're not working any january 6th cases anymore. we're not even working the outstanding fugitives, approximately 300, by the way, that are outstanding, including those wanted for assaulting police officers, cease and desist. they will be declined. >> by the. >> u.s. attorney's office. that's where we are right now. >> ryan riley, do you have any reporting on that? have you heard that? >> it does not surprise me at all, because i mean, these these i mean, it's great. you know, i think that that was this was sort of almost inevitable in terms of, you know, when you

have the interim u.s. attorney who is someone who spoke on the day before january 6th, was an organizer with the stop the steal movement. and now, i mean, one moment, that one thing that just really has struck with stuck with me thinking about is that a lot of these prosecutors who have worked these cases for a very long time, who are now worried about their own futures, their own jobs, what's going to happen to them, whether they're going to be targeted, whether that's from within the government, without or outside of the government, have to sign or have to file these documents dismissing these cases that they appeared before a court. and, you know, in many cases proved and in a lot of these cases believe that they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these offenses were committed. and, you know, often, you know, while these prosecutors work extraordinarily hard and not to take away from anything that they did, but these cases, some of these cases at least, were pretty simple, because the rioters themselves captured their own crimes on video, or there were so many video recordings of it like this. it wasn't that tough to convince a jury that these folks did that,

because there was just overwhelming evidence, unlike, i think, any crime we've seen previously. some of these cases were more complicated. the seditious conspiracy ones, where those took a lot of skill and a lot of work, but some of these more straightforward ones where somebody just bashed in a cop's head and were wearing, you know, a hat from the town where they lived or something like that, or, you know, in some cases stormed the capitol with their the name of their business and their phone number embroidered on their jacket. those cases weren't that weren't that difficult. and in most of those cases, the rioters pleaded guilty because they knew that the evidence against them was overwhelming and there's just zero chance that they would be found not guilty before a jury because, you know, you i just there's no way that a jury would convict him, given the amount of evidence. so, i mean, it's a really strange stage that we're in now where these cases that were just proven beyond a reasonable doubt are all being pardoned, especially those really vicious violent attacks. and, you know, i talked with with sergeant darnell, who got those notifications all the time. and that was that was something that stuck with me. just these notification after

notification that rioters who attacked him that day, his assailants were being released from federal prison. he got calls. he got phone numbers as a victim notification system. it just overwhelmed his phone, even though he had turned off the inauguration and was trying to sort of disconnect a little bit that evening. ping. >> ping ping. >> ping ping. another one. just flashbacks to, i think, the worst moment of his life when he was almost killed. >> i mean, christy, i want to add two more actors. elon musk was also an advocate for ulbricht to be pardoned. he tweeted this when the one six pardons were announced. quote, ross will be freed too. and i also want to come back to a point you made that this is also about undoing the prosecutions of people trump perceives to be his enemies from before he was sworn in the first time. i mean, was he going to go unpack all of his cases and undo them?

>> yeah, i mean, this case he was ross ulbricht was sentenced in may of 2015. donald trump hadn't even announced he was running for president the first time yet. you know, elon musk's statement is curious to me because if you actually believe that crypto should be taken seriously in the financial markets and is a real investment, you know, something that you want people to take seriously. this is not what you want crypto to be associated with. crypto here was being used for all kinds of illegal purposes to really conceal the locations and identities of the 100,000 users who were selling drugs. like, that's not what you want, and yet so and yet you have people who are looking at this guy like a hero. he was no hero. he was a common criminal. he made $13 million and profited off of people's addiction. i mean, that is that is not what you want to be. the face of the crypto movement. but where do we go from here? it will be

interesting again. yes. i think he could go back and try and do a lot of pardons for people again who support him as long as you came out and support him. we know one thing about donald trump he rewards loyalty above all else. he doesn't care what the crime was. his statement didn't say anything about what the crime was because if he did, he really can't defend what what happened here. it's really about just loyalty. >> i mean, it renders the moves to purge d.o.j, i guess, more complicated. i mean, if you stay. what are you signing up for? >> yeah. >> look, the. >> the adage. >> of, hey. >> let's stay in and. >> fight. >> resist, try to uphold the law and point things out, to point things out to who the. whistleblowers won't, won't gain protection. they won't. inspectors general will fall by the wayside or be owned by the white house. it's time to leave if you can. if you absolutely.

