this one involving the department of justice. a key focus of our hearing today will be a draft letter that are witnesses here today refused to sign. this letter was written by mr. jeff clark with another department of justice department lawyer, ken kasky. and the letter was to be sent to the leadership of the georgia state legislature. other portions of the legislature that were intended for other states. neither mr. drug nor mr. klulowski had any evidence of widespread electorate and flawed, but they were quite aware of what mr. trump wanted the department to do. jeff clarke met privately with president trump and others in the white house and agreed to assist the president without telling the senior leadership of the department who oversaw him. as you will see, this letter claims that the u.s. department of investigations have, quote, intended fight significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of georgia. in fact, donald trump knew this was a lie there. department

this one involving the department of justice. focus of our hearing today will be a draft letter that are witnesses here today refused to sign. this letter was written by mr. jeff clark with another department of justice lawyer, ken klukowski, and the letter was to be sent to the leadership of the georgia state legislature. other versions of the letter were intended for other states. later, mr. clark, nor mr. klukowski, had any evidence of widespread election fraud. but they were quite aware of what mr. trump wanted the department to do. jeff clark met privately with president trump and others in the white house and agreed to assist the president without telling the league -- senior leadership who oversaw him. as you will see, this letter claims that the u.s. department of justices investigations have, quote, identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of georgia. in fact, donald trump knew this was a lie. the department of justice had already informed t

the unit works closely with the civil rights division in the department of justice that has prosecuted some of the most heinous terrorist attacks in recent years using the federal hate crime statute. having spent 18 years myself as a career department of justice attorney and prosecutor, i know that our workforce is committed to the constitution and to ensuring equal and impartial justice. we prosecute cases based on the facts and the law without regard to ideology and politics. our national strength comes from our founding values. these include the rule of law, freedom of speech and freedom of association. and we will uphold these values as we safeguard of the american people from threats to the safety and national security. i appreciate the opportunity to testify and look forward to answering any questions. >> thank you for your testimony. we will proceedd under the five-minute testimony and recognize myself for five minutes. january 6th, 2021 the administrative office of the courts released a statement dating back to early 2020 unrelated. however there was in march of this year that

that shows exactly where the department of justice is headed. it couples with what merrick garland told nbc this week, that is not just about the right itself, but also the attempts to stand in a way of the peaceful transfer of power. that shows how serious things are getting in the department of justice. >> right nobles, appreciate it. as always, thanks. perspective now from harvard law professor, laurence tribe, coauthor of to end a presidency, the power of impeachment. professor tribe, thanks for being with us. i want to get to the justice department expended criminal probe intimate. what are your thoughts though on mike pompeo sitting for an interview with a select committee? >> it's clear that the select committees interested in why there was discussion within the cabinet invoking the 25th amendment, which would essentially have sidelined the former president. that amendment is their only for purposes of removing from power someone who can no longer safely exercise it. what was it that led them to think this man was so much out of control th

that is a growing concern for the department of justice, as it is for state and local police departments and prosecutors around the country. >> does the fbi and the justice department go with the local and state governments. when there are threats of violence against school boards officials. that partnership between federal law enforcement, and federal prosecutors. particularly on the law enforcement side, from the state and locals it serves him positions of public trust, at every level are subject to threats of violence. at the same time that individuals who seek to speak out at open hearings, whether a school board or a city council hearing, that those rights are protected as well. >> thank you, do you find that the united states has been targeted with disinformation from both foreign and domestic sources, and that this disinformation affects parents at local school board meetings. it affects members of congress with respect to disinformation about hunter biden, should there be any, do you find that disinformation and highs caused people to react in ways that are problematic? >> i cann

they are loads and loads ahead of the department of justice on that front. and actually, some of that testimony under oath, i am led to believe the department of justice will be making good use of. in other words, it'll be purposeful for them as a investigative tool as they proceed. they will have to re-interview a ton of people unless i want to bring people into the graduate to make sure the grand jury here's the full story. but those transcripts are really gold for the department of justice and the january 6th committee is so light years ahead of them in terms of gathering that roadmap. >> carol, as you are gathering information about what was included in the grand jury testimony, what piece of it struck you the most as focusing most clearly on donald trump? is there an oval office moment that the grand jury is studying most closely? >> i think it would be skewing the audiences impression about what we know and don't know to focus on two grand jury appearances, that of two very senior pence aides that we know about, we know the details of. it would be unfai

