that we've experienced. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching. home as well for joining us this hour. there is a lot going on and just about everything that's going on that we have set to talk about tonight are stories that are continuing to develop. and so i can't i can usually at this point in the show tell you about what's going to be coming up. i can't tell you about what's going to be coming up, because all the stories that we're

covering are live and happening as we speak. we do have major developments out of washington and particularly out of the justice department, major, major developments. even for all of the news that has come out of washington over these past two weeks, what's happening tonight at the fbi and the justice department is almost a bigger deal than anything else that have happened. we are going to get right to that. we have a number of guests, senator, somebody directly affected by those events all standing by. we are at first, though, going to start with the breaking news that we've been following out of philadelphia. the country is tonight unbelievably witnessing its second horrific plane crash in just the past three days. tonight it is a small plane, a jet, a lear jet that has crashed in northeast philadelphia. it sent up a fireball in a densely populated neighborhood that includes both homes and also a shopping center. i'm going to show you some footage here of the crash, which you're about to see. here is footage from a ring camera security system that did capture the moment of the crash.

of this plane. this learjet had just departed from northeast philadelphia airport. it's not the main airport in philly, but a small airport. it was en route to springfield-branson airport in missouri. this was around 6:30 p.m. local time, 6:30 p.m. eastern time. the crash site is near the roosevelt mall in in northeast philly. but again, homes there, cars there. this is a densely populated part of a big u.s. city. first responders very quickly reached the scene. they found fires burning, several homes and cars on fire. because of the impact and the debris, local officials, including the mayor of philadelphia and pennsylvania's governor josh shapiro, are in contact. they are helping coordinate the response we may be hearing from governor shapiro in just a moment, as local officials continue to brief on

the scene. we had very quickly initial reports that said this plane was on some sort of medical assignment when it when it took off, that that is confirmed. now, just before we got on the air tonight, we got this statement from jet rescue, air ambulance quote today jet rescue air ambulance experienced a crash. the aircraft, a uci learjet 55, crashed after takeoff from philadelphia. there were four crew members and one passengers. excuse me. there were four crew members and two passengers. a pediatric patient and escort on board. so four crew, two passengers. one of the passengers is a pediatric patient. this was an air ambulance flight, the air ambulance company said. no further information is available at this time. at this time, we can't confirm any survivors. no names are being released until family members have been notified. our immediate concern is for the patient's family, our personnel, their families and other victims that may have been hurt on the ground. more information will be released as

it becomes available. again, that from the air ambulance company that was operating this flight, a representative for jet rescue air ambulance tells one of our producers tonight that the pediatric patient on board was a female minor. so a girl, a citizen of mexico who had completed treatment and was on her way back home again. the six people on board that flight, believed to be that pediatric patient, an escort with that patient and four crew members. in just the past half hour, philadelphia's mayor, cheryl parker, gave the press an update and spoke directly to philadelphia residents in the region of the crash, asking people not to come to the area and also asking residents who live nearby to not touch debris and to avoid the immediate area of the crash site. as the response continues. tonight. >> we are urging you to please stay away from. >> the scene. >> if you see debris, call 911.

don't touch anything. this is still an active scene under investigation. >> philadelphia's mayor speaking just moments ago. joining us now from the scene of the crash is reporter lauren meek from philadelphia station wcau. lauren, i really appreciate you joining us. as this story continues to develop, can you just describe to us the latest from the scene and what's what's the latest update on. >> your reporting sound from mayor cheryl parker as she was speaking here on the scene just minutes ago, she told us she does not have at this moment any information about any fatalities and also delivering that message to people here in philadelphia to not touch any debris and to stay away from this area. that is difficult for people who live in this area. we've seen a number of people trying to get back to their homes. and let me describe to you where we are. we're a couple of miles from northeast philadelphia airport, that smaller airport that you were just describing. and this is an area where there is a very

busy highway. it is six lanes on either side, so 12 lanes altogether. and it goes through an area that is both residential and commercial. you've got the mall here and businesses. you've got people who might be going to mcdonald's on friday night and going to other restaurants or other places in strip malls here, and then you've got a very large residential area, homes here. there was a point where we turned down a small street and we saw people streaming towards us, dozens of people coming towards us as police were trying to push them out of the area. and as we looked beyond them and above them, we could see smoke coming from the coming from the homes there on that street. police were literally blocking that street off as we were backing up. this is an area that is very busy. and so it's been a chaotic scene tonight and very congested, difficult to get around here, difficult for medical personnel and for first

responders, as well as just people who live in this area in northeast philadelphia, as everyone tries to get a handle on what has been happening here, i did also just talk a few minutes ago to a colleague of mine who spoke to a witness here who works in the area, who described seeing debris coming towards him as if there was some sort of explosion. we don't have a lot of information about exactly how to describe that at this point, but that debris was being pushed towards him. he went inside, closed the door to try to get away from it and stay safe. so that's the kind of thing that we are hearing here on the scene tonight. rachel i'll toss it over back to you. >> yes. >> lauren, thank you very much. i know we've got we've got a delay and i'm not supposed to ask you follow up questions, but i have to the perimeter of the area that is closed off. what you know about the density of the neighborhood. do you have any estimate at all, any ballpark sense that you can give our viewers as to how many

