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

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

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

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

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 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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>> 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

is not pursuing actual legal action that is not in its purview, that has to come from the department of justice. and we have seen members of this committee say they believe in no uncertain terms that the chain of responsibility for what happened before january 6th and on january 6th loan leads all the way up to the president that he knew the election wasn't stolen. that he tried to coerce election officials and that he incited that riot. but whether that means that we would actually see president trump in court, that's trickier because the department of justice has to weigh up. whether all of this evidence that the committee has presented would actually hold up in court under cross examination. and anthony, just imagine a jury being selected for such a trial in what is an incredibly politicized environment. here, the u. s. and all that being said, many observers you're believed that all the evidence that's been presented has been so damning that the department of justice will have to do something. so we could possibly see a donald trump facing a legal consequences. so part of that political env

is it difficult for a nation to take the decisions of the department of justice or supreme court? yeah but that's their job. you want them to do that devoid of politics. >> i want to ask you about former chief of staff mark meadows. given what you heard from former white house aide cassidy hutchinson and others about his actions and inactions, do you think he may be in legal trouble here? >> i never practiced criminal law. i don't want to give an opinion showing how stupid i am. what i took away from cassidy hut hutchinson's testimony is the west wing wasn't functioning. a giant red flag things weren't functioning properly. can people make bad decisions in that type of setting that can come back to haunt them? absolutely. i think personally there's bigger risk for obstruction of justice after the fact. you can be as innocent as the new driven snow on january 6th, but if you try and interfere with witnesses, it's so often the cover-up that is a bigger deal than the potential crime itself. there was a lot of things happening in the west wing and bad decisions are made. when things ar

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

that month, the house -- department of justice that the department of justice held a contempt, to chargeway they did with bannon. we now know from the washington post who spoke to two people familiar with the matter, that in april of this year, quote justice department investigators received phone records of key officials and aides in the trump administration, including his former chief of staff, mark meadows. and then last, month the doj announced they are not charging meadows for contempt. so, what is going on here? could it be that mark meadows is cooperating with doj and that's what resolves these weird contradictions? woodruff swan is a national correspondent for politico, mariano -- of federal prosecutor and an analyst of -- ronaldo, let me start with, you let me start with the pattern as someone who worked as a prosecutor and department of justice, what it looks like from the outside, had to make sense of this so much strange set of facts around mark meadows? >> i think mark meadows definitely tried, in the beginning, to start cooperating with the committee in hopes of avoiding th

department of justice. as it expanded into areas beyond just the rioters that reach the capitol on that day. and started looking into more of the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. they were very interested in some of the interviews that the generals whigs committee has already conducted. the committee was reluctant to canned over those transcribed interviews to the department of justice, because they considered their work and their property, and they wanted to be able to have it in their possession as their investigation moved forward. this became something of a standoff between the doj and the january 6th select committee. and now they're starting to find areas common ground, and chairman bennie thompson told us today the first batch of information that they're gonna hand over to the department of justice is the information that they've gleaned about this effort to file a fake set of electors that would've been sent to congress had a january 6th. that's pretty significant, because we haven't se

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 in georgia. where he asked for have 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 fake elector scheme where the meetings were held and 7 swing states organized by the trump campaign, and trump, lawyers, and allies to have people be and thought fake certificates as if they had actually been elect 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. so it all kind of fits together. yeah. now with the interaction in particular, the justice department has been getting a lot of c

-- 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

sorry, very significant filing by the department of justice -- the judge in that case had asked the department to weigh in on its position. mark meadows had made a motion seeking to quash the subpoena seeking his testimony. and the department of justice made a filing saying a number of things that were very adverse to mark meadows. first, they said he is not protected by absolute immunity. at most he is protected by qualified immunity. but in any event, the congressional committee had established the need to qualify for immunity, that means there is a balancing. but the other is that this doesn't apply to documents. it only applies to testimony. they also made it clear that the testimony has to relate to things that mark meadows was doing in his official capacity, not in a follow-up and detour and not in a criminal capacity. so, there are lots of ways that this filing, the department gives mark meadows not a lot of hope and really supports the judge finding that congress is entitled to his testimony here. >> andrew weissmann, former fbi general counsel, senior member of special counsel robert