of the department? inme terms of carrying out the division the agencies and the justice department,sw the fbi ad others operate under a series of rules and laws. i've heard" the secretary speaking to the security forum just last week he said look how thew border is secure. do you agree the border is secure? >> i am not familiar with his remarks at that conference. >> this is his remarks. i simply want to know if you agree. >> i would defer to the secretary ofhi homeland security in his judgment on that. >> your department has nothing to do with the border is that what you're saying? >> we are involved in the prosecution of>> crimes but in terms of the overall border -- >> the number of folks coming across and those that you would perhaps surmise the fact it's not secure. you wouldn't be down there ifndt was, correct? >> making sure individuals that violate are investigated and prosecuted. >> there is a great deal of hyperbole about what is the greatest threat we hear a lot about domestic violence. but i've read the fbi thinks china is the greatest threat. who is the greatest threat in yourte opinion? is

essentially, they were a mixture of trespassers and seditious con spearists according to the department of justice. but the criticism of merrick garland, our attorney general, and alsori the department of justice, has been the glacial pace it has turned its attention to another potential crime. and that is the way in which donald trump and his allies appeared at least on their face to be using fraudulent information, to be block and overturn the election results, to block our wonderful sacred tradition of the peaceful transfer of power. what we learned is that at least starting in eearly, spring, the turned forcefully towards team trump. a series of subpoenas that have to do with fake electors but more recently what we learned in the last few days, the last few hours to be fair, is that in april, the department of justice obtained, sought and obtained, phone records, call data logs if will, for a series of trump aides,fo allies and senior officials in the white house. those phone records included the callson back and forth between l sorts of aides to trump who were with himso on january 6th. peopl

the issue was that the use of the justice department, and it is so important that the justice departmentadheres to the facts and the law. that's what it's there to do. that is what's our constitutional role was, and so if the justice department gets out of the role that it is supposed to play, that is really bad for our country, and i don't know a simpler way to say that, when you damage our fundamental institutions, it's not easy to repair them. i thought this was a really important issue to try and make sure that the justice department was able to stay on the right course. >> did you eventually tell the president that mass rags and nations wouldn't -- and what the consequences would be? >> this was in line with the president saying what do i have to lose? he said, suppose i do this, suppose i replace him, and replace him with him. what would you do? president, i would resign immediately, i'm not working for a minute with this guy. i just declared he was completely incompetent. the president immediately turned to mr. engel, and said steve, you wouldn't resign, would you? he said absolut

>> the national security division is part of a broader array of components that the justice department is part of that effort to make sure people who serve on local school boards or bodies -- >> you think parents at school boards rises to the level of the national security division of the department of justice? >> i think it's possible there could be a threat or an act of violence against somebody in a local office, whether it is city council, or a school board, that might reflect domestic violent extremist acts. >> is it appropriate to use the patriot act against parents? >> the patriot act is a variety of tools. i can talk about it in the abstract. -- >> the national school board association recommend the use of the patriot act and described the actions -- equivalent to domestic terrorism, proceeding that memo issued by the department of justice? >> i don't know. >> you don't know? >> i don't know. >> you don't know there was a memorandum put out by the national school board association referring to domestic terror's-ism -- prior to the attorney general of the united states issuing a

that is a growing concern for the department of justice, as it is for state and local police departments and prosecutors around the country. >> does the fbi and the justice department go with the local and state governments. when there are threats of violence against school boards officials. that partnership between federal law enforcement, and federal prosecutors. particularly on the law enforcement side, from the state and locals it serves him positions of public trust, at every level are subject to threats of violence. at the same time that individuals who seek to speak out at open hearings, whether a school board or a city council hearing, that those rights are protected as well. >> thank you, do you find that the united states has been targeted with disinformation from both foreign and domestic sources, and that this disinformation affects parents at local school board meetings. it affects members of congress with respect to disinformation about hunter biden, should there be any, do you find that disinformation and highs caused people to react in ways that are problematic? >> i cann