buildings on the ground may be affected, how large the area of that neighborhood in northeast philly is that may have been affected by this crash and by the attendant debris? >> where some. of the. >> pieces don't be here. >> they're not in anything specific, rachel, but i can tell you that we have been just trying to get where we are now, two different areas, and we have seen them affected. we were over near the mall. we saw that area blocked off. we saw fire personnel, medical personnel, police officers in that area over near the mall on the macy's side. and that area was all blocked off. i described to you what we saw in that residential neighborhood. and as we looked down that small street, the smoke that we were seeing was not right next to where we were. it was a block or so, or perhaps more than that down there behind where i am right now, there has been smoke billowing. i'll just take a quick check. it looks like it is definitely lower and has come down. died down a bit

from when we got here that there is smoke over in that area. i can tell you. over to my left. we were over in a staging area over there before we came here, and there was smoke on the other side coming from that area, a block or so down. so we don't know exactly how big this area is. that is one of the things that we're all trying to get a handle on. certainly law enforcement, first responders, a lot of them out here working in various parts of this section of the city. rachel. >> lauren, mike from our philadelphia station, wcau. lauren, thank you very much. it's invaluable to have you there on the scene for us. i really appreciate it. bringing now into the conversation our own. ali velshi, in addition to being a host of his show, velshi on msnbc, he's also an experienced pilot who's flown in and out of northeast philadelphia airport many times. ali, my friend, i know you are on assignment in about ten different directions tonight. thank you for joining us on short notice. to help cover this, tell me about the airport

itself. this is not an airport that most people who have flown in and out of philly will have ever seen. people who fly small planes, private planes, medevac and air ambulance planes will have used this airport. but what should people understand about it who haven't been there themselves? >> yeah. so there there are some commercial planes that go in and out of there. but between trenton and philadelphia, it's the biggest airport. it's about 50, about 60 miles from philadelphia international airport. but if you're not a commercial jetliner like an american airlines plane or a delta plane, if you're if you're medevac plane, for instance, pa philadelphia northeast airport is the place you would fly out of. it's akin to chicago midway. it's in a very populated area. and what you saw in that image that was caught on the ring cam is that clearly that was not a controlled descent. what a lot of people don't think about when they fly is the most dangerous part of flying is taking off and landing for the pilot. it is it consumes the most of their attention. there are the greatest number of things to do. so when you are taking off, if there's a danger to your plane,

something goes wrong. your primary objective is threefold. one is you try and find the place you can land safely that avoids houses, avoids trees. you know, you try to try and land as safely as you can. number two is you turn off your engines, you turn off your fuel so that a fire doesn't start. now the problem is this is a learjet with a range of 2500 miles. the airport it was headed to was a thousand miles away, so it was probably about half full of fuel. but it's a lot of fuel. to fly a thousand miles is a lot of fuel. so that's what you're seeing. whether or not that pilot was able to turn off the fuel pumps and the and the fuel supply may not matter when it's that sort of crash. the way you saw that plane go down means that that pilot was not in a position to try and land that plane. you know, they're obviously always trying to look for a runway. then you're trying to look for an open field. then you're trying to make sure in that open field there aren't wires and flotsam and jetsam and trees. you definitely always want to avoid houses. we see that there is there is at least one house on fire there. these

are row houses, which is typical of that area. they're very, very close together. philadelphia northeast airport has a control tower. it's actually why i've flown there so many times because as i was doing my pilot training, i needed to be at an airport that had a control tower that wasn't as busy as philadelphia, but it's in the philadelphia airspace, which means flights that are going any distance in and out still fall under philadelphia's air traffic control, even though there's a control tower there. so hopefully this plane doesn't have a black box on it. but they're hopefully, by the way, when your plane is out of control, you communicate. first you tell them, you tell the tower what the problem is. there are various codes you can use. you can say, mayday. they will ask you what the problem is and you always get priority. as a plane that has an emergency, you get priority over everybody and everything. you don't have to follow air traffic control rules. you don't have to follow anything you've learned. you don't have to listen to anybody else. your your goal at that point is to try and land your plane safely. this does look like a plane that in, in

aviation parlance, lost lift. in other words, it was not flying. that plane crashed in. it was not a controlled landing. we don't know and we won't know for some time. we will get to the bottom of it. that's the good thing about america, rachel, is that the ntsb and the faa do study these things. they will learn what happened. and if it's something that's avoidable, they will put out a directive. if it's something to do with the plane, which is less likely because the learjet is a relatively new plane. it's been around since about 2000, about in the late 90s. it's a it's a relatively new plane. they're in good shape. they've got a good safety record. they're often used as medevac planes. they're also used as luxury planes. but in this case it's a medevac plane. as you know, six people on board, four were crew, one was a was a patient. philadelphia is known as a hospital city. what we do know is this was not a patient at chop, which is the children's hospital of philadelphia, which is the primary children's hospital. but if you have serious illnesses and you're you're you're a pediatric patient or you're young.

