richard donahue, they did the right thing. if the department of justice sent that letter, and the georgia general assembly calls a special session, since electors for donald trump to washington, then there wouldn't be a mob. the man who colluded with donald trump on this coup should be disbarred. no one should ever hire him again. he should face eternal public shaming, jeffrey clark. he is insane to let this man, jeffrey clark, get anywhere near any institution in this country that matters at all. he aimed a nuclear weapon at the united states democracy. there have been little to no consequences for anyone involved in this whole disgusting affair. unless there are, they are going to try again. they came very close last time. they came very close last time. charlie savage is a washington correspondent for the new york times and coauthor -- and suing then he plotted with trump. charlie, maybe kills a little bit about mr. gaetz background. what's striking here it is this is not someone who comes from a loyalist -- this is someone

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general donahue has experience in that. admiral has a spate of other duties he has to attend to come up to include liaison with the state department, our allies and partners on the ground in kabul, the turkish support element. there's a lot of things to do. we felt like this division of labor made the most sense, given the urgency of time. >> just to make sure. 82nd in command at the airport, and the general is the one talking to the taliban? >> i'm not going to talk about specific conversations, who is having what. our commanders -- admiral basey has been there for this thing. i do not know when general donahue is getting there. suffice to say that our commanders are at the airport are charged with securing the airport and keeping it secure. and to doing what is required to keep it secure and get operations back up and running, to be sustained. they will and should have whatever interactions they believe are necessary to accomplish that mission. i'm not in a position and will not begin to get into one where i am detailing

chris donahue is the commander of the u.s. army 82nd airborne division as he boards the c-130 in afghanistan. they used the same photo this morning in the associated press reporting, ending america's longest war, the united states completing its withdrawal from f anna stanley on day, ending america's longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises, and a frantic final exit that costs the lives of 180 afghans and 13 u.s.'s -- 13 u.s. service members, some barely older than the war. that's from the associated press. we are joined on the line by a defense reporter from politico. good morning. >> good morning -- guest: good morning, thank you for having me. host: we showed that photo of chris donahue exiting. not the typical kind of final departure ceremony when the u.s. wraps up an engagement. was there any other kind of ceremony to market? -- mark that? guest: not really, they were the last americans on the ground yesterday, two of the last, one of the las

general donahue has experience in that. number two, commander on the ground has a spate of other duties to attend to including liaison with the state department, allies and partners also on the ground in kabul, turkish support element. there's a lot of things to do. we felt like this division of labor made the most sense given the urgency of time and what we are trying to accomplish. >> i do not know exactly, maybe the general knows when general donahue is getting there. suffice it to say our commanders are there at the airport, charged with securing that airport and keeping it secure and to doing what is required to keep it secure into get operations back up and running and to be sustained and they will and should have whatever interactions believe are necessary to accomplish that mission. i am not in a position now, and i won't get into a position where i am detailing every conversation. as i said to courtney, the best judge of how we are doing is how we are doing and the results we are achieving. let me get to helene. >>

the rich donahue and jeffrey rosen testimony happen in a rush on friday and saturday.ript of that testimony, that we believe will ultimately released to the public. the u.s. attorney p.j. packers mysteriously resignation has finally been partially explain. his testimony is due in the next few days. fascinated to know about that too. but the story is, is finally spilling out. senator richard blumenthal joins us next. blumenthal joins us next. joins us next. ♪ when i was young ♪ no-no-no-no-no please please no. ♪ i never needed anyone. ♪ front desk. yes, hello... i'm so... please hold. ♪ those days are done. ♪ i got you. ♪ all by yourself. ♪ go with us and find millions of flexible options. all in our app. expedia. it matters who you travel with. >> tech: every customer has their own safelite story. this couple loves camping adventures and their suv is always there with them. so when their windshield got a chip, they wanted it fixed fast. they drove to safelite autoglass for a guaranteed, same-day, in-shop repair. we repaired the chip before it could crack. and with thei

like as we approach this withdrawal, we did not turn it over to the taliban journal donahue. one of the last thing she did before leaving was talk to the taliban commander that you had been coordinating with. as soon as about the time we were going to leave, just let them know that we were leaving. but there was no discussion of turning anything over of that at all. jen mckenzie. jennifer griffin from fox news. if i could just have you reflect personally after 20 years of war, you've served their youth. now watch the last troops leave the last troops in recent days. how did it feel? leaving afghanistan to the very group that you over through 20 years ago. the taliban? well, as i sort of said in my remarks, as you know, i've been there a couple times. my sons been there a couple times so and it was very, very conflict. it actually, but i would tell you i was pretty much focused on the task at hand. i'll have days, i had to actually think about that. but there were just so much going on in his headquarters and we were so completely focused on getting our troops out. and in the,