so, hutchinson, no doubt s a very key witness for the department of justice. we saw how many of the revelations that the committee were able to bring forward kind of exploded around the hutchison testimony she provided in that hearing. when you couple that with what you heard from john eastman, that the committee not just interested in what they found on eastman during a search of him a couple of weeks ago but that they are now specifically seeking access to his cell phone. that shows exactly where the department of justice is headed and it couples with what mart guardland told nbc this week, that it is not just about the riot itself but also the attempts to stand in the way of the peaceful transfer of power. and that just shows how serious things are getting in the department of justice. >>> perspective now from harvard law professor lawrence tribe, coauthor of "the power to end a presidency." i want to get to the criminal probe in a moment. what are your thoughts on former secretary of state mike pompeo potentially sitting for an interview with the select com

attorney or working out of the justice department in washington. times, a lot of local prosecutors are elected and, you know, folks of the justice department are appointed or their career prosecutors. so, it's just, there are different sort of. you know, issues that local prosecutors have to come into because they are more receptive to their local community. a judge down in atlanta had criticized her for doing so many interviews on television about this investigation. there are less restrictions on local prosecutors about how much they can talk and go on about this stuff. it just sets up a different thing. it just shows their investigation looks really like it's moving ahead. there's also a lot of news but it's kicking up. >> all right, michael schmidt, new york times, thank you so much. coming up, the republican race to the bottom as potential 2024 candidates spend the weekend try to out trump each other. that is next. that is next that is next ess check out angi.com today. angi... and done. flowers are fighters. that's why the alzheimer's associa

the department of justice, for example, doesn't care about the midterm elections. even if republicans end up with control of the house and it spans the january 6th commission, the department is going to continue to do its job. it's going to continue its investigation, however long it takes, and it's going to make decisions based upon the evidence in terms of what they believe they can prove in a court of law, understanding that in our system of government the burden is on the prosecution. they will have to -- they will have to provide evidence to 12 open-minded jurors about criminal liability of everyone involved with what happened on january 6th. >> you said however long it takes, which is exactly what i wanted to ask you next. the attorney general was also pushing back on the criticism that the justice investigation it hasn't moved fast enough or aggressively enough. do you think that is a fair criticism? >> i do not think it is a fair cyst simple. first of all, we don't -- criticism. fralt, -- first of all, the investigators are trying to do their work confidenti

she said they referred the case to the department of justice. ey are sharing more information between the committee and department of justice. we will see how the case -- department of justice is able to build a case. but they are under a lot of pressure. >> patsy pallone set for eight hours -- pat sipple only sat for eight hours. we saw testimony this week. how significant of a figure is the former white house counsel? >> he's providing an enormous amount of intelligence and insight about what was happening leading up to and the j -- day of january 6. there were questions whether he would testify or vote executive privilege. might be in a better position to adjudicate on what is new and what we have learned. it seems a lot of the facts, we have kind of known. there were great reporting from the times. but they are tying it all together. i like how they talked about different avenues, different lines of attacks on the president. the big question is how much are we learning new things or are the proving things that are already new? i would be curi

those would be avenues for the department of justice to investigate. i not leapt from the fact that he try to reach a witness to a conviction for witness tampering. there is a lot of distance between those. >> this was not the first time, though, that the committee had warned about potential witness tampering. you don't need a law degree, i think, to know that you don't call a witness. having said that, we did see yesterday just how detached from reality the crazies, what the committee called them, were in that nearly violent december meeting. >> at times, there were people shouting at each other, throwing insults at each other. >> cipollone encouraged and showed nothing but contempt and disdain of the president. >> we were pushing back and asking one simple question. where's the evidence? >> if it had been me sitting in his chair, i have fired all of them that night and escorted them out of the building. >> she said, the judges are corrupt. every single case you have done the loss? everyone is corrupt? even the ones we appointed? i am being nice. i was