philadelphia is a major, major center for treatment. so all we know right now is this was a young woman, a girl who had completed her treatment was headed home, in theory via missouri. i think the ultimate destination was mexico. the company that runs this medevac service is actually well known for providing service to people who are coming or going from south america, the caribbean or mexico for medical treatment in the united states. so that's what we know at the moment. >> hallie, let me just ask you one other thing, which is about and again, i have only a layman's understanding of this stuff, but i'm thinking about a flight taking off from northeast philadelphia headed toward missouri. yeah. as you say, this is a flight that's got a long this is a plane that has a long range. it's got a 2500 mile range. that's a relatively long flight. and it crashed very soon after takeoff. so as we're thinking about the challenge of fighting these fires on the ground, and we're thinking about the size of the disaster that has been created on the ground in this densely populated part of northeast philadelphia. should we expect that there was a ton of fuel on that plane,

because this was just after takeoff that it took off? >> yeah. generally speaking, you don't want to put a lot more fuel in your aircraft than you need for your trip. but there are there are rules that say you have to be able to get to your destination and your alternate airport. you always have to have an alternate airport, and you have to have half an hour extra fuel than your alternate airport. so generally speaking, because fuel, you know, it's expensive to have a plane that's heavier to fly further distance. but so they would put as much fuel as they needed, but fuel for 1000 miles plus an alternate airport plus plus half an hour is still a lot of fuel. and that's the fullest that plane is going to be. in other words, right after takeoff is the most fuel that plane's going to have. that's the problem. that that plane went down, went down fast, went down into a probably a relatively specific area. in other words, it doesn't there's no evidence at the moment that that things were flying all over the place. but that plane went down with a lot of fuel, which is why you see that size of

explosion that you see. there's nothing when a plane goes down like that, there's nothing the pilot can do to control the fire on the ground. and pilots think this way. they understand if they're going to lose control of their plane and possibly even their lives and the lives of the people on there, they're always thinking about, how do i preserve the lives of the people on the ground? so if that pilot had any choice, they would have put that plane down somewhere that was not close to a residential area, in a field somewhere where if the people whose lives were on the plane were going to be lost, and these this is all automatic stuff that pilots think about. you don't even really think about it. it's just it's just drilled into you to see the way that plane crashed tells me something went wrong in which the pilot lost control of the plane entirely. it is interesting because the learjet has two jets, two two jet engines, and the advantages of having two engines, as opposed to the planes that i would fly, which had one, is that if the engine goes out, you have another engine to be able to get you somewhere and land. but when you're taking off your plane, everybody knows this. you're at quite an angle. when you're at an angle, you have

less maneuverability than than you have when you're flying. you know, straight. so that's why things go wrong on takeoffs and landings. and this is as wrong as they go. >> yeah, absolutely. ali velshi, thank you so much for joining us, my friend. your expertise is really, really invaluable on a night like this. and we continue to watch this develop in philadelphia, where the terse statement from the air ambulance company involved here, jet rescue, air ambulance, suggests that they do not expect that there would be survivors among the six on board that plane. but of course, all eyes now on the ground in that densely populated part of northeast philadelphia, the shopping center, the mall there, but also row houses, including some fighting, fierce fires from that plane that had just taken off from that nearby airport. just a very scary situation tonight in northeast philadelphia. we will keep eyes on it throughout the hour. all right. we're going to move on now to a story that we've been following over the course of this evening in washington. and

you have probably over the course of the night, as this story has been developing, you've, you've you've heard frequently the term saturday night massacre, right. so the difference is this when you hear the term saturday night massacre, that is about nixon, right? president nixon was under investigation by the justice department on a saturday night in 1973. he decided, screw it. i will no longer stand for that. and so on a saturday night in 1973, nixon ordered the attorney general to fire the prosecutor that was leading the investigation into nixon. the attorney general said no, and he resigned. then nixon ordered the deputy attorney general to fire the prosecutor leading the investigation. he too said no and resigned. then nixon ordered the number three official at the justice department to fire the prosecutor, leading the investigation into him. and finally he did it. and that was the saturday night massacre. that was president nixon's way of trying to stop an ongoing investigation of himself, which he both hated and feared. that

is the saturday night massacre. it is a very famous thing in american politics and law. but the saturday night massacre, importantly, did not work. i mean, on that saturday night, he was able to chop his way through the justice department until he was able to successfully, that night, fire the prosecutor. but it was a very short lived victory. only ten days later, congress opened proceedings to impeach him. two days after that, justice department just appointed another special prosecutor to replace the one that nixon had gotten fired. so that investigation proceeded. we all know how it ended. that was the saturday night massacre. it was a dramatic and unsuccessful effort, one that was ultimately ruled to be illegal. but the point of what nixon did there was that he was trying to stop an investigation that was actively underway, and that has gone down as one of the most ignominious actions by a us president in american history. but that is not what is

happening tonight in washington, dc tonight, what they are trying to do in washington, dc and at the us justice department and at the fbi is something that i think inarguably is worse than that, because what they are trying to do tonight is not trying to stop an active investigation tonight. they are seeking revenge for law enforcement personnel who participated in a previous investigation that is now over. and the reason that is worse is because the point of what they are doing tonight is to permanently, irrevocably change law enforcement in the united states of america to make it so, fbi agents and prosecutors just won't, in the future, pursue criminal investigations and criminal cases. if the suspected criminals in those cases are associated with the president. and this movement that supports him, they are trying to not get rid of an investigation. they're trying to get rid of american law enforcement as we know it. they are trying to get rid of

