cassie hutchinson said that mark meadows reported during the right, having a conversation with pat cipollonepat, he doesn't want to do anything. this is a direct account of something that the president said, or how he felt during the ride. as you said, no one told us that in the days before, or on january 6th, that he expressed concern about violence. he noted it. he said on january 5th, the night before, he had the doors the oval office open. he was listening to a rally down the street at freedom plaza. he said, these people are very, very angry. not like, oh no, but rather excitingly. wow. these people are really fired up about the stolen election. there is no evidence of his attempt in any way to squash violence, oppose violence. it wasn't until he is forced, reluctantly skip being -- the statement in the rose garden, which says, we love you, but you should go home. >> yeah. the entire prime time lineup of fox news. so they don't, quote, ruin our legacy. let me show you the evidence congresswoman jamie -- develops , tying the tweet to the extremist movement themselves. >> we asked pat cip

pat cipollone, he's testified about this. he says it was not a normal meeting. that's what a what he said to house investigators, and this meeting was one where there were several outsiders coming into the white house and essentially saying they wanted trump to use the power of his presidency in really extreme ways. people like sidney powell, michael flin, and patrick burn, three tsiders coming to the white house tot with trump, suggesting to him he could seize voting machines, use the u.s. military if he wanted, and also potentially to appoint sidney powell as special counsel to investigate the course of the election and the possibility that votes had been changed against trump, which actually did not happen. rudy giuliani was also there at this meeting he was not siding with these three people but was having his own ideas at that time about using the courts still to challenge the election. they had lost many court cases by that point and using a scheme of electors to potentially -- or state legislators to potentially keep trump in power. there were others that

pat cipollone realized donald trump didn't have a platform, didn't have policies., the laws, the constitution be damned. it led to pat cipollone and all of his deputying threatening to resign en masse if the president didn't change tact. in particular, if the president didn't try to fire his department of justice. numerous leaders in the department of justice who also were pro trump, pro bill barr, came to that office hoping to help donald trump deliver on his campaign platform. but what they left feeling was that they were almost the victims at a saturday night massacre, feeling as though the first insurrection is the one in which the clean, clear, free of any partisan influence department of justice was being hijacked by donald trump's wish to stay in power. so i don't know if i'm well answering your question, but i will say if prosecutors do a little bit of what the january 6th committee did, it feels like it will be very convincing to hear from those individuals, the ones that were at his side in every photo op and now have pulled away from him as hard as they

people like pat cipollone. then there are people like patrick bird, the former overstock ceo. michael flynn, election deniers. in this meeting, they are discussing these wild ideas, like using the military to seize voting machines, like imposing martial law, like making sydnee powell a special counsel. this was a big focus of the house select committee investigating january 6. we got some very unvarnished opinions from those committee interviews about what people thought of the meeting. take a listen. >> i was not happy to see the people in the oval office. >> explain. >> i don't think any of these people were providing the president with good advice. >> at times there were people shouting at each other, throwing insults at each other. >> cipollone and herschmann and the other guy showed nothing but contempt and disdain of the president. >> i think it got to the point where the screaming was completely, completely out there. >> i'm going to categorically describe it as, you guys are not tough enough or maybe i put it another way, you are a bunch of [ bleep ]. >> wolf, this cou

emily newman, pat cipollone, trump adviser, eric hirsch, the one who said that's nuts. derek lions, the staff secretary. mark meadows who keeps coming up and matt morgan, a trump campaign lawyer. afterwards, cassidy hutchison snaps a photo of literally mark meadows walks giuliani out to make sure he leaves. trump then tweets sometime after that, it's going to be wild. i note that because the two key dates, andrew, had passed. december 8th, which is when they have the formal sort of finalization of the electoral count process then this december 14th date which is when the electors have set it up in all their states. the real electors have done what they're going to do and yet trump comes out of this six-hour meeting saying something's going to happen on january 6th. it seems like that's the key, right? because the question is what did he say is going to happen? what did he conclude from that meeting was going to happen? you've got a lot of january 6th defendants saying trump is who brought me here, made me do this violence. >> absolutely. i would add to that list that th

