carol leonnig, i know you came up in your travel, your research along with phil first and second book, tell us more about this young man who is about to be better known. >> johnny mcentee wasn't eaten university of connecticut football player. he had also an amazing ability to win and electronic gambling. that got him into trouble with the national security clearances early in the administration. he rose like a meteor in the trump white house because he had the quality for donald trump that he values more than anything else. which was basically blind loyalty. he did what donald trump won it. and in the final days, just as jonathan carl describes, he not only helped push along with the team of other election fraud claims -- the specious claims that were demonstrably false, and that many in the house knew were false. he also was the enforcer on installing more -- everyone the government that paralyzed this administration. when it was facing donald trump's own solicitation to rioters to come to washington. where things would be as he said, wild. >> lisa lerer, i ask you some version of t

carol leonnig, "washington post" national reporter and phillip rucker, senior correspondent. carol and phil are the authors of the book "i alone can fix it," and lucky for us all three of them are msnbc contributors. carol, i want to start with you and this sort of ongoing conversation we've had since january 6th of the lack of interest in one of the two political parties in the united states of america to dive into this evidence as has been unearthed by this investigation and the 1-6 committee. is there anything revelatory about their posture on all of this content that you guys unearthed? >> you know, i'm really glad that you mentioned that, nicolle, because the lack of interest on the part of members of the republican party in the house especially to investigate what happened january 6th, which was not 9/11 but as close as we can get to 9/11 since that moment, kind of watershed moment in terms of an attack on our democracy and on the country but from within, it was really the catalyst, the republicans' lack of interest was the catalyst for all of we three and 20-plus more j

carol leonnig, pulitzer prize winning investigative reporter, co-author along with phil rucker who takesthe air time, author of "i alone can fix it." and barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan, worked with the doj during the biden transition. notably is a professor at her alma mater university of michigan law school. also notably co-host of the podcast sisters in law" along with our friends. good evening to you all. counsellor, i'm duty bound to begin with you. about the legal headlines tonight, is the bigger news this round of subpoenas or is the bigger news a federal judge who says open the door of the archives and let the sunlight in? >> i think it has to be the judge's order. certainly we could anticipate that the congressional committee would be seeking some of the subpoenas. maybe we didn't know the names, but this order is significant. i think many of us anticipated that donald trump would do everything in his power to stall and delay the turning over of these documents, but at the end of the day he made it very clear he's no longer president, a

starting line on a friday night courtney super mania, white house correspondent for usa today, carol leonnig pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter for the washington post, coauthor with phil rucker of the new york times bestseller, i alone can fix it, and cynthia ochsner former federal prosecutor in the civil rights division of the department of justice. good evening, welcome to you all. cynthia, given the news, given our lead story tonight, i would like to begin with you by asking you why did this case result in an acquittal? >> it resulted in an acquittal for a couple of reasons. the most important one was frankly the witnesses. the one witness said he approached the defendant and he had a gun in his hand pointed it at him, one of the witness went after rittenhouse with a skateboard and another one grabbed his gun. that was enough that the prosecution could not overcome their burden of proof. when you add, to other important things, one there wasn't a good overarching theme in the case. i happen to personally have like closing statements, but it disagreed with the opening statement

and carol leonnig is here, coauthor of "i alone can fix it."nvestigation into the insurrection and i wonder, with your reporting and all of your sort of visibility into what happened, how do you see today's batch of subpoenas into the extremist groups, name checked by christopher wray, and their leaders? >> i think it's pretty interesting, and you hit the nail on the head, nicole, when you mentioned the committee racing against the clock. racing against the midterm elections clock, but also racing against the clock to build a more fleshy and full narrative of what happened. what's really interesting about the last 24, 48 hours, monday and tuesday, two series of subpoenas, is that based on my reporting, there's a interlocking web between the people who were subpoenaed on monday and the people were subpoenaed on tuesday. i'll give you one example. often overlooked is that roger stone, in addition to being a loyal sort of soldier of donald trump's, and a dirty trickster over the course of his history for all sorts of political campaigns, and for t

that let us bring this our starting line, courtney, white house correspondent for "usa today," carol leonnig for "the washington post," co-author with phil rucker of "i alone can fix it" and cynthia oxney former federal prosecutor in the civil rights division of the department of justice. good evening and welcome to you all and cynthia, given the news and our lead story, i'd like to begin with you by asking you, why did this case result in an acquittal? >> it resulted in acquittal for a couple of reasons and the most important ones frankly were the witnesses. one witness said he approached the defendant and pointed a gun and one witness reportedly went after mr. rittenhouse with a skateboard and another one supposedly grabbed his gun. that was enough that the prosecution could not overcome their burden of proof and when you add two other important thing, one is there really wasn't a good overarching theme in the case. i happen to personally have liked the closing statement. the problem is it disagreed with the opening statement and that's a big problem and then when you throw in a very confu

night, philip rucker, pulitzer prize-winning correspondent for the washington post, coauthor with carol leonnig, i alone can fix it, donald trump's catastrophic final year. jacqueline alemany, author of the papers morning newsletter, of washington post, -- 2020, and barb mcquade, former attorney for the district of -- and professor at university of michigan's law school. she cohost the podcast sisters in law, along with kimberly atkins store, and joyce vance. good to have you. before we get to what we are seeing, still going on on the florida house. how big a deal is this for joe biden? getting this through the house? >> chris, it's a significant incremental development but it's not the end of the game for joe biden in terms of passing this massive spending bill, which of course is key to his domestic agenda, it pays for so many social programs that democrats have been clambering for. as you know, we've seen it play out over the last months. democrats have been arguing over the scale of that bill and over which measures would be included and how to pay for it. there have been disputes between p