the very idea of an independent, justice blind system that makes america who we are. this is not the saturday night massacre. this is considerably worse. and it is hard to see how what happens tonight can be corrected, can be undone. the way the saturday night massacre was undone within 12 days. this is a really serious thing. now, before tonight, they had already fired prosecutors who had worked on the special counsel's investigation that brought charges against president trump. the charges for the alleged hoarding and mishandling of classified documents, charges for illegally trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. they already fired prosecutors involved with those investigations. what they are doing tonight is apparently attempting a mass purge of prosecutors who worked on all the other january 6th cases, the ones just involving rioters who

attacked the capitol building on trump's behalf. tonight, approximately 30 prosecutors who worked on january 6th rioter prosecutions have all been fired. we are going to be speaking with one of those prosecutors in just a moment. beyond that, beyond that, they appear to be in the midst of a mass purge at the fbi. at least a half dozen senior leaders of the fbi have already been told to resign or be fired on monday. beyond that senior leadership, though, they are also trying to remove just normal fbi line agents, potentially hundreds or even thousands of them. now, as i mentioned at the top of the hour, this is still an emerging story. details may yet evolve as the story develops and we learn more. my best understanding of what has happened thus far is this. and if i if i stand corrected by the end of this hour, i will not be surprised. but this is what i understand it. what i understand has

happened just thus far, in an instruction that appears to have originated at the white house, trump's hand-picked acting officials at the justice department directed fbi headquarters to hand over internal files from the jack smith cases, from the trump classified documents case, from the trump overthrow, the election case, they were told the fbi, fbi headquarters was told to hand over those files so a list could be made of all fbi line agents and fbi supervisors who were involved in those cases in any way. so personnel action could be taken against those fbi personnel so they could be punished, removed, reassigned, or fired. the washington post reports tonight that fbi supervisors advised agents that any agents who worked on either of those two cases, the jack smith cases. fbi supervisors reportedly advised agents that they should be prepared for the

trump administration to release to the public the names of the fbi agents who worked on those cases before they were then. they would then be fired on monday. so rather than just firing them, they were basically going to tell, you know, trump supporters, including those who were just let out of prison, trump tell them, hey, here's the names of fbi agents who are part of all the january 6th investigations, the ones that targeted trump. don't worry, though, they're no longer agents. we're firing them today. so go ahead and have at them. now, tonight, msnbc's ryan riley has obtained a memo sent by the acting director of the fbi to all fbi personnel. and it would seem to indicate that even beyond those things that i have just described, beyond the prosecutors who did the two trump cases, beyond fbi personnel at the senior levels of the justice of the fbi, beyond fbi personnel involved in the two trump cases. what ryan riley has obtained tonight, this

this letter from the acting fbi director to all fbi personnel would seem to indicate that they are planning a massive purge. beyond that, some kind of purge against not just the agents who participated in some way in the two jack smith cases where trump was charged. but beyond that, they appear to be targeting all the fbi agents who were involved in any of the cases brought against january 6th rioters. and you put this in perspective. the january 6th riot cases make up the largest single investigation ever in the history of the bureau. the january 6th cases are the largest criminal caseload ever assembled by the department of justice. if they are going to try to purge every fbi agent who took any part in any one of these, well over 1000 cases. that's that's kind of the whole fbi. i mean, not every single member of the fbi, but

certainly most of the fbi. here's the memo obtained tonight by msnbc's ryan riley, quote, colleagues, we understand there's a lot of media reporting and rumors surrounding potential changes at the fbi. this includes reporting and rumors about actions that very seriously impact our workforce. consistent with our commitment to share information with you as we receive it. acting deputy director casey and i want to provide you with an update. late this afternoon, i received a memo from the acting deputy attorney general notifying me that eight senior fbi executives are to be terminated by specific dates unless these employees have retired beforehand. so eight of them will be out unless they quit. quote i have been personally in touch with each of these impacted employees. the memo also directs me to provide by noon on tuesday, the following quote. all current and former fbi personnel assigned at any time to investigations and or prosecutions relating to events that occurred at or near the us capitol on january 6th,

2021. and also, secondly, united states versus haney, which is, i believe, a case about hamas and the october 7th attack. they want a list of all current and former fbi personnel assigned at any time to investigations or prosecutions related to january 6th, or that one hamas case. quote, these lists should include relevant supervisory personnel and fbi regional offices and field divisions, as well as fbi headquarters for each employee included in the list provide the current title office to which the person is assigned, role in the investigation or prosecution, and date of last activity relating to the investigation or prosecution. upon timely receipt of the requested information, the office of the deputy attorney general will commence a review process to determine whether additional personnel actions are necessary. the acting director of the fbi then tells personnel the fbi. quote, we understand that this request encompasses thousands of fbi employees across the country who