white house lawyer pat cipollone warned cassidy hutchinson repeatedly not just that he thought it was a bad idea, but it can get everyone involved in it in deep legal trouble. >> mr. cipollone said something to the effect of, please, make sure we don't go up to the capitol, cassidy, keep in touch with me. we're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen. >> and do you remember which crimes mr. cipollone was concerned with? >> in the days leading up to the 6th we had conversations about potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count. >> obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count. well, yesterday nbc news confirmed the three statutes mr. trump has been warned about in the target letter he received from jack smith, and one of them is conspiracy to defraud the united states, which certainly sounds like it's in the ballpark of defrauding the electoral count. and it is important to remember even though trump ultimately did not get to the capitol that day, he tried to aggressively and repeatedly do just that. you might remem

and people like pat cipollone, the white house counsel, came running because they were so alarmed att was hang there. and what happens in this meeting with donald trump is that people like powell, flynn, patrick burn are trying to convince donald trump, yes, they believe there were votes that were flipped by voting machines. that is not true. that is not what happened. but they are trying to tell trump you can seize voting machines because you're the president. you can appoint a special counsel to take over and look into this no matter what your advisors in the administration are saying and at that point in time that is when people like pat cipollone and others say to trump directly, there is no fraud. this is not something that you can continue pushing. and when the house january 6th investigators looked at this, they framed this meeting as essentially the moment where from then on donald trump could make a choice. did he want to continue leaning into these false accusations of election fraud, or did he want to accept that he lost? obviously, accepting he lost is not what happened a

. >> here is what trump white house counsel pat cipollone told the committee about the proposals thatlly considering that meeting. >> i don't think sydney powell would say that i thought it was a good idea for the special counsel. i didn't think he should be appointed. ken the federal government sees voting machines? it's a terrible idea. that's not how we do things in the united states. we don't have the legal authority to do that. the end there is a way to contest elections when it happens all the time. but the idea that the federal government can come in and seize election machines, i don't understand why we have to tell you why that's a bad idea. it's a terrible idea. >> joining us now, democratic congressman adam schiff of california. he served on the january 6th select committee and was the lead impeachment manager for the first impeachment trial of donald trump in the u.s. senate. he's currently a candidate for senate in california. congressman schiff, thank you so much for joining us tonight. i wrote remember your impatience during the committee's work with the justice departm

powell was there, pat cipollone, the white house counsel. they said the meeting was unhinged.k listen and then quickly i'll get your reaction. >> if how much time did you have alone with the president? i say alone. you had other people with you. his aides before the crowd came running. >> probably not more than 10 or 15 minutes. >> i recognized, okay, there is nobody in there from the white house. mark is gone. what's going on right now? >> i opened the door and i walked in. i saw general flynn. i saw sydney powell there. i was not happy. >> that's pat cipollone describing those who he saw sitting with the president. who else do you think deserves a target letter? >> i'm surprise that had giuliani apparently has not received one. we don't know about eastman. we don't know about meadows. certainly, we refer not just the expresident but others. there's a lot of culpability among his top circles. >> we appreciate your time and perspective. that will do it for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. thank you for fong us online and on twitter. you can follow me at peter alexander

so there are trump advisers, and former white house counsel pat cipollone is saying that there is no fraud. there is no fraud. in is done, you have lost the election. and there are other people on the other side who are causing this escalation, sidney powell and others to tell him that he should consider questioning the election results, and consider appointing sidney powell as the counsel of the administration and things they were pushing back on, and then rudy giuliani talking about this plan of fake electors to overturn trump 's administration is confronted with the extreme ideas as well as the fact that there are not votes flipped against him in the election undutily, and now that is of interest of the special counsel, and he even talked to giuliani about it. >> katelyn, thank you. sara? >> two new jersey firefighters ran intowards to put sflo and the crews battling the flames didn't have the trust they need. >> and the warning to the voters in that state. >>> and britney spears sea says she ran into victor wembanyama, the new nba pipick. that run-in is coming up. - [narrator] ca

attorney general of the united states telling you on december 1, and again the grown-ups in the room, pat cipollonet tillman, screaming at team crazy there is no evidence and trump is sitting there and taking it in, it tends to add to what is already kind of a mountain of evidence, that trump, anything he said public about oh, i thought i could just declassify everything, or in my mind everything, i could do whatever i wanted, he just can't believe, he didn't believe that, i think there is evidence of that in the indictment and he can't when he is getting such emphatic advice, the other people there are just the ones that will tell him what he wants to hear but that doesn't cut it when you have such a refrain and a screaming refrain here, a vulgar refrain even saying there is no evidence here, period. >> elliott, we talk about what bill step in famously described as team crazy and team normal, following the meeting it is pretty clear which path trump shows, which team trump shows, even if he didn't move on the executive order that was suggested or martial law or making sydney powell's special couns