of things. it tell us that the u.s. justice department has concluded that it is okay to treat the january 6thed attack as terrori, as domestic terrorism. they have concluded that the justice department, that in some cases, the perpetrators of that attack should be prosecuted as terrorists. and that should go off like the rockets red glare to the 300-plus other defendants who are still waiting to go on trial on charges related to january 6th. i mean the justice department, like big picture, right, they want people to cooperate with prosecutors. they want defendants to help prosecutorsos investigate the overall crime, and help put other criminals away, and of course, you're under no obligation to cooperate, you're under no obligation to agree to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors in their efforts, if you're innocent there is no way that shoe plead guilty, you go to trial, youth fight the charg, you get acquitted, because you didn't do it. but if you are guilty, and you not going to plead guilty and cooperate, you're instead going t

the department of justice is investigating donald trump. washington post is reporting that the doj is investigating the ex president's actions as part of its criminal probe on january 6th. sources telling the post of federal prosecutors were questioning witnesses before the grand jury announced hours of detailed questions about troubleshoot in december 20, 20 and 2021. to pressure campaign on pence to overturn the election would instructions trump gave his lawyers and advisor about fake electors and sending electors back to the states. some of the questions focused on the extent of trump's involvement in the fake elector effort, led by john eastman and rudy giuliani. of course at some level i think we all thought something like this was happening. but there hadn't been any concrete reporting on this until now. this major news comes tonight as attorney general merrick garland speaking out for the first time since the january six committee wrapped its final committee hearing for the summer until they return in september. i am going to play for

nbc news is reporting this that cassidy hutchinson has recently cooperated with the department of justice investigation into the events of january 6th according to sources familiar with the matter. the justice department reached out to her following her testimony one month ago before the house committee investigating the january 6th capitol attack. the justice department setting its sights on the man at the heart of the plot to overturn the 2020 election is where we begin today. washington post national investigative reporter carol leonnig who broke that bombshell we justed r from along with her colleagues, now katyal, and editor-at-large of the bull work, charlie sykes joins us, all msnbc contributors. carol, tell us about what broke at 6:58 and i missed it by 58 minutes and i am so excited to talk to you today. >> i wish we'd been two days earlier. so 58 minutes i would have been happy for that. nicole, it was a lot of work. i want to clap out my great colleagues at the post. the team was essential to breaking this story, but you know, let's focus what the story is many prosecutors have

more resources, that's part of the justice department's strategic thinking here. now, whether that part of justice department investigatioe results iner any prosecutions remain to be seen. so far it hasn't.e i mean, as yet it works prosecutions the justice department has moved forward with beyond people who took part in the capitolnt riot itself, t only prosecutions they're acting on are two contempt of congress prosecutions against former trump advisers who refused to after novi subpoenas for them t testify and hand over documents to the january 6th investigation in congress. prosecutors said in court on friday that president trump adviser peter navarro had refused their offer of a plea deal. he could have pleaded guilty to one charge of contempt and agreed to respond to the subpoena as he is legally required to do, and in return they would have made sure he did more than 30 days in jail. peter navarro, according to prosecutors, said no to that, and so he will go to trial. he of course will be trying for an acquittal, but if he is convicted, he will be facing up t

i absolutely agree with dan, the department of justice doesn't usually hide the ball on these things, they haven't taken any of the steps you'd expect to be see in moving toward charging a sitting president. on the other hand, less exciting testimony, when it comes to those fraudulent electors we have seen a lot around that and that violated several statutes, potentially conspiracy to defraud the united states when they sent electors to the national archives that hadn't been certified by any state. the question will become, did the president know about that? did he sign off on that fraudulent slate? >> dan, i want to go back to donald trump. there's a lot of talk and you talked about it, and you don't think he'll be prosecuted, but if they decide to do that, should he be? >> well, look, the president is held to a different legal standard, it drives people crazy when you say that. this idea of, what do you mean? the president should be like everyone else, except the president has powers that other people don't have. as a result there's a different evaluation, when you're talking about