taylor: you will hear more about this from the air force today. >> a couple more. >> general donahuerom the 82nd airborne is headed to kabul to become the overall commander. what happens to admiral baisley? gen. taylor: he maintains his position as commander for the entire mission. elements of the 82nd airborne division have already been flowing in to do the actual mission of security of hkia, so general donahue and a piece of his staff will go forward and work specifically on the security mission of hkia. >> and then admiral baisley remains -- gen. taylor: that's right. the overall commander for the headquarters, obviously under general mckenzie. >> you said there were 700 afghan security forces at the airport. has a commitment been made to them that they will also be evacuated afterwards, once this completes? gen. taylor: i know that our commitment to ensure that the security there at hkia is increased by having those members of the adsf with us at this time. >> that would have to, you know, be a decision by those individuals if they wanted to apply for, you know, a visa and to pur

you mentioned that general donahue talked to his essentially taliban counterpart. can you tell us what the taliban will be able to do to allow the u.s. to depart kabul? gen. mckenzie: i won't be able to answer the first two questions. i can tell you this about what the taliban has done. they established a firm perimeter outside of the airfield to prevent people from coming on the airfield during our departure. we work to that with them for a number of days. they did not have direct knowledge of our time of departure. we chose to keep that information very restricted, but they were actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations. >> i want to go to the phones. >> thanks for calling on me. general, can you give us detail on what the last day looks like in terms of number of flights, people you had on the ground to start with, who might have been on that last plane, particularly senior leaders, and kind of how this all played out? gen. mckenzie: let me begin with the backend of your question. when the last airplane out was general chris donahue, he

. >> you talking about general donahue and his staff? >> could you walk us through a little bit of that? >> a couple of things, barb. this is what the 28nd airborne does really well and global response job their job is to be ready to assist in an expeditious manner and the task of securing and operating an air field is actually a unique task that the 82nd can do and general donahue has experience in that. that's one reason. number two, the admiral on the ground has a spate of other duties he has to attend to, to include liaison with the state department, our allies and partners that are also on the ground there in kabul, the turkish support element, there's a lot of things to do so we felt like this division of labor made the most sense, given the urgency of time and what we're trying to accomplish in the next couple of weeks. >> just to make sure, 82nd is in command at the airport and the general you mentioned is the one talking to the taliban? >> i'm not going to talk about specific conversations, barb, or who is having what. our comma

general donahue is headed to kabul to become the overall commander. what happens to emeril vasely and others. >> admiral vasely maintains the commission as commander as the entire mission for the u.s. going forward. as you know, elements of the 82nd airborne division have been flowing in to do the actual mission of secure of hkai. and so general donahue and his staff will go forward and work specifically on the security mission of h kiah. >> and he is remaining. >> that is creck. for headquarters under general mckenzie. >> you said there were 700 afghan security forces at the airport. has a commitment been made to them that they will also be evacuated afterwards? and once this mission is complete? >> i know that our commitment to ensure that -- [ no audio ] -- and to pursue that approach. that it would be up to those afghans to make that decision for themselves. okay. take one. >> a quick follow up. >> okay. >> you mentioned you have mentioned that the department -- the administration thinks there could be thousands of americans still in kabul and in

and i think the same holds true for richard donahue. and a handful of other senior justice department officials who wrestled with this in realtime. so i understand barbs argument here, she's a smart lawyer, but i do think there is a lot more to the picture that needs to be understood before you can make any determination about criminal activity here. >> barbara, i'm sure it's your understanding as well that as we start to see these pieces come into public view, it makes your argument stronger. >> yes of course, and i agree with devlin, i don't think that they're ready to indict today. but there isn't enough already in the public domain to service what's known as predication. that is, non frivolous facts. that there was a crime that occurred here. so i think that would merit those additional investigative steps. and when prosecutors investigate, they can get text messages, they can get emails, they can put people into the grand jury and asked them what happened. i think one of the most damning things that has come out in addition to thos