people like eric herschmann, pat cipollone. pat filled. then they gave more extensive testimony on court order to the grand jury than they did to the january six committee. those folks might have a sense of what will russell overheard and or what the president said to him that bears on his knowledge. >> let me talk to you about the politics of this for a moment. i'm one of these who believe that the republican party now is donald trump. donald trump is the republican party. some people on the other hand they say, you have many candidates who are still running. they make up, if you take all their support, you get the sense that more republicans want somebody other than donald trump. they just can't agree on who that other person should be. how stressed must republicans be that the man they may nominated to be their presidential candidate will be the center of at least five trials by then. they've been indicted at least twice. do they not care? >> i think they are quite worried. a man, here is the deal. fortune favors the bold. we have yet t

that was protected from the community because of privilege issues, people like eric hirschman, pat cipollone. they gave more to the grand jury than they did to the january 6th committee, and those folks might have a sense of what will russell overheard and/or what the president said to him that bears on his knowledge or intent. >> chrischristina, let me talk the politics for a moment. i'm one of those who believes the republican parts is donald trump. donald trump is the republican party. many say there are many candidates still running and they make up, if you look at all of their support, you get the sense the republican party wants someone other than donald trump, but they can't make up who they want it to be. how stressed must they be and will it be the center of at least five trials by then and have been indicted by at least twice, or do they not care? >> i think they're quite worried. ayman, here's the deal though. fortune favors the bull. have yet to see a republican candidate who comes out and bodily says this man cannot be our nominee and here are all the reasons why. they can run t

. >> i doubt it will be pat cipollone who was critical there at the end of the presidency. the thing about this meeting we are reporting on tonight, i think they may be asking about is what happened between the end of that meeting and when trump issued the tweet january 6th. it will be wild. because all these things you mentioned, the seizing, the mac ultimaidn't happen. but i tell you what did happen. the big rally january 6th and the storming of the capitol and he tweeted about it in advance. i wonder if that is part of the questioning. did you hear any planning for what might happen january 6th in the midst of these other things. >> that's a great point. it was just a few hours after that meeting. >> yeah. >> that donald trump tweeted that out. >> exactly. the other thing interesting about that meeting is it was not scheduled so powell and flynn and patrick burn who there was no reason for patrick burn to be there. he is a random ceo basically. they walked in and eric kirschman saw them and followed them in. when he heard what powell was saying, he called cipollone and s

whatever theories they thought they may have, by the point in the meeting, he was so clear like what pat cipollone said, where's the evidence, if they are just throwing her own ideas about how to be tough, knowing there was no evidence to substantiate their arguments, that is a pretty damning thing i could see why the special counsel would want to dig into that. >> the heart of so much of this is rudy giuliani, former new york city mayor and an attorney for former president donald trump, one of the witnesses interviewed recently, also today, a disciplinary committee is recommending he be disbarred r his 2020 election lies, claiming massive election fraud and no evidence, by prosecuting that destructive case, rudy giuliani forfeited his right to practice law, he should be disbarred, the recommendation is not final but do you think it is fair?>> we lawyers, everyone likes to hit on lawyers until they need one, the fact is we are given a lot of leeway, as officers of the court, we are given leave to make good faith mistakes, wrong on the law or the facts but what we can do, is we can't make arguments

mike pence, mark meadows, pat cipollone, jared kushner. >> that's right.ple will have varying accounts. you see jared kushner said that donald trump told her that he felt like he lost the election, getting into donald trump's mind set at that time is incredibly difficult. did he really believe there was widespread sffraud, or was that something he wanted to make up to cover for the fact that he really knew and really did lose the election. >> everybody, standby. up next is david chalian's favorite segment. it is six months until the iowa caucuses and the gop herd has gathered with one predictable absence. we're live in des moines, next. . new pronamel active shield actively shieldsds the enamel to defend against erosion and cavitities. i think that this prproduct is a gamechanger for my p patients- it really works. but his vision dimmed with age. he had amd. i didn't know it then, but it can progress to ga, an advanced form of the disease. his struggle with vision loss from amd made me want to help you see warning signs of ga. like straight lines that seem