>> can't for financial. >> and family reasons, or if you're at the lower ranks and you're just hoping you're going to be allowed to do your job, okay. >> wait and see. >> but it's only a matter of time between those trump appointed before those trump appointed u.s. attorneys hit. >> your region. >> and now start dictating who you're. opening a case on and who you're not. and then we'll see what you're made of and whether you can withstand that. but i predict that. >> good people. >> will be unable to hang in there very long. >> all right. no one's going anywhere. when all of us come back. it is just day three of trump's second presidency, and he's already lost the wall street journal editorial board, the journal, who has done more to launder trumpism over the last eight years in just about any other media outlet, taking aim at donald trump's sweeping pardons for the january 6th insurrectionists, some of them violently attacked members of law enforcement. but it's notable only because of what it exposes as to be missing, and

that is outrage or condemnation from elected republican officials who remain too scared of donald trump to call a spade a spade. we'll have that conversation next. also ahead, we will be joined by one front line leader of the pro-democracy movement who faced violent threats after the 2020 election and is now looking to make an even bigger mark as trump assumes the oath of office a second time. deadline. white second time. deadline. white house con ♪♪ amazing. jerry, you've got to see this. i've seen it. trust me, after 15 walks, it gets a little old. ugh. stop waiting. start investing. e*trade ® from morgan stanley. (vo) explore the world the viking way e*trade ® from the quiet comfort of elegant small ships with no children and no casinos. we actually have reinvented ocean voyages, designing all-inclusive experiences for the thinking person.

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just 4.99 a month. call 1-888-246-2612 or visit homeserve. >> com. >> breaking news. a fast moving disaster in california. breaking news former president jimmy. carter has died. >> at the age of 100. >> donald trump is. >> now officially. >> a convicted felon. >> justin trudeau announcing he intends to step down. >> in el paso. >> philadelphia in the nation's capital. >> the palisades. >> from msnbc. >> world headquarters. >> so look, everybody can describe this however they want. the president has the pardon and commutation authority. it's his

decision. the president's made his decision. i don't second guess those. and yes, you know, it's kind of my ethos, my worldview. we believe in redemption. >> it's a worldview to commute the sentence for and pardon men and women who beat the you know what at a cops. okay. so by that reasoning, if donald trump wakes up tomorrow and insists that he's changed his mind and the moon is actually made out of cheese, how long until you'd see that fact? non fact reflected in the republican party platform? ten minutes. i'm guessing five. that very dynamic jump okay is reflected in this week's pardons and commutations for the violent criminals who attacked the capitol, and the men and women who protected it. many republican lawmakers already master hypocrites and contortionists on matters of

policy, are pushing the limits of self respect today, contradicting positions many of them held as recently as last weekend on the sunday shows that individuals convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers on january 6th should probably stay in prison. i suppose we could try to defend them. trump last month did tell time magazine this quote i'm going to do case by case. and if they were nonviolent, i think they've been greatly punished. and the answer is i will be doing that. yeah, i'm going to look if there's some that really were out of control. now, fast forward to yesterday. >> you would. >> agree that it's never acceptable to assault a. >> police officer. sure. >> so then if i can, among those who pardoned dj rodriguez, he drove a stun gun into the neck of the dc police officer who was abducted by the mob that day. he later confessed on video to the fbi and pleaded guilty for his crimes. why does he deserve a pardon? >> well, i don't know. was it a pardon? because we're looking at

commutes and we're looking at pardons. okay, well, we'll take a look at everything. >> you're going to look at where he's gone. free. it's over. again. that that trump, after taking the action is so disconnected from the reality of it raises a million questions, among them competence. and who's really in charge. but that that that position and that statement is just a piece of it. right. because his supporters in congress, his enablers, will call them from here on out, previously, advocates for case by case pardons seem to have changed their tune as well. >> do you agree. >> with president trump's decision. >> to pardon. >> these violent people and releasing them from jail if. >> they were truly violent? no, but but do i know that they were? i don't know that. >> senator. what do you make of president trump's pardons for. violent offenders? >> grateful that president trump is the president of united states. >> what do you think that.