have supported these investigative efforts. i am one of those employees, as is acting deputy director casey. as we have said since the moment we agreed to take on these roles, meaning the acting director and acting acting deputy director of the fbi, we are going to follow the law, follow fbi policy and do what is in the best interest of the workforce and the american people. always. we will be back in touch with more information as soon as we can. in the meantime, stay safe and take care of each other. brian j. driscoll, jr. acting director. again, this letter tonight to all fbi personnel. it is from brian driscoll, who is the somewhat accidental acting director of the fbi. he's a long time employee of the fbi. he's apparently part of the hostage rescue team. the trump administration tried to name him to be the number two. they tried to name him to be the acting deputy director of the fbi. there was a whole different guy, robert casey in new york county, counterterrorism official who was supposed to be named acting

director. but the wall street journal reported yesterday that the trump administration actually mixed up which guy was which? they meant to name casey to be director and driscoll to be deputy. but they screwed up and accidentally named driscoll the director and casey the deputy. once those two guys realized that they'd been named for the wrong jobs, they just decided it would be easier to switch to switch jobs and switch offices. so that's how we got brian driscoll as the acting director of the fbi tonight, as former trump defense lawyer emil bove at the justice department, possibly on orders from the white house, has demanded a list of every single fbi agent in the entire country who worked on any january 6th case in any capacity at all. and even though that includes the new acting director and the new acting deputy director, who trump himself just ham handedly accidentally appointed. they say the reason they want that list is because they're going to review it for potential personnel action against all those agents. again,

that is, thousands of fbi, fbi agents all across the country. and again, this is a developing story. this is as clear as i can be with you right now on the details of what has happened and what they seem to be trying to do, but also be clear on what this what this means, right? this is not an an if situation. we are seeing it already with the firings. they have already effectuated with the threats they have already made. if law enforcement officials and agents have their careers threatened, which they have now all had their careers threatened, and indeed if they are fired and they indeed are already starting to be fired, if they have their careers threatened and are fired because they took part in lawfully predicated criminal investigations where grand juries handed down indictments, where judges signed search warrants, where juries returned convictions if they nevertheless are fired for taking part in those lawful, proper criminal

law enforcement actions. because the president in power now doesn't like those cases, that is not nixon. that is not a president trying to get out of an investigation. he's scared of for himself. that is that is the end of independent law enforcement as a core value of who we are as a country, right? that's an end to the idea that law enforcement pursues justice without regard to favors and preferences dictated by the people in power. here's how the new york times put it, puts it tonight. quote, if the administration follows through, it would be a singular moment in the fbi's history, and it would fly in the face of decades worth of civil service laws that are meant to protect the integrity and professionalism of federal law enforcement. and those are those are very pretty words and nice concepts. and that means

they all blur together and seem just kind of like americana. let's be more blunt about it. if you lose those things, if you lose the independence and professionalism of federal law enforcement, what that means is we are rewiring the fbi and federal prosecutors, so they will now henceforth only do arrests and searches and investigations and prosecutions that please the president, regardless of who it is that's committing crimes. these firings, which are now underway, are changing. one of the fundamental things that makes us the kind of country that we are, this is very bad. jamie raskin, democratic congressman and professor of constitutional law, told the washington post tonight. this he said, quote, if allowed to proceed, trump's purge of our federal law enforcement workforce will expose america to

authoritarianism and dictatorship. joining us now is carol leonnig, pulitzer prize winning washington post investigative reporter who is really, really well sourced on justice matters and law enforcement. she's covering this story tonight. carol, thanks for being here tonight. i really appreciate you taking the time. i know you're in the midst of a lot of reporting. glad to be here. rachel, let me ask you if i've said anything that strikes you as wrong or that's been overtaken by subsequent reporting since. since i started talking. no. >> unfortunately. >> i think everything. >> you've relayed is very factual. what we're seeing is a series of people who are being told they'll be terminated, likely by monday. if they don't move along quickly. they are very much the senior senior cadre of leadership of the fbi, all of them career, not one political. and we are also seeing that thousands of agents are essentially on tenterhooks now after a series of memos, both a memo from the acting

attorney general and an email from the acting fbi director telling them that files are being reviewed now, mostly at the white house behest, to determine which agents who worked, which which scores of agents worked on the january 6th investigation, a riot in which police officers died and were injured, 140 were injured. that those individuals may be. reviewed for termination as well, and that lists are being made for future punitive terminations or disciplinary decisions. and i couldn't underscore more how frightened the individuals i've spoken to have been. both those who are in the crosshairs of a potential termination, and also those who are their colleagues and worked with them at the department of justice or worked with them on important cases and are kind of

gobsmacked at the idea that agents who basically did their job to try to investigate and bring evidence of violent crimes are now going to be fired for that, because it is politically unpleasant for donald trump to be reminded that january 6th was a violent attack and an effort to overturn a free and fair election. carol, one level at which this is going to have an impact is obviously on the lives of these individual agents and on their families. and for people who were involved in january, six investigations, either of the capitol rioters or the one that overturned the election case involving donald trump, them being named and drummed out of the agency also potentially has real security implications for them in terms of being targeted by the people who donald trump has just sprung from prison. that's part of, i imagine, the fear that you're talking about here. but the other level of impact here is how this changes the country.