of several republican and democratic senators who sat in on closed door interviews with rosen and donahuestioning from senate staff, rosen revealed how the former president repeatedly pressured him to back false claims of election fraud. >> he was asking him to do certain things related to states' election returns, which he refused to do. how directly involved the president was, the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen, it was real, very real, and it was very specific. >> rosen also talked to investigators from the doj's inspector general's office friday. there is no known criminal investigation of trump or any other official, but he says there may be basis for one. >> what donald trump did here, in fact, was try to overthrow the election. and there are all kinds of potential criminal charges because asking the department of justice to call an election corrupt falsely is potentially a criminal violation. >> good morning. i'm jeff clark. i'm the head of the civil division. >> jeffrey clark also has become a focal point for congressional investigators. clark drafted this letter to georg

donahue, it is during a phone call with trump where he told doj official this is, he said just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the r congressman, the republican congressman, we don't know who. then it is one day later when jeffrey clark was head of the civil division, a division that won't have any part in investigating election issues but he took it on and drafted a letter to be sent to governors in georgia where he falsely wrote that doj had found voting issues that impacted the outcome in several states something that was wrong and he wanted donahue and rosen to sign off but they won't. and in fact, donahue swiftly put his foot down and wrote back this, there is no chance that i would sign this letter or anything remotely like this, from what i stand this is not even within the realm of possibility. but beyond this, there is likely more that we will learn since trump was obviously so focused on getting doj to interject itself into the electorate process to overturn the election. the good news, jim, is that doj has cleared the way for top officials who were

the acting tomorrow jeffrey ro rosened a and his deputy richard donahue.ow the house oversight committee was set to interview them this week. now we have learned the january 6th committee will take off where they left off. this will be one investigation. they're important. because rosen and donahue know first hand, trump's repeated attempts to use the justice department to overturn the 2020 election. today we get details how he tried to use the department of justice to pursue and to create basis claims of voter fraud, including what one official who went so far as to draft a resignation letter in response to what he said were twump u trumps questions to the results. this was drafted january 3rd, three days before the deadly insurrection. but the pressure campaign started long before that and i want to lay it out for you. sow understand what we are really looking at here. i'm start with december 1st. on december 1st, trump summoned then tomorrow bill bar a to meet with him. after barr told the associated press the department of justice had quote not seen fr

why was donahue thanking him -- first of all why did pack resign? number two official that led to his resignation? why did that happen after the oval office meeting? and why after the governor signed did he get flanked by the number two official in the doj. when someone resigns you think for it if you did it at your request? why would he have asked the u.s. attorney to resign? so what happened here? well, today be jay pat gave his side of the sordid to the senate judiciary committee. behind closed doors. the times is katie benner reports that his closed-door testimony lasted more than three hours. the times report that pack told investigators questioning him of the hearing that his resignation had been prompted by justice department officials warning him that president trump intended to fire him for refusing to say the widespread voter fraud had been found in georgia. as the time put said resigning would preempt a public dismissal. pack also told the committee that trump had been dismays death his office had never investigated allegations of fraud i

and you mentioned that general donahue talked to his taliban, essentially his counterpart.e on what the taliban played from a security perspective to allow the u.s. to safely depart kabul? >> i'm not going to be able to answer the first two questions because those operations are still concluding as to where those aircraft are going and the exact disposition of our forces on the aircraft. i can tell you about though what the taliban has done. they established a firm perimeter outside of the airfield to prevent people from coming on the airfield during our departure. and we've worked with them for a number of days. they did not have direct knowledge of our time of departure. we chose to keep that information very restricted. but they were actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations. >> i want to go to the phones. i haven't done that yet. >> thanks for calling on me. general, can you give us, i guess, a deeper level of detail on what this last day looked like in terms of number of flights, number of people you had on the ground to start with, who might'

donahue taking notes to document what was going on. so we came perilously close. and you are right in that there is no real systematic way of curtailing this. and we come back to an obscure law passed in the 19th century, the electoral count act which really specifies from how we get to the votes on election day through the electoral college to the revelation of the votes in the electoral college, and then to the eventually inauguration of the president. and we have to look back at this, not only hold those accountable, not only look at the crimes that were committed but also look to that document and figure out a way in which this is in essence, coup-proof. >>ia yeah. >> that we can construct guard rails so it is not dependent on good will, that there is an automatic nature to it. that states didn't flip the popular vote. that there isn't a justice department that pressures a state legislature to do this. we need to take a hard look. in katie's reporting i am more convinced than ever that donald trump and the people who were enabling him have to be prosecuted. th