presint under trump, many top people from his white house such as mark meadows, cassidy hutchinson, pat cipollonehis white house counsel. and that doesn't include the fake electors who have testified, the state officials who have spoken to the special counsel's office. so a lot the grand jury could be looking at and we are waiting to see exactly what they do next. >> what we know is they are there and for there to be an indictment they would have to be there to vote so we are on indictment watch. it may not happen. we don't know. katelyn polantz please keep us posted. you'll be, working today, no doubt. rahel. >>> new numbers coming in this morning on the state of the u.s. economy and they show the u.s. economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.4% for the second quarter, better than expected and shows no signs of a recession. i want to bring in christine romans to break it down. better than expected. becoming a bit of a theme here. what does it tell us? >> picking up from last quarter. the economy picking up speed, so many people are saying our word to watch is recession but the r word is resilienc

they heard from several of trump's white house lawyers like pat cipollone and pat fillben, and they heard from members of trump's inner sanctum, trump's chief of staff mark meadows and trump's vice president, mike pence. smith's team in just eight short months has interviewed all the key players in an effort to overturn the 2020 election, not simply those who would come forward themselves but reluctant, recalcitrant witnesses who had everything to lose by testifying against a former president who aims to be president once again. and now nbc news reports donald trump himself is officially a target of the special counsel's investigation. trump today confirmed he received a target letter from the special counsel's office, which almost certainly means that jack smith will bring federal charges against the 45th president for his efforts to overturn an american election. joining us now is a form member of that january 6th committee, someone who helped usher in this moment. what is your feeling as we learn the news there's a likely indictment coming down for the 45th president? >> well, i'm thin

you had pat cipollone and eric herschel, and then you had the raucous debate with the president at therk this team crazy was trying to influence trump to declare martial law and use the military to seize vote machines. named sidney powell as special counsel to oversee an election review. fortunately these ideas were rejected, and then another meeting happened apparently at the residence. a that meeting you had sidney powell, you had rudy giuliani and mark meadows, which led to donald trump's tweet which said come to the meeting on january 6et. it will be wild. you know jack smith is going to wonder why did you send that tweet and who knew what when. >> when you see all of this and the new reporting about there being a renewed focus on this meeting that came down, my first question that i have is in looking at everything we know about this meeting, is there anything that you see there that suggests any sort of criminal activity? is there anything specific income that meeting that you see that could lead to charges? a lot of crazy things were said, but it's not illegal to say crazy thing

. >> jared, are you aware of instances where pat cipollone threatened to resign? >> my interested was -- i took it as just whining, to be honest with you. >> he said something along the lines of, um, you know, nobody will care about my legacy if i lose, so that won't matter. the only thing that matters is winning. >> joining me nour is kirk bar della "los angeles times" contributor, and catherine christian, a veteran of the manhattan d.a.'s office. thank you for being here. catherine, first to you, your thoughts on the last-ditch effort to this -- this is a long shot, hail mary coming from donald trump, in my opinion. >> in my opinion it's not a hail mary, but a legal joke, quite frankly. it was hard getting through it. it wasn't a long filing. they're seeking to, they say, quash the grand jury report. they're seeking to forbid the d.a. from using any evidence that was obtained from the special grand jury, and then disqualified the d.a. they're basically asking the georgia supreme court police don't let the fulton county d.a. to indict me. they're uses a writ of m

meeting, and this is where they really had this eruption of the different sides, where people like pat cipollonethe former white house counsel who we just saw there commenting, is informing not just these people, but trump himself. there is no fraud and it's time to let this go. and so now we know from our reporting team that there are multiple witnesses that have been asked about this, in the grand jury, in interviews for quite some time but now is when the special counsels office prosecutors are still making sure, zeroing in on what happened at this meeting, they're even talking to giuliani himself about it since he sat for a voluntary interview over two days. so this meeting, this date, december 18th, is quite pivotal because it is a moment, according to the house and congress, where donald trump made the choice that he could continue to push these ideas of election fraud or he could listen to his top advisers and give it up and acknowledge that he had lost the election. >> what else are prosecutors looking at right now as far as we know? >> reporter: well, we do know that they are looking at