this is being described widely as a sharp departure from anything else that has ever happened in us federal law enforcement. my view of it is i don't know anything else to compare this to. can you describe what is so different about this and what the potential impact of this is on federal law enforcement, beyond just the personal impact on these agents? >> can i. >> draw a comparison between. >> the weeks. >> before rachel, agents were being asked to conduct a surprise raid, a surprise unannounced search at donald trump's part time residence at mar-a-lago? the evidence was coming in all summer that was overwhelming, that donald trump had been withholding, hoarding and mishandling some of the government's most precious secrets. the things that keep our country safe, the thing that

keeps americans safe. they had the government had unbelievable evidence that summer that this crime was happening. fbi agents were a little bit nervous, especially supervisors, about searching the former president's home. it was very nerve wracking to them because they had seen some of their friends get into a lot of trouble for investigating russian operatives, trying to make contact and sort of butter up and connect with the donald trump campaign. in 2016. they saw investigations. they saw congressional questioning, they saw doxing, you know, claims that specific agents were unethical, things that were spread in the press and leaked to the press, largely by republican allies of donald trump's. and they were worried about conducting this investigation. when all of the evidence pointed to a very serious crime of obstruction and

mishandling of records. now you have so many scores, more of agents on tenterhooks, worried about their future and the message that sends to the entire bureau and also beyond it, to the department of justice lawyers and prosecutors, is certain investigations are not okay. and you better look twice or maybe three times before you decide that you should accept your mission, which is to investigate and fight crime. that is a very. worrisome thing. is it okay to investigate bob menendez for taking a bribe from egyptians? is it okay to investigate and prosecute him? but it's not okay to investigate other people who are allied with donald trump or who are serving donald trump? who or who are donald trump himself?

>> yeah. >> carol leonnig, invaluable perspective on this. and your deep reporting and analysis here is really, really helpful for us to understand it. thank you, thank you. >> thanks, rachel. >> all right. we have much more on this breaking story to come tonight. we're going to take one quick break here. when we come back we're going to talk live with one of the justice department prosecutors who was just fired tonight not for cause, but because the january 6th prosecutors are all getting fired. there's a lot going on tonight. you're going to want to tonight. you're going to want to see this interview when we —hi! —hi! ♪♪ chocolate fundraiser. ♪♪ with the chase mobile app, things move a little more smoothly. ♪♪ deposit checks easily and send money quickly. [coins clinking] ♪♪

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spotless house for $19. >> this show began and. >> continues being the place. >> to have. >> the hard. >> conversations. >> we're continuing to cover what appears to be a mass purge of law enforcement personnel at the justice department and the fbi. tonight, we have obtained one of the termination letters that tonight was sent to justice department prosecutors. this one was hand-delivered to assistant u.s. attorney sean brennan. he was hired by the justice department in 2023, specifically to work on the huge glut of january 6th rioter cases. this is from the letter that he received tonight, quote, dear mr. brennan, this letter serves

to advise you of the department's decision to terminate your appointment as an assistant u.s. attorney in the u.s. attorney's office for the district of columbia and from the federal service effective upon receipt of this letter. this decision is based upon your actions in the prosecution of persons relating to the events that occurred at or near the u.s. capitol on january 6th, 2021. your hiring has hindered the ability of acting u.s. attorney ed martin to staff his office in furtherance of his obligation to faithfully implement the agenda that the american people elected president trump to execute. therefore, this is notice of my final decision to terminate your appointment and to remove you from federal service. joining us now is sean brennan, an assistant u.s. attorney who worked on january 6th. prosecutions was just tonight been fired from the justice department. mr. brennan, i appreciate you being willing to come here and talk to us tonight on what i'm sure is kind of a surreal and traumatizing evening. thank you. >> yeah. thank you for having

me. rachel. >> what's been your history at the justice department up until tonight? >> so, as you mentioned, i was hired to join the justice department in september 2023 as part of a group of assistant u.s. attorney ausa hires who were specifically brought on to investigate and prosecute the crimes that occurred at and around the capitol. on january 6th, 2021. that has. been basically my bread and butter every day for the past close to a year and a half watching videos, filing motions in court, going to trial to try to hold people accountable for the crimes that occurred that day. >> this letter that we've obtained says it was delivered to you via hand delivery. do you mind if i ask you who handed it to you tonight? >> well, you know, i can't say for sure whether it was hand delivered, because at least in terms of my receipt of it, it

came at according to my email receipt. 7:14 p.m. i was no longer in the office at that time because at that point i functionally knew i was terminated at about 4:55 p.m. today, the interim u.s. attorney, ed martin, sent an email to the entirety of the u.s. attorney's office here in washington, d.c, not specifically announcing terminations, but announcing a preservation or litigation hold, which many of your viewers may be familiar with. whenever there is the threat of pending litigation, members of the company are instructed not to destroy any documents. however, when we read the memo that was attached to that litigation hold, it became clear that the litigation in question related to prosecutors who had been hired by the department of justice to investigate and prosecute the crimes that occurred at the capitol on january 6th. and in fact, that memo that was just randomly included, included as an

attachment in that 4:55 p.m. friday email included instructions from the higher ups in the department of justice to terminate those employees, which included me. however, as you have mentioned throughout this evening, this is an unfolding story because that memo also says that the names of the employees to be fired are included on an attachment a to that letter. thus far, i have not seen that attachment. a many of my colleagues have not seen attachment a i know there has been furious back and forth with the various group chats and conversations with my coworkers, of people trying to figure out whether or not they still have a job. >> the implication of the litigation hold is that you are going to be prosecuted, or that you need to. you're going to be criminally investigated. or there's some i mean, if you're no longer a justice department employee there, they're firing you from the federal service, but they're also telling you that records need to be