>> they keep. skipping offices? >> i'm totally. >> supportive of it. >> violent offenders. are you comfortable. >> with that? >> i haven't seen. >> the details, but i think. >> a lot of those parents. >> would definitely well deserved. >> are you comfortable with these pardons for january 6th? >> look. >> as i. >> said, sorry, sorry. as i said before. >> we're looking forward to the next four years. >> not the last four. >> am i concerned about it? i mean. >> it's again. >> it's not. >> ideal. >> but i'm not overly concerned about it either. >> i think. >> the gift is. >> that it's. >> all. >> behind us now and we can. >> stop talking about it. >> generic coverage msnbc columnist, author of the newsletter to the contrary, charlie sykes is here. charlie, what do we do with a republican party that can't stick to the script? seven days in a row, jd vance was on a sunday show, i think a week ago. a couple of them saying, no, no, no, no, no, not the violent ones. >> right. >> so the headline. >> in the.

>> washington post. >> story that you showed says. >> you know, the stunning. >> reaction of the republican party. >> when i. >> first saw that, i thought, there's nothing stunning about this. this is what we've been seeing. >> for the last. >> eight years. but the reality is it is stunning. >> it's not. >> surprising that donald trump would. >> have issued. pardons because. >> he said he. >> was. >> going to do it. >> but this was even worse. >> than anybody thought. >> and i think you picked up on that with the comments that people. >> were making. >> before monday. >> you know, surely he's. not going to be pardoning the people who drove. >> a stun gun. >> into michael fanone. >> s neck. >> you know, surely he's not going to be pardoning people who. >> beat cops. >> and yet, apparently, at some point he decided it was too much work, too. much trouble, too much hassle. to do a case by case analysis. so he said bleep it, free them all. and he did. >> and the republican. >> party is even those who. >> have said well of course. >> we're not. we wouldn't we wouldn't go along with with. >> giving get out of jail. >> free cards to cop beaters. we're the party of law and order. >> back to blue right? they've

either gone. >> turtle or they've embraced it completely. and you know what? that is a watershed moment. that is a stunning moment, even by the standards of this republican party, because what the president of the united states has done in an unprecedented way has been to give his blessing to political violence when it is committed on his behalf, even if that violence is committed against police officers. and to watch people like ron johnson and others say, i have no problem with it whatsoever, is really i think we retain our ability to be shocked at the degree to which they are willing to change everything they claim to believe in, just in order to stay on the good side of donald trump. >> yeah. and i guess the only thing i would say is i don't it's not my job to tell people how to feel right. if you feel shocked, if you feel numb, all of it could be understood. but but we're going to show it to you. so let me do that. let me just do that work. here's jd

vance on the 10th of this month on pardoning violent insurrectionists. >> where is the line drawn. >> on who. >> will and wouldn't be considered for a pardon? >> i think it's. >> very simple. >> look. >> if you. >> protested peacefully on january the 6th and you've had merrick garland's. >> department of justice. >> treat you. >> like a. >> gang member, you should be pardoned if. you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn't be pardoned. >> i wasn't part of the gang that thought he was in the room. but if you wanted to make a t shirt that said i'm never in the room, you'd do that interview. i mean, first of all, no one's in jail who protested peacefully. nobody. those people didn't receive prison sentences. i'm not even sure any of them were prosecuted. but that was ten days ago and the opposite happened. >> ten days ago. >> yeah. >> the opposite happened. look, all of these people that were commuted, who sentences were commuted or pardoned, you know, have been charged, have been tried and been convicted in the