that white house counsel pat cipollone said he was not happy with the group assembled that day sayingosed. the white house lawyer described the screaming match in his words as nuts laced with proprofanity. it's this meeting that is among the areas jack smith is focused on. i trust you've never seen anything like that. it does show you a lot of different voices in that room who may have something to add to what was going on behind the scenes. >> the most important thing was in a lot of meetings that involved lawyers, white house counsel, and the white house counsel was there to tell you what the parameters were that you could do. they were there to offer legal judgment. what's really important here and central to jack smith is if he was getting guidance from the white house counsel that something was not legal, that something was breaking norms, that something was beyond the pale in terms of the proposals being brought to him by this strange collection of expertise theorists, if he heard that advice from his own lawyer and chose to disregard it, that means not only he was trying to ove

. >> pat cipollone said, this is a murder suicide pact. >> i'm going resign immediately. the president turned to mr. engle and said, steving you wouldn't resign, would you? he said, absolutely president. you would have hundreds and hundreds of the resignation of your leadership. jeff clark would be left leading a graveyard. >> trump eventually backed down, and he didn't install his loyal crony, mr. clark. but clark ended up being the recipient of a search warrant on his home last year, a very clear sign of prosecutors' interest. also today, new details on trump's legal -- in the state of georgia. georgia state prosecutors are zeroing in on specific charges, including solicitation to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit election fraud. joining me now to kick the show off is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney and msnbc analyst, and michael steele, former rnc chair and msnbc political analyst. jack smith has been talking to richard donoghue. when i heard that news, my spidey sense started to tingle more than usual. he's already spoken with the jan 6th committee.

even folks like pat cipollone, white house counsel, he was more freely able to speak to jack smith because of some of the rulings that said executive privilege, you don't have to worry about that here. so we know jack smith has even more information than the information the select committee presented to the american people and more levers to get that with the stronger power of subpoena than a congressional subpoena is. so we can expect a lot more information even than the select committee showed to the american people from jack smith and his team. >> and we just saw new charges in michigan related to the fake electors scheme there. 16 people now facing forgery charges. jane, this is something that you have been reporting on. >> yeah, the michigan attorney general brought charges against 16 michigan republicans who send knowingly falsely forged certificates claiming that donald trump had won the 2020 election and imposing as michigan's electors to the kree electoral college. this is part of the scheme to try to give mike pence something else to count on january 6. of course we know biden wo

. >> it will be pat cipollone who is critical about keeping things on the rails at the end of the trumpdency. the thing about the meeting that we are reporting on tonight, they might be asking about what's happening between the end of the meeting and when trump issued the tweet, january six, it will be wild. l these things that you mentioned, this easing of the machines, those things didn't happen. but what did happen was the big rally on january 6th and the storming the capital. he obviously tweeted about it in advance, and so i am wondering if that is part of the questioning. did you hear any planning for what might happen on january 6th in the midst of these other things that we know about? >> that's a great point, because it is just a few hours after that that trump tweeted that out. >> the other thing that's interesting about the meeting is that it was not scheduled. so powell and flynn and patrick byrne, who there is no reason for patrick brown to be there. he is a random ceo of the estate. they walked in and eric -- who is one of trump's advisers saw them and was like what? and t

. >> that was former white house counsel pat cipollone testified to january 6th committee investigatorsted gathering at the oval office, that committee member jamie raskin once called quote, the craziest meeting of the trump presidency. cnn reports special counsel jack smith's team is now questioning witnesses about that december 2020 meeting. during which trump considered some of the more desperate proposals to stay in power, including using the u.s. military as voting machines. according to the wall street journal, smith has shifted the focus of his election interference investigation to lawyers like sydney powell who was in that meeting. powell infamously spread basis baseless election fraud claims, even suggesting the venezuelan president hugo chavez helped change the result. another top target, rudy giuliani who met with jack smith's team last week. the general ports that giuliani was interviewed for eight hours, was asked about john eastman, the architect of trump's strategy to stop congress from certifying joe biden's election when. when. let's bring back our panel. -- i want to

but by the point of this meeting, it was so year that, like pat cipollone said, where's the evidence? if they're basically throwing around ideas about how to be tough, knowing that there was no evidence to substantiate their arguments, that's a pretty damning thing. i can see why the special counsel will want to dig into that. >> also at the heart of so much of this is rudy giuliani, former new york city mayor and an attorney for former president donald trump. he was one of the witnesses that was interviewed recently. and also today, a disciplinary committee is now recommending that he actually be disbarred for his 2020 election lies. they're saying, "he claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it. by prosecuting that destructive case, mr. giuliani, a sworn officer of the court, forfeited his right to practice law, he should be disbarred." that recommendation is not final, but do you think it's fair? >> well, look. we lawyers, everyone likes to hate on lawyers until they need one, right? but the fact is we are given a lot of leeway. as officers of the court, we are given