joining me now former federal prosecutor glen kirshner and carol leonnig. good to see both of you.e presidency, is that an argument that carries legal weight? >> no. actually i think this battle could heal the presidency. because executive privilege, let's suspend reality for a moment, chris, and assume a former president retains a healthy dose of executive privilege. he really doesn't. because in the main the executive privilege decision resides in the current occupant of the white house, joe biden, and he's decided not to invoke executive privilege to stop the production of the documents from the national archives to the house select committee. but let's assume that trump had a healthy dose of executive privilege to assert. it would yield if what he was trying to prevent from seeing the light of day involved him and his associates trying to commit crimes. trying to have a president unconstitutionally retain power, trying to undermine the free and fair election of the incoming president. at the end of the day, i do think any lingering executive privilege would yield to the crime,

want to bring in pete williams, vince vance, and a couple of writers from "the washington post," carol leonnig. what happens thursday? >> so what happens thursday, bannon will plead not guilty, it's cut and dried on thursday. beneath the bluster of steve bannon's appearance which included a camera crew from his whole thing live streaming turned himself into the fbi, two things substantive legal things. one, it's clear he's going to be arguing on the advice of counsel when his lawyer told him not to show up at all to the committee. and there have been cases acting on advice of counsel, most considered an absolute defense. that's the substantive issue. the second one is executive privilege. he said the president asserted it and that's why he didn't show up. and that's an interesting question because the courts have yet to resolve much executive privilege a former president like donald trump has. so those are substantive issues yet to be hashed out. >> carol. >> steve bannon was not arrested. he made an appointment to surrender to authorities. he heard the charges, he did not have to post bail. h

joining me now is nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali and "washington post" carol leonnig. when does this go to a vote, ali? >> next. they're going to continue on this debate and then move to the next phase which is the censure and stripping him of his two committee assignments here. but really, katy, what you're talking about is, this is a clear snapshot of the moment we're in in politics in 2021. all these disparate conversations about mainstreaming political violence, whether it's average folks being energized by lawmakers who have told them the big lie about the 2020 election, many of the democrats who spoke during this debate period connected this moment back to the january 6th insurrection that happened in the very halls that i am standing in right now, and where they go to work every day. that day is inextricably linked with this moment right now, this censure on the floor. that's what you heard from congresswoman ocasio-cortez, saying basically, this isn't about me, this didn't about paul gosar, this is about whether or not you think that colleagues in the house can

. >> joining me to discuss, "washington post" national investigative reporter, carol leonnig, ryan j. reilly, and former u.s. attorney, joyce vance. she's an msnbc contributor and professor at the alabama school of law. joyce, understanding the unpredictable nature of the characters involved here, what can we expect from steve bannon's court appearance tomorrow?alicia, it's entirely unpredictable. here we typically expect that the government may arraign bannon on the charges and there may be some form of hearing over detention. it's not clear yet whether the government will seek to detain bannon. that would be a heavy lift, but they may decide to argue that given his past history, he's something of a flight risk. it seems highly doubtful to me that a judge would detain him on this misdemeanor charge. >> congressman jerry raskin says the january 6th committee may use civil contempt charges to force bannon to testify. how would that work, joyce? >> so it would work about the same way that what we've seen with bannon would work. with one big difference. because madows was in the white ho

prize-winning senior washington correspondent for the "washington post," notably co-author along with carol leonnig of the "new york times" best-seller "i alone can fix it." and former u.s. attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. she hosts the podcast "sisters in law" along with our friends kimberly atkins stohr, jill wine-banks and barbara mcquade. counselor, i need to begin with you. given the news at the top of our broadcast tonight, these two notable names are big names that come out seemingly late in the game on the subpoena list though we don't get to know how long the game is planned for. what's your read on this latest round of subpoenas? >> well, it looks like congress is doing what prosecutors typically do. they're following the money. they're trying to figure out who funded the events on january 6th, which will be very telling in helping them place accountability. p but they're also doing something else that i think is a sign that they have actually gotten a fair bit of information as they've been interviewing cooperating parties. they appear to be zeroing in on

i mean, it's been reported in i believe carol leonnig and pat cipollone thought donald trump would bert of try to impress upon him that he could face criminal exposure? how did they get him to do something acceptable? >> white house counsel pat cipollone warned him that if he didn't come out and do this, he faced removal from office, either through impeachment or the 25th amendment, that he had to do this. but, nicole, look at the time of that, release of that video. it's hours after the riot has been under way. it took them hours to get through to him to get him to even do what he did there, which again was entirely inadequate, of praising the rioters, we love you. we love you. so you raise the, what mitch mcconnell did in the hours after the riot. when he determined that he did not want donald trump to be at the inauguration because the riot had been put down but he was worried that trump would have one more chance to disrupt biden's inaugural iraqis. so i looked to this i traced this methodically. that decision by mcconnell to do this got back to the white house in two ways. first