court, in the courts. they have been convicted by juries. many of them pled guilty. the cases have been overwhelming. ryan riley, who you had on a few minutes ago, has written an entire book about all of the efforts to find the insurrectionists and the seditionists. and yet donald trump has basically said, you know, on on his first day in office, that i am freeing. you see, jd vance actually stumbled on on something when he said it should be simple. it should be simple that you don't pardon people who were violent, engaged in a violent attack. and yet this is where we are. and to say that it has emboldened people like the proud boys and the oath keepers is putting it mildly. it is emboldening anyone who now thinks that they have a green light to engage in political violence. i mean, and again, where where are the checks and balances? where are the guardrails that we're supposed to protect us from all of this? donald trump now knows that he's not only immune from

prosecution. he's not. he not only knows that he can pardon any one of the people around him, but he also knows that the constitution has given him this absolutely unchecked power of pardon and commutation for people who stay in his power. and again, we have been talking about this for a very, very long time, nikole. and i think that we ought to realize that the moment is upon us. and it is interesting watching everybody sort of sleepwalk through this. you know, it's like, you know, we spend six months saying, you know, we have this existential threat to our constitutional democracy. but you know what? let's sit down. let's have tea. let's have lunch. let's shake hands. let's, let's, let's, you know, pretend as if all of the forms of democracy are not being used to undermine that democracy. and this is something that's really interesting watching. is everybody going along as if everything is reasonably normal? >> yeah, i mean, that's. >> donald trump is using those

norms in order to undermine those norms. >> yeah. and that is a response to trauma. and we will try to not do that here. we will not sleepwalk. you invoked ryan riley i want to and again, charlie, we have had this conversation not just for months, for years. so when you say that the insurrectionists are emboldened, don't don't take any of our word for it. listen to the insurrectionists. here's mr. rhodes. >> any regrets? >> no, i don't, because we did the. >> right thing. >> we were there to protect trump supporters from antifa. we were there. >> to protect. >> and secure two permitted events on capitol grounds where members of. congress were going to speak. >> the guys that went inside. >> the not. committing the crimes, that they helped people, they helped the police and helped the. people out. >> he says he has no regrets. what do you say, michael. >> tiktok's? >> let me let me play. michael fanone response. okay. >> you're a liar. >> that michael fanone was

bleeped out there. cnn asked michael fanone, who was on this program yesterday, his response to what stewart rhodes said. he said, go after yourself. you're a liar. the facts obviously don't support anything, stewart rhodes said. but ryan to charlie sykes point in stewart rhodes own telling. he's emboldened. >> yeah, it's funny, you know, with stewart rhodes. i remember him being at cpac years ago. it was the first time i met him when i was like a young cub reporter. i interviewed him at cpac. and, you know, lo and behold, look where we are. you know, 15 years later, you know, so stewart rhodes, i mean, was proven in court to be a liar, right? is what i would say to that. so michael fanone is factually correct because stewart rhodes told a story in court and, you know, a set of a set of piers of stewart rhodes looked at the evidence, looked at the facts, looked at the extensive chats that they had on signal and sort of the planning mechanisms that they went in here. and remember, stewart rhodes is also captured talking about, you know, wishing that they had brought guns to the

capitol that day immediately afterwards. so we have his contemporaneous thoughts at the time, no matter what he's saying now, after serving part of his sentence, we know what he said at the time. and contemporaneous evidence is just like the most important thing here. in fact, i was talking to a federal prosecutor just yesterday about this, and one of these, one of the he had worked a case. i actually interviewed him on camera. his name's jason manning. i think we have a clip of him that we can play in a little bit, but i was talking to jason about this and one moment that really stuck out to me in one case that he worked and actually video that nbc news obtained as a result of the case that he worked involved this writer who was just off of the floor of the house of representatives. it was this writer who had talked about killing people and dragging them off the streets. i think he said they should have a gaddafi moment, you know, basically kill legislators. that's what he talked about. he showed up to, like, mitch mcconnell's house before the january 6th attack. he was all over the place. i think he might have even been in atlanta, if i can recall correctly. but on january 6th itself, he was recording right outside of the floor as those