it would stand to reason that the department of justice is interested in much of the same material. ke. >> all right, ryan nobles, thanks so much. >> joining us to discuss, preet bharara. we're learning the justice department seems to be getting closer to trump's inner circle, in addition to cassidy hutchinson, we heard of these top officials who worked for vice president pence, mark short, greg jacob. what does this tell you about the doj investigation? >> so, i'm not one to say every time there's a bit of breaking news or a development that it's hugely significant, but this is. this is very, very significant. a lot of people across the spectrum of legal analysts outside the justice department who served in the justice department have been having this debate for some months about why it's the case that we haven't heard about the justice department either interviewing voluntarily or putting to the grand jury these same people who have given astonishing dramatic revelatory testimony before the committee. now we know that they are. what we have been saying all along is when that starts

it's important for the rule of law that the department of justice make these decisions free from any f political influence. so i don't -- i wouldn't opine on it any further. i think the department will make the judgment that they believe is in the best interest of the country consistent with a faithful application of the law and i trust the attorney general's judgment to do that. >> we're coming up on trump likely throwing his -- you know, his hat into the ring, right, to run for reelection here. are you worried he could go sooner in light of what we've learned about where doj is? do you worry that that endangers a potential indictment? >> look, i think there was a lot of reporting with respect to the memo that the department of justice issued earlier this year as it relates to charging decisions and potential candidacies and obviously that was -- underscores consistent department of justice policy over many years. i'm not concerned. i think, again, the department is going to make decisions that they believe are in the best interest of the country consistent with the faithful applicat

we talk about separately there is the department of justice which is under the president. it is not a part of the united states congress and of course the department of justice would have to bring a criminal charge if there were a basis for that against the former president or some of his close associates like rudy giuliani and some of these, mark meadows that were so embroiled in the crimes that were committed on january 6. host: a viewer described these hearings as a grand jury. they are trying to set the stage for the justice department to then take it over. would you agree? guest: yes and no. i like to think about the hearings as an education for the american people in light of the possibility of a grand jury indictment. that is, we have never seen a president or former president indicted. a lot of people say that is hard to imagine, that that with -- would create a ping-pong effect. i think the point of these hearings is to wake people up to the severity of this. i like to think of them as a play in four acts, planning, execution, cover up, and then i think the fourth

and this committee has supplied that information to the department of justice. we will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously. >> you can now add witness tampering to the long list of potential crimes now attached to the name of former president donald trump. the january 6th committee cannot charge them with any but of course the justice department could. we'll talk about where that might stand. attorney and fbi special agent, and former u.s. attorney and formal deputy assistant attorney general at the department of justice. it's great to have you both. let's start a little bit, asha, with this witness tampering. this is the second hearing in a row where liz cheney ends with a very stern warning to those who might want to tamper with witnesses. what do you make of it? >> well, chris, witness tampering is a stand-alone crime. i think that is the big takeaway, is that it really doesn't matter anything else that happens with regard to january 6th. all of these types of process crimes, obstruction, witness tampering, all of these things. if t

separately, the attorney general has asked the internal policy shop in the department of justice whethero open an investigation. there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes the justice permit cannot confirm, but i think they are ramping up the investigation in ways we have not seen previously. geoff: you have your virtual reporters notebook open. what is happening with the deleted texts on the part of the secret service? the committee has asked to have those records turned over by tuesday in advance of the thursday hearing. congressman kinsinger was on the sunday shows today and he says he has no idea what the committee will get because he don't know if any of the tts were backed up. hugo: that's what they heard from the inspector general for dhs. it was behind closed doors. from what i heard, the inspector general told him things that worried them. the story keeps changing, at one point it was software updates and and it was we swapped out devices and they were not backed up and we don't have the text messages from junri for than six, two of the most crucial dates of the insurrect