retained. are they? how do you how do you read that? how do you take that? >> you know, i i'm not going to sit here and say for sure that it means that there are plans to criminally prosecute those who investigated and prosecuted the january 6th offenses, but it does at least imply that there's going to be some investigation. and we've seen that already. you know, that investigation could be criminal, it could be civil, or it could just be internal. this past monday, interim u.s. attorney martin issued an email to the entire office stating as much. he said that there would be an internal investigation into our office and specifically the january 6th. prosecutors charging decisions with respect to charging certain violators or rather, certain january 6th defendants with violations of 18 u.s. code 1512, which is the statute that the supreme court ultimately ruled in united states versus fischer, or rather, fischer versus the united states, did not apply to

the january 6th riots. so we know there's at least some amount of investigation ongoing, whether or not that is criminal, civil or merely internal, i can't say. >> sean brennan, until this evening. i'm tempted to call you an assistant u.s. attorney, i guess until this evening. it's hard to know. this appears to be a purge at both the fbi and at the justice department. but as you describe as you describe it, it appears to be one that is been carried out in a sort of typically shambolic and disorganized fashion, so that people who are subject to it aren't even exactly sure what's just happened. mr. brennan, i'm sorry for the treatment that you've received tonight, and i thank you for your service to our country. and i thank you for talking to us about it tonight. >> yeah. thank you for having me, rachel. i think, you know, it's a tough night, but all of us who have spent the past year or more prosecuting these cases wouldn't change a thing and have no regrets. >> god bless you. thank you, sean brennan. appreciate it. all

right. let's bring in now, democratic u.s. senator peter welch of vermont, a member of the judiciary committee. senator welch, i thank you for staying up late and being with us here tonight on what is turning into a very dramatic and hard to follow evening in washington in terms of what's happening. i know you've been able to hear some of our coverage thus far. can you update us on anything else that you understand about what's happening at the fbi and the justice department, in addition to the reporting that we've been conveying? >> well, you know, i've heard it all from sean. i mean, this is astonishing. you have a president who has pardoned all the lawbreakers, and now he's firing the law enforcers in that purge is going to intensify. you know, i would characterize the first 11 days of the trump administration with two words. one is lawless and the second is cruel. and what the trump administration is trying to do is rewrite history. january 6th happened. it was the stop the steal movement that was led by donald trump. and he got elected

and lord knows how. but he did. and now he's using the awesome power of the presidency to try to rewrite that history, first by pardoning everyone. and now this extraordinary purge at the justice department. and then in addition to that, he's showing an enormous amount of lawlessness by firing inspector generals who have to get at least 30 days notice. and thanks to senator grassley, congress has to be informed. he just disregarded the tiktok ban, which the president is supposed to enforce, not wave. and of course, what you're seeing with this impoundment is that he's created havoc for so many people all around the country, including in vermont, homeless shelters for kids where they don't know if they can get access to their funds, domestic violence shelters. and that's happening, by the way, all around the country. so that's the cruelty of this as well as the lawlessness of this. >> senator yesterday. it feels

like it was years ago, but it was yesterday. kash patel had his confirmation hearing to become director of the fbi. you questioned him when he was asked whether fbi agents would be protected from political retribution, whether there would be mass firings of fbi officials and fbi agents who were involved with the trump cases. he told the judiciary committee. all fbi employees will be protected against political retribution. he actually said no one would be terminated for case assignments. he claimed to have no knowledge of a purge within the fbi. he pledged that if people were going to be removed at the fbi, they'd follow typical procedures within the fbi wherein people have to be referred in case of potential misconduct for investigation by the inspector general. those claims by mr. patel seem like they're in a completely different planet than what we are watching happening tonight at the fbi. what do you make of that, given that his confirmation is still pending?

>> well, i mean, two things of it. one, whatever he said had no impact on the accelerated approach that trump took, whether he needed to wait for patel or not. this is the president's actions that that were enforced very quickly. second, one of the things that was interesting about bondi and patel on the basic question, who won the 2020 election? they gave the sanitized, trump approved answer that president biden was the president, not that he won. so what they have done, where they have this responsibility to the constitution, not just to a president, is indicated by that answer that their loyalty is to the president. and it's the president who we're seeing is going to use all the power he has, legal or not, to exact retribution in his effort to rewrite the history of his culpability for january 6th. >> does this fundamentally change who we are as a country?