windows were shattered. and what we had is a representative, troy nehls. while officers were pointing weapons through that broken window that had been shattered by the mob. tell the mob contemporaneously at the time what he was thinking then, which is, i've never seen anything like this before in my life, and i've worked for law enforcement for 30 years. right. he had been a he'd been a sheriff for 30 years. and then he showed up one of his first days at the capitol. i think he was a freshman. and then he saw something. he said he's never seen anything like that before in his life. lo and behold. what do you think, representative the representative is doing now? he wrote a book undermining the january 6th attack. he spread conspiracy theories about it, said, oh, maybe it was antifa, said maybe it was, you know, the fbi undercover, every sort of conspiracy theory that you've seen thrown at the wall. and sadly, i think that those have really undermined the public narrative about this. the lies have worked in a lot of ways. but, you know, when speaking with jason manning, what he has said is that the facts really stand here and take a listen to some more of what he had to tell me. >> i would have said.

>> the same. >> thing that i. >> say to anybody who questions. the appropriateness of holding accountable the. rioters on january 6th, which is. >> take half an. hour and. >> watch body worn. camera of an officer who. >> was assaulted. >> that day. take half an hour and. >> imagine yourself. standing in their. >> shoes and think about what type of message it sends to that police officer, to all of our country's police officers to issue a pardon that communicates those. assaults are okay. >> and you know what i'd say there is i agree with jason. people should watch the evidence. people should look at this for themselves and find out the reality of what happened on january 6th, rather than believing what somebody is. some talking point that folks are regurgitating and repeating over and over again, that doesn't make it true. >> prosecutor, you're a prosecutor. it's almost a sad, a sad plea for the facts and for things you can believe with your own eyes. i mean, we've played hours and hours of that body cam footage on this program. i think

i take the mission from from ryan rally to continue to do so. but it's remarkable that that still has to be done. >> it is i mean, we all saw it unfold on video. i mean, there were 140 police officers who were injured. we saw people bringing weapons, bringing their some of the people were pardoned. one of them brought an explosive to the capitol. and what i find remarkable is, yeah, there's this silence that goes along to me. we see what donald trump is doing. he's rewarding loyalty, and he's expects loyalty in return. i mean, the message that's implicit here is stand back and stand by if and when i need you in the next four years. but, you know, in some respects you have the republicans who are silent and hear silence is complicity. and where are you hearing the outrage? you're hearing it from the judges in these january 6th cases. i mean, judge chutkan said something to the effect of you cannot whitewash history. you know, this, this stain, the feces literally on this on the

capitol will remain. and so, you know, you hear and it's and it's not just judge chutkan, who we know from donald trump's d.c. case. it's a number of these d.c. judges that heard these cases are speaking out and saying, this is this is not going to change. the facts were heard in court. juries convicted these individuals, and those will remain despite these pardons. and you really what i would love to see is more democrats speaking out and really holding their republican counterparts feet to the fire here. this is unacceptable. it should be bipartisan that you cannot injure police officers, you cannot assault police officers. you can't trash the capitol like a cheap motel room after a concert. like, these are not things that you can do, and there should be agreement on that. and when there isn't, you have to make it clear to the american people what their position is and why they are wrong, and message that clearly and forcefully. >> i think it's to charlie sykes point. you have to act like you believe those are the facts and the sleepwalking is everywhere.