>> it's a the department of justice prides itself on inhabiting the bubble. e department of justice, we really didn't concern ourselves. we followed the law, followed the facts. and did the right thing. this is a situation unlike any other. it is its own thing. i would like to think that a referral would play more pressure on the department of justice. as vice chair woman cheney said, the department of justice does not need a referral. it can of course receive justice. many americans are observing. they can see in real-time what the evidence is and where that points. but i do think a referral, in this case, it is the odd situations where it may have the opposite and unintended effect where it creates more political pressure, exactly what a.g. garland seems not to want. so in a strange way, this might be the strange case where they come to their own conclusions, listen to the evidence like everyone else and draw conclusions that seem on their face, you know, to be impossible not to come away with. so you now have some republican who's are saying, hey, look. may

and that was a not so subtle jab at the department of justice, a message to them that their bottom-up approach has been misguided, according to liz cheney at least. and from the prosecutorial approach, it is important for the department of justice and hence some of, why, i think, and explain some of the committee strategy here, in trying to show that trump knowingly was trying to overturn the results of the election, despite knowing that there was no fraud, evidence that would not be any fraud identified by these people who were trying to find it, and that he was told over and over and overer again that there wasn't y evidence of election fraud by his senior-most advisers. but this sort of tet a tet between the department of justice and the committee was certainly noticeable yesterday in liz cheney's comments where she was again, as you just noted, trying to paint this picture of, yes, there might have been people in the white house who are now sort of pivoting strategies, they've moved from the deny and delay, to trying to say that the former president was influenced by bad actors ar

obviously a very sensitive issue. >> it is, wolf, but it does seem as if the committee and department of justice have kind of put aside their differences and are now much more cooperative than they were in the past. committee members say they're open to helping the department of justice at any level they can. they're being very proprietary over the information they have already uncovered but they're coming up with a system to allow the department of justice to have access to that. we don't know at what level the department of justice has obtained that information, but they're no longer adversaries as they appears to be just a couple months ago. >> interesting, ryan, jeffrey, laura, thank you very much. >> an important note to our viewers. be sure to join laura later tonight as she anchors cnn tonight, 9:00 p.m. eastern. >> just ahead, the federal reserve takes historic action to tame inflation with another huge interest rate hike. what it means for american consumers, that's next. dad, when is the future? um, oh wow. um, the future is, uh, what's ahead of us. i don't get it. yeah. maybe this wil

that would have to come from the department of justice. and over the course of these hearings, we have seen members of this committee repeat various times that they believe in no uncertain terms that the chain of responsibility for what happened on january 6th in the days leading up to january 6, goes all the way to the president himself that he knew that the election wasn't stolen, that he tried to coerce selection officials to overturn the result. and that he incited that mob that we saw on the capital. does that mean that we could see president trump go to court? well, that all is up to the department of justice, they have to weigh up whether this is enough evidence, well, whether it would hold up in court. just imagine a jury being selected for such a trial and what is such a deeply politicized environment. and they have to decide whether prosecuting president trump would be seen as just another politically motivated step. so it remains to be seen whether there will be real consequences. but the consensus here where healer is that the e

need to deter that kind of offense, and the culpability of the offender is real, then the department of justiceess of the consequences. so i don't want a department of justice that is thinking about who should be our elected officials. that's up to the people, except, again, in the very narrow case of people who have sworn an oath of office and violate that office by participating insurrection, the 14th amendment's founders essentially determine that for us. those people can't serve again. >> to the legal question of merrick garland, who jeffrey toobin's question then, apart from the constitutional matters and whether or not they're determining who runs again, but to the question of how can the justice department issue charges against all those people and the insurrection and not the person who the committee argues inspired them, what do you say? >> well, let me just abstract from the question to make it a general question. i think he's right. i mean, nobody wants an organized crime prosecution where the doj lawyer oz or prosecutors go after foot soldiers and lieutenants, but don't after the pe

to lead this effort, joint violent crime task force composed of the department of justice and the departmentf homeland security should be tasked with destroying these organizations and the penalties should be very, very severe. if you look at countries throughout the world, the ones that don't have a drug problem are those that institute a very quick trial, death penalty sentence for drug dealers. it sounds horrible, doesn't it? but you know what, that's the ones that don't have any problem. it doesn't take 15 years in court. it goes quickly. and you absolutely -- you execute a drug dealer and you'll save 500 lives because they kill on average 500 people. it's terrible to say but you take a look at every country in this world that doesn't have a problem with drugs. they have a very strong death penalty for the people that sell drugs. if we're going to stop this scourge -- [applause] host: former president yesterday at that speech in d.c. by the way, if you want to watch in its entirety, you can do it on our website, c-span.org. it's coming up on 7:30 here on the east coast. in this first hou