if fbi and justice department prosecutors, fbi officials and justice department prosecutors have there have have now had their careers threatened and in some cases ended specifically because they worked on lawful cases that didn't please the president. have we already sort of crossed a rubicon in terms of who we are as a country and what the rule of law is in the united states of america? >> absolutely. that's what's happening. i mean, the cruelty of it is this wonderfully young prosecutor, idealistic, is gone. right? the second thing is that there is it's clear that it's, quote, my justice department, as the president called it, called it. that brings us back to the days when it was j. edgar hoover, but instead of j. edgar hoover going after martin luther king or even the john birch society for political reasons, it's donald trump doing it to use the justice department or the fbi to exact retribution or pursue political enemies. but i got to say, there is a responsibility that we have in the united states senate as an independent institution to cry

foul here. and i really am hoping that my republican colleagues, who many of whom i have great respect for, see that this is no game anymore. i mean, what the president did with this impoundment, he has no authority to do what he's doing with the purging of the fbi. it's showing that he is deadly serious. and i think there was a lot of wishful thinking on a lot of folks that the trump agenda would be different than it was, but he's made it clear lawlessness and cruelty. he will use both of those to have to take care of his need for retribution, but also to privilege the elon musk of the world. and there's only a few of them, but those who those are the ones who are in charge. and by the way, there was an elon musk spacex person spacex person over there at the justice department. and is he going to be looking over kash patel's shoulder in the purge? >> senator peter welch of vermont, thank you very much for your time tonight, sir. i really appreciate you joining us on short notice. as we continue to cover this developing story, i want to turn now to another big

story that broke today in the washington post. and it actually relates to what senator welch was just saying there. we're still in the early hours of understanding what this means, but i think this may end up being a very big deal. today, the post broke news that the highest ranking career official at treasury man named david david leebrick, is leaving the us government. quote, after a clash with allies of billionaire elon musk over access to sensitive payment systems. so elon musk and his team of people have reportedly been asking treasury for access to the payment systems that the government uses to pay its bills to pay out trillions of dollars a year across the federal government, also payments to businesses and individual households. so if you're a federal worker before your paycheck hits your bank account, it goes through this system. same thing if you get a social security check or a medicare benefit payments to government contractors, tax refunds, grant recipients, you get the idea. this is basically the government's checkbook at the treasury department. how they pay for everything. it's so

sensitive that only a few career officials actually have access to use this system. but according to the post today, elon musk and his team have demanded access to it as well, which led to a dispute with a very high ranking career official at treasury, who's now quit over this dispute, who has now resigned, the post says it is unclear what exactly elon musk's team wanted to do, why they wanted access to this incredibly sensitive system. one former treasury department official tells the post. quote, this payment system has never been used in a way to execute a partizan agenda. you have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case. i do not know enough about what this payment system does or how it works to understand the implication of it potentially being misused, but i will tell you, i have been watching enough of these red flags in the last 11 days to recognize that this is a very big one, and if the people in control of this very sensitive, very highly restricted system now do have

bad intentions for what they're going to do with it, what does that mean? what is the scope of what they could do? joining us now is washington post senior white house reporter isaac arnsdorf. he's one of the reporters who broke this story. he's also the author of finish what we started, the maga movement's ground war to end democracy. mr. arnsdorf, thanks very much for being here. i know it's a really, really busy night. let me start by asking you what kind of information, what kind of system? this is this this payment system. >> well, what you said is exactly right. rachel, this is the checkbook. this is how the government's bills get paid. and david liebreich, as the most senior official in in the treasury department, who was the acting treasury secretary until trump's nominee was confirmed, is the expert at managing it, including managing the debt ceiling, which, as we know, is coming up really, really soon with the with the spending limit in danger of being breached. that is all. you know, he's the

expert on that. that's his expertise. all the payments to this, this is how the government pays its bills. and it's never been anything that has any political role. and libra is a is a professional. he's worked there for many decades and through both administrations. and this isn't something that has they're just spending the making the payments that congress authorized and that the government obligated. >> and, isaac, i'll tell you the reason i wanted to talk to you tonight, even though this is a very busy night and a lot's going on, is because i'm really spooked by the quote from the former treasury official who says, like, seems to be really raising the alarms, that somebody with bad intentions who wanted to use this payment system for partizan reasons, could do something very alarming, could do that. that's something that we should we should really worry about. and it would seem, mr. libra resigning, given all the different presidents he served, would also seem to be raising

that red flag even higher, that this is something dangerous. what do you think the stakes are in terms of the misuse of this system that you're describing? >> well, my understanding is that this dispute between him and the doj's representative was that he wanted to know what they wanted to do with the system. and, you know, not not trying to be uncooperative, but, you know, how could he be helpful? and that led to them putting him on administrative leave. and rather than that, he he decided to retire. but we are still working to figure out what exactly they have in mind with trying to get access to the payment system and if they're going to succeed in doing so. but obviously, this comes in the backdrop of what trump appointed elon musk and the doge to do, which is root around in the federal government to look for spending cuts. and obviously also the omb memo from

earlier this week where the administration was temporarily or and to some extent still just flat out refusing to spend money that congress appropriated and authorized to be spent because they don't want to. >> yeah. it's one thing to fight over whether or not spending is allowed to go out. it's another thing to seize the checkbook on which you know by which payments are, are are effectively made. isaac arnsdorf, senior white house reporter for the washington. post i can tell this is a story that we have not heard the end of. thank you for helping us understand it tonight, and we look forward to talking to you about it again. >> thank you. >> all right. that does it for me on this very, very busy night. i will see you again monday and every night next week at 9 p.m. >> good morning. i'm alicia menendez in washington, d.c. it is 7 a.m. on the east coast, 2 p.m. in israel, where we are following breaking news. three hostages, including one american citizen, have been released in the fourth hostage exchange between israel and hamas.

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