i'm going to put all of you on the spot and ask if we can, if we can pick this up. i mean, this is i don't know that there's a more important conversation to be had. charlie sykes, ryan riley, frank figliuzzi, and kristy greenberg, thank you very much for spending time with us on this today. we want to let you know about a brand new documentary that's airing here on msnbc. it's about the gentleman you saw, oath keepers leader stewart rhodes, whose prison sentence was commuted by donald trump. the film is called king of the apocalypse, and it tells the story of rhodes radicalization through the eyes of his now de-radicalized family. in this clip, his son dakota talks about the games rose rhodes would play on his family to prepare them for the apocalypse. watch. >> we would. >> play a game where we'd be trying to train in situational awareness, so he would, like, step back and disappear while we were in a. >> grocery store. >> and then. circle aroundd them

behind a shelf. >> and. >> scream, stab, stab, stab and pantomime and pantomime shanking me. and like everybody would like, look and be like, what the f? what the f is that? if he'd been an assassin, i would have died. >> it's his son. king of the apocalypse airs sunday, february 2nd at 9 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. when we come back, michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson will be our guest. we came to know her as she defended her family, her home and our democracy four years ago. now she's looking to make a bigger mark. she'll tell make a bigger mark. she'll tell us about it if you have bladder leaks when you laugh or cough like we did, there's a treatment that can help: bulkamid and the relief can last for years. we're so glad we got bulkamid. call this number, today. get your bladder back. [♪♪] are you one of the millions of americans who suffer from an upset stomach after a big meal?

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outside my home. >> and that's why. >> my stomach sunk and i. >> thought, it's me. and there and. >> then it just we don't. >> know what's. >> going to the uncertainty of that was. >> what was the. fear like. >> are they coming with guns? >> are they. >> going. >> to attack. >> my house? i'm in here. >> with my kid. >> you know, it's. >> i'm. >> trying to. >> put him. >> to bed. >> and so it was that was the. scariest moment, just not knowing what was going. >> to happen. >> that was michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson describing to the january 6th select committee the horror of having an armed mob, egged on by the then president of the united states election, lies

surrounding her home. while she was inside with her kid. the people responsible for these kinds of election related threats and violence have only been emboldened by their own telling. after donald trump gave pardons and commutations to the january 6th insurrectionists, including the people chanting for the vice president of the united states to be hanged and the people who violently beat capitol police officers. joining our conversation, michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson, who's here with a big announcement about her future, which you can see right over her right and left shoulder. tell us what you what you news you're making today. hi, nicole. it's great to see you. >> and it's been a it's been a week. >> i think. >> the pardons that you've been discussing were. really hit us hard. >> here in. >> michigan. >> because they were an affront to democracy and an affront to the basic. >> standards of. >> protecting our law enforcement and standing with them, not pardoning violent insurrectionists who would seek to use violence to overthrow a

fair and free election. and yet, here we are. and it's a moment where states lead and states can remind all of us who we are as americans, which is we are people who stand for true ethical governance rooted in integrity, accountability, and transparency. we believe in following the law. we believe in standing with our citizens and keeping people safe, not creating anxiety and chaos. and so i'm running for governor of michigan so that we can be a part of ensuring that michiganders and residents all across our country know that governors fight for them and will continue to fight for them, just as i've done as the michigan secretary of state to keep people safe, to protect our rights and freedoms, to stand for the truth, and to just make government work well for everyone. >> michigan is led by women, by by democratic women who have proven again and again to know how to win in the swingiest of swing states. tell me what that

secret sauce is. and how do washington democrats bathe in it and drink from it? >> well, you see women winning in michigan, whether it be kristen mcdonald, rivet and hillary scholten and elissa slotkin running at the federal level, or folks like myself and gretchen whitmer running at the state level with dana nessel. but because we talk about basic bread and butter issues that matter to folks, how are we going to ensure that the while the cost of living increases, that we're doing everything we can to invest in high paying jobs in our state and cut costs where possible? i've just completed a tour all around our state listening tour, and the number one thing on people's minds wasn't necessarily politics or partizanship or bickering. it was i want to be able to afford a home in the community i choose to live, and we want leaders who are going to talk about how we can do that and solve those problems for us. and folks don't care what party we're affiliated with, as long as we're about getting things done. and the women who have won