. >> jared, are you aware of instances where pat cipollone threatened to resign? >> i kind of -- like i said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done, and i know that, you know, he was always -- him and the team were always saying, oh, we're going to resign. we're not going to be here if this happens, as that happens. so i took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you. >> we also just learned moments ago special counsel jack smith requested a reply memo by trump and nauta to delay the documents trial until after the election. he said there's no reason for the delay and says the request boreds on frivolous. joining me now, christy greenberg and joyce vance. christy, what is your reaction to this breaking news about jared kushner and his interview and performance before the grand jury? >> well, according to that reporting, apparently jared kushner said it was his impression that donald trump believed that he had in fact had the election stolen from him. it's not surprising that jared kushner would say that, and it's not surprising t

fortunately, that was pat philbin and pat cipollone, well known to the grand jury at this point.tuck -- from cassidy hutchinson, there's no reason to discount that. the doj usually needs more. it's not on this hand, on the other hand, trying to figure it out, i don't know. usually, and you worked at the department of justice, you know this. the department of justice, in order to seem like a fire broke, they bring cases that are certain. that you can win. that you've got that evidence. my fear is that when you bring a case that really seems like you just have to get into the presidents head, and it could go either way, you just not sure, you end up losing so many americans. this was my second point. this isn't gonna prevent another january 6th, if anything, it's gonna make it worse. because people feel as though the department of justice is one-sided. it's politicized. and when people lose that faith in their institutions, i think it actually is very dangerous to our republic. it makes you need to take over the government. if the wrong side gets the department of justice, they wil

for example, pat cipollone, white house counsel, would answer certain questions, but not go into conversationsent. i would hope and expect that he was more forthcoming with a grand jury. he should have been more forthcoming with us. nevertheless, i would expect those direct conversations would add a lot of important value to prosecutors because they're the best window into donald trump's state of mind and one of the things prosecutors will have to prove is, you know, what did the president know, what did he understand, how strong is the proof, that when he was lying to the american people, he understood he was lying to the american people. what conversations with special counsel able to elicit between the president and the vice president, mike pence, in terms of the pressure campaign on the vice president to ignore the law and constitution on january 6th. so those conversations, i think, are among the key evidence, much of which we did not obtain because witnesses were simply unwilling to provide it and we couldn't force them. >> i want you to listen to what the house speaker kevin mccarthy sa

you guys beat them to the punch on cassidy hutchinson, on pat cipollone. doj should have been there themselves before you guys, but you got there first. >> you talked about how the justice department is more effective with a subpoena. if you have a subpoena from the justice department, it's a bit scarier than it is coming from the committee, liz cheney and everyone, with all due respect to the committee. but if you had that subpoena power they had, who would you want to be talking to right now? >> look, i wanted to hear from people like steve bannon. he obviously didn't respond to that. dan scavino is somebody i think was of interest to me because he ran donald trump's social media networks, the direct messaging, that coordination. he never came in and talked to us. a lot more of mark meadows. he was still the all star on the investigation because his initial traunch of texts were like gold mine for us in terms of expanding that. but there's a lot more he knows. as jack smith develops this investigation, it'll be kind of personally interesting for me to se

sidney powell, and exactly what was discussed in that meeting when folks like eric herschmann, and pat cipollone, and derek lions, part of the white house staff. >> team normal, they call themselves. >> team normal who had already been at wits and with him crazy, sydney powell and flynn, almost coming to fists with them. what happened after team normal left, i think is of central interest to prosecutors here. >> it is meaningful because it shows this 80, bce transition to the january 6th plot. also the fact that team normal was in the room is super relevant here as well because it is, correct me if i am wrong, it would be evidence that trump knew what he was doing was fraudulent. >> absolutely. you have the grown-ups in the room who are saying, there was no election fraud, you lost every lawsuit that you brought, and this is completely bogus and these plans from the three stooges that are in the room, mike flynn, sydney powell and the overstock guy, patrick byrne, these plans are preposterous. you can't possibly declare martial law. you don't have the authority to have military come in and sees