-- the department of justice investigation into the events of january 6th, according to sources familiar with the matter. the justice department reached out to her, following her testimony a month ago before the house committee investigating the january 6th capitol attack, the sources said. >> not one word of cassidy hutchinson's now public, under oath testimony to the committee, has been challenged by any other witness to the same events. her testimony to the grand jury, will include direct quotes that she heard donald trump say. >> -- part of the conversation, i was in the vicinity of a conversation where overheard the president say something to be effective, i don't effing care that they have weapons. they're not here to hurt me, take the effing mags away. let the people in, take the effing mags away. >> mags. magnetometer. technical terms for metal detectors. donald trump didn't want his crowd on january 6th have to go through metal detectors, and his presidential speech. and so, donald trump will try to fall asleep night tonight, knowing that some of t

they are saving our democracy, but the department of justice needs to stop taking a backseat and take the wheel. >> to make sure i understand it correctly. what you're saying is basically that the crime of witness tampering that is alleged of happening against people like cassidy hutchison is the low hanging fruit at the department of justice could quickly go after while they are still investigating these other crimes? >> it's more than that. it is not just low hanging fruit. i am all for being involved in conspiracy, it is altering the case. it is making witnesses not tell us what is happening. it is more important than just an indictment. and has to do with whether we will be able to gather the evidence. will the evidence be altered. are people going to be come forward. are they gonna be pressured? what other witnesses have received similar calls to come forward. it is very fundamental to our ability to investigate the case. it is a acidic or i'm, not a i think i was on the mountain top and pump locate my naval crime, which some of these others might be. >> it seems a little bit lik

i think that the department of justice started started with one piece of the puzzle which was the riot. on january 6, the georgia grand jury started with another piece of the puzzle, which was the phone call that the president trump made to the top election official here at georgia, where he asked for at a just enough folks to carry georgia. but what's happening is both of those 2 investigations are sort of converging on something that i think they both have in common, which is what seems to be the most clearly criminal act, which is what's called the fe collector scheme. where meetings were held in 7 swing states organized by the trump campaign, and trump, lawyers, and allies to have the people be and thought fake certificates as if they had actually been a lack of been chosen as the electors in those states. even though the votes have been certified and those fake certificates then became the predicate for the attempted to disrupt the election on january 6. and so it all kind of fits together . yeah. now with the interaction in particular, the justice department has been getting a lo

>> it is not a viable concern for the department of justice to be thinking about right now. a viable concern for the department of justice to be thinking about in the 1970s as the watergate prosecution were heating up. as you mentioned, it was president ford who issued the pardon here. the department of justice has one job, to determine whether -- as you know as well as anyone, laura, to determine whether prosecutor pros prosecutable crimes have occurred. doing some kind of national interest thinking here, that'ses president's job, and to do that with respect to trump would really be preemptively pardoning him and taking that determination from the president when the constitution assign it is to him. >> by essentially saying because you were once the president you'll never be able to have this and take it out of biden's hands. i wonder if biden would like to have that political smoothing and not have to have that decision. to push back on the notion, look, after all we've learned, isn't it possible that a decision not to prosecute could also anger just as many americans as a

the reality, though, chris, is i think the department of justice wants this case to be bulletproof like no other case in the history of the department of justice. now, no case is bulletproof. there will be risks attendant to trying a former president for crimes against the united states, but the down side is if they decline to prosecute him they are giving permission to the next presidential candidate to do everything donald trump just did to try to unlawfully retain the presidency and then some. >> so, devlin, if the potential political fallout is not a primary consideration and we heard merrick garland say it's not a consideration, what are the biggest obstacles right now for this investigation, for these investigators? >> so i think in terms of obstacles one of them is what you have seen play out over the last two months, right? a lot of people questioning the determination or aggressiveness of the justice department, of the attorney general, and, you know, that sort of criticism, you know, does have an effect on how the justice department is viewed, but at the end of the day i think