in our state have made the case to voters that we know how to get things done. we know how to stand up for their rights and freedoms and also deliver and cutting costs and making life a little bit easier for everyone. so that's what you'll see come out of our campaign for governor. and that's what you've seen win all across the midwest. >> so much of how the way we got to know you was in those moments where election deniers were outside of your house. donald trump prevailed in michigan. how will you navigate the politics of non-reality and make this case that you're the person who can get things done? on affordability? well. >> first and foremost, we talk about my track record, which has been reforming our secretary of state offices. i run the dmv in michigan in addition to running our elections, and we've made our department of motor vehicles the most efficient in the country by cutting wasteful spending and improving efficiencies. and that makes any resident happy when you don't have to wait in line several hours to renew your driver's license. and it demonstrates

that, you know, when people wonder, is government on my side? does it work for me? they can look to our office and say, yes, it does. and that's my goal for every aspect of our state government. and really, i think leaders around our country who are succeeding. when you look at josh shapiro in pennsylvania, wes moore in maryland, there are folks who cut through the noise, cut through the rhetoric and simply just deliver, making people's lives easier. that's what we should be doing as leaders in government, regardless of our party affiliation. i believe that's what the democratic party stands for, and developing an economic policy that invests in our people is the way that we can get out of this moment and restore ethics and integrity to our leadership by just talking about the basics, fixing the roads, improving our schools, making housing affordable and then solving those tough problems for people and getting things done. >> michigan secretary of state now candidate for governor jocelyn benson, thank you so much for joining us and having this conversation here with us. >> thanks for having me. >> when we come back, there's some breaking news to tell you about from southern california,

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qunol. the brand i trust. >> we're going to try it one more time to bring in my colleague liz creutz, covering the fast moving new wildfire in los angeles county. first, stay safe. second, tell us what you're able to see and tell us about this. hey, nicole. >> yeah, i. >> mean. this is a really. >> fast moving fire. it started around 11 a.m. >> our time. >> it's exploded. >> to more than 5000 acres. and you can see the flames behind me. >> right here. we've just watched over the past hour as. >> it. >> moved acres. >> by. >> the minute. >> right now, firefighters. >> are here on the scene. >> a really large response. >> from all. >> over l.a. county. we saw. beverly hills fire, la fire all over because of obviously so much concern with these winds. la just dealing with so much over. >> the past. >> two weeks right now. now, as you can kind of tell, this is a

little bit more of a rural area of la county than we saw with the eaton and the palisades fires. but that said. there's about 19,000 people that are under evacuation. >> orders right now because it's. >> moving so quickly. i mean, look. >> just now. >> this fire, this is also part of a back burn that firefighters are putting out to try to contain. >> the flames. >> but the fire and the wind is getting pushed towards homes right now. that's why there are those evacuation orders right now. there's schools that had to be evacuated. we saw video and images of students running out of their schools really scared. and i don't blame them because, nicole, it's been really scary here in la. fire after fire. over the past two weeks, with these relentless santa ana winds just fueling the flames. >> liz, you look very close to the fire there. just tell us what the firefighting strategy is behind you. >> yeah, well, there are cal. >> fire firefighters. >> that have been here in part and also la county firefighters here, as you can see coming through here, part of what they do is they try to, in some areas, do back burns that have areas that have already burned

to try to contain the flames. but we do know that there's been helicopters brought here. they've been doing air drops as well. they've really been trying to attack this from every level. that's something that they weren't able to do with the palisades fire and eaton fire that first day, because it was so windy. so being able to do those air drops is good. but again, the concern is just this wind. we did talk to some neighbors in some of the areas that are under evacuation orders. and notably those folks were a lot of them were not evacuating. they were there spraying down their homes, saying they were going to be there until the very end to make sure that their homes survive this. nicole. >> that's great. please stay safe. please heed all the warnings yourself. and thank you so much for all of your efforts to join us and bring us this, this very much breaking story. thank you and thanks to all of you for letting us into your homes during these trying times. we're so grateful. the beat with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole. >> thank you. >> welcome to the beat. >> i'm ari melber. >> reporting on. >> this first. >> week of president trump's new term with a new immigration crackdown reportedly aimed