cassidy hutchinson, pat cipollone, i was venture a guess that some of the people will be witnesses in, are the people that chose not to show up and could not evade the process, given to them by the department of justice. folks like mark meadows. >> mike pence. >> we don't know where mark med dose stands here. that's a great mystery. >> a lot to learn here. thank you for being with us throughout the hour. that's going to do it for me today. jose diaz belar picks up our coverage right now. >>> we begin this hour with breaking news. former president donald trump received a target letter from special counsel jack smith on sunday, in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. according to two sources with direct knowledge. trump broke the news in a post on truth social this morning. he said the special counsel's of

>> jonathan: i wanted to get pat cipollone on the record more than anybody. >> stephen: lead white houseughout it all on january 6th. and i knew, people close to him, i knew a lot about what he was doing. i knew he thought about resigning. he thought if he resigned, it could've been worse. i know that he was absolutely opposed to thi crazy notion that mike pence can overturn the election. i knew all that. and i reached out. i spent months. i could not get an on the record conversation with him. >> stephen: you had off the record conversations? >> jonathan: i can't really say that. >> stephen: wait, you can't even say whether you had off the record -- i'm not asking you to tell me. you just told me. you just told me. the fact that you can't say. aha, aha! >> jonathan: i am very persistent. so you can assume. >> stephen: over a year ago, you had a sit-down with the former president down at mar-a-lago, right? now that you watch these hearings, what of that conversation comes back to you with special force? >> jonathan: it is the most haunting thing i've ever heard a president, former presid

john eastman, yet people like pat cipollone who were white house counsel, trying to counsel him to standn clark, who was involved in trying to put a new attorney general in, or be the new attorney general, who would do the bidding of donald trump. so you can go all the way through it. people with small parts of involvement like newt gingroom, people like alley alexander who were named like andy biggs was named as participants. do you see -- is there anyone who stands out to you as somebody who would be the waltine nauta in the case, meaning if donald trump committed a conspiracy to obstruct and defraud the united states, that implies he did it with someone. so is there somebody who seems obvious to play waltine nauta's role here? >> i don't know if it's anybody on the list you just showed of people who testified before the grand jury. when a client gets a subpoena to testify before the grand jury, a good lawyer will call the prosecutor and ask, is my client a target? and usually, if the answer is yes, they tend not to come testify. so the fact they testified before the grand jury raises

we have dan scavino, white house counsel pat cipollone. there are people who went in also and took the fifth. what i'm curious about is who's cooperating and who may be from that inner circle told them something they didn't know. >> yeah, that's a key question and obviously we hope to learn more opthat. thank you, both. donald trump said today that another indictment as we noted there would destroy the country, but could it also embolden his 2024 presidential campaign? plus the health of minority leader mitch mcconnell under scrutiny after three falls and that troubling moment where he froze before reporters. today there are now new calls for transparency within his own party. >>> and a major development just in about bronny james, the 18-year-old son of lebron james, days after he went into cardiac arrest at basketball practice. ♪ it's our turn now we'll make it up again. ♪ ♪ we'll build freelance teams with more agility. ♪ ♪ the old way of working is deader than me. ♪ ♪ we'll scale up, and we'll l scale down ♪ ♪ before you're six feet un

fortunately that was -- at philbin and pat cipollone, who, i think, are well known to the grand juryis point. but, yeah, sure maybe you got testimony from alyssa farah and cassidy hutchinson. and i don't think that there's any reason necessarily to discount that. >> but the doj usually needs more. more it's not, oh, on this hand, on the other hand. and then trying to figure, it out, and i don't know. usually, and you worked at the department of justice, so you know this. the department of justice, in order to seem like a fair broker, they bring cases that are certain, and that you can win, that you've got that evidence. and, my fear is that when you bring a case that really seems like you just have to get into the presidents head. and it could go either way, and you're just not sure. that you end up losing so many americans. and this was kind of my second point. this isn't going to prevent another january 6th, if anything, it's going to make it worse. because people feel as though the department of justice is, it is one-sided. that it's politicized, and when people lose that faith in

they spoke with these three lawyers, pat sim u cipollone, pat philbin, eric herschmann. >> all whom testified to the january 6th committee. search states, the fake electors, walk us through. >> this was a coordinated nationwide strategy. they went for joe biden but they were close. as part of that pressure effort, they reached out to various state and local officials, most infamous low brad raffensperger, that's the audio recorded phone call, donald trump asking him find me some votes and in georgia, arizona, we learned that the former governor, doug ducey spoke with doj, former speaker of the house and they spoke with officials in all seven states. we also know, remember the fake electors, the certificates that were put together in each state, people claim they were trump electors when trump didn't win, doj has spoken with some, we don't know who, but some electors as well. >> and michigan on a state level has brought charges -- >> against all 16 folks here. >> thank you. >> i feel like i got a semester in law school there from elie. back at the table here, cnn political commentators. van, t

you mentioned pat cipollone, his own white house counsel told him this fake elector plot is unlawful. his own campaign lawyers testified, that he dissociated. he and justin clark, the two lawyers said eastman, cheese borrow, you're on your own. we don't think this scheme, this plan has any validity. repeatedly lawyers close to the former president were telling him no factual foundation and no valid legal basis. nonetheless, he continued to assert publicly and directly to the vice president and others that there was fraud and that there was a legal path. that is evidence of intent. that's what they're focused on now in the final stages of this grand jury. >> andrew weissmann, i don't get to ask jack smith questions on this program. you're sort of the closest avatar for how he might view things -- a mission should you choose to accept it. i want to understand from you if you have any surprise or if it seems like an obvious part of this to pursue if you're jack smith, the multistate fake electors plot has been hanging out there. the probe pushed as far as it could without getting some of

. >> the first example i would offer is pat cipollone. our interview with him. you can see it in the video. he's thinking constantly about, is this a privileged communication. he's an institutionalist. he believes that white house counsel should be able to provide the president with candid advice without that information -- that information subsequently being discoverable by congress or a third party. he's doing that because he cares about the rule of law and the institutional role of white house counsel. but he was tiptoeing. jack smith may have gotten him to run across that line and opened the door to all those conversations. the chief judge of the d.c. district court affirmed by the court of appeals said you don't have an executive privilege, mr. cipollone. you must answer the special counsel's questions. all of the times he stopped short of the line with us, he didn't have that hesitation because the judge told him he had to answer that question. mike pence and mark meadows didn't even come in and tiptoe. they stayed home. they obviou

his own people said about known falsity and known illegality of the eastman -- this is pat cipollone and other lawyers. >> my view was that the vice president had, didn't have legal authority to do anything. >> and -- looked closely at memos, theory and no base that it was not a strategy the president should pursue. >> sounds like consistent with your opinion? >> informed certainly by them. >> either you or speaker chatfield make a point to the president you were not going to do anything that violated michigan law? >> i believe we did. whether or not it was those exact words or not, i think that the words that i would more likely use we were going to follow the law. >> did you tell the president in that second call that you supported him, that you voted for him, but you were not going to do anything illegal for him? >> i did, sir. >> did john eastman ever admit far as you know in front of the president that his proposal would violate the electoral counting? >> i believe he did on the 4th. >> so andrew weissmann, the defense has already annihilated by trump-supporting republicans expl

the infamous quote and then before powell and mike flynn and others storm into the office and pat cipollonestupefied and runs in and that is when the meeting starts. so this is the coterie and giuliani saying that they lacked guts, that trying very hard to do really extreme things like seizing the voting machines and the like. it doesn't matter that trump doesn't seize the voting machines and in terms of overall painting him as considering fairly crazy ideas from lawyers that have been disciplined since then. it shows at the end of the day, he's ignoring any -- any kind of grown-up knowledge and embracing any of the more crazy stuff that is what he wants to hear. >> speaking of data points or perhaps examples of evidence, let me play you this sound bite from boris epstein who spoke to i believe a couple of weeks ago spoke to jack smith. this is what he told ari back in january. take a listen. >> there is also reporting about the attempt to seat fraudulent electors, is that something you worked on or would support in michigan. >> that is so funny. it is not fraudulent, it is alternate electo