we're also learning thinks deputy, richard donahue also testified.se are two key people that had contact with the white house and other officials during that key period of time. really senator blumenthal, one of the senators on the judiciary committee part of that behind closed doors testimony telling us just last hour exactly what his takeaways were from that conversation. they're stunning. listen. >> the president of the united states, then donald trump, mounted a pressure campaign that was absolutely relentless, brutal, personally involved, directly aimed at the department of justice. we men to break it and weaponize it to overthrow the election. >> reporter: what you and i have followed is the things the former president and his allies were saying publicly, but what's really stunning is over the course of last few weeks, we've learned from people like donahue who took handwritten notes of conversations he had with the former president. donahue is one of the people talking to the committee, allegedly he rod trump just said the election was corrupt

richard donahue put it bluntly in an e-mail.s no chance i would sign this letter or anything remotely like this." the letter was never sent but it's part of this trove of evidence that lawmakers and thethe doj inspector general are now sifting through to uncover the lengths donald trump and allies went to overturn the dplelectio. we know the house oversight comm committee are investigating. it appears maybe some of these doj officials are already talking. as we see here, they're sharing notes and documents from those fateful weeks between the election and january 6th. >> all these new details are helping to paint a clearer picture of what was happening behind the scenes. amanda carpenter is a cnn political commentator and joe l lockhart is with us as well. joe, your thoughts first? >> as dramatic as the testimony was last week from the capitol police, this is really what congress and doj needs to get at. january 6th was the symptom. the disease was trying to overturn an election. that is as serious as you can get, you know, in u

you mentioned general donahue talked with essentially his taliban counterpart. can you give us a sense of what role the taliban plays from a security perspective to allow americans to depart kabul? >> those operations are still concluding but i can tell you this about what the taliban has done. that established a firm perimeter outside of the airfield to prevent people from coming on the airfield during our departure. we worked on that with them for a number of days. they did not have knowledge of the time of our departure. we chose to keep that information very restricted. but they were actually very helpful and useful to us as we close down operations. >> general, can you give us a deeper level of what it look like in terms of the number of people you had on the ground to start with, particularly senior leaders and how it all played out? >> on the last airplane out was general chris donahue, and my ground force commander there. he was accompanied by -- the defense team came out on the last aircraft out. what has happened over the last 12-18 hours, first of all

reporter: donahue said that several people had been spotted feeding coyotes in multiple places across city. multiple places across the city. those who do feed coyotes can face a $1,000 fine. tim johns, abc7 news. ama: thanks, tim. it's time get a check on the weather. it's still a bit breezy today. dan: it helps it to be sandy. sandhya: we do have that nice breeze along the coastline which shelters the coast and the bay from getting too hot. let me show you a live picture of this, the breeze along with the fog more our mount tam cam. you can see the marine layer. hazy skies tomorrow. we're looking at an air quality advisory and hotter weather inland. i want to show you the nasa imagery. you can see how much smoke out to the north is putting out. some of that snow will start to drift in our direction, which is why there's a concern and the air quality advisory has been issued. some of the reds there indicating heavier smoke, that starts to move into the bay area that continues into friday. so i wouldn't be surprised if the district but obviously, stay tuned. right now, watching that mo

we will soon release a photo of the last c-17 departing afghanistan with major donahue and the u.s. ambassador to afghanistan. our military mission is complete but the diplomatic mission continues. i know you have heard, you will hear more about that from the state department shortly. tonight's withdrawal signifies the end of the military component and also the end of the nearly 20 year mission that began in afghanistan shortly after september 11, 2001. it is a mission that brought some of bin laden -- brought in osama bin laden and his co-conspirators. there were many service members and civilians killed. sadly, that includes a service members that were killed last week. we honor their sacrifice today as we remember their heroic accomplishments. no words from me could possibly capture the full measure of sacrifices and accomplishments of those who served, nor the emotions they are feeling at this moment, but i will say that i am proud that both my son and i have part of it. before i open it up for questions, i want to provide important context to the evacuation mission we have just

it amounted to about seven hours for rosen, six hours for donahue.r general this weekend, too. our sources are telling our team that rosen and donahue focused on their interactions with trump but also jeffrey clark. in particular, detailing how clark subverted the chain of command at doj at least five times to push these false claims of fraud untron trump's behalf. clark insisted that chinese intelligence used special kinds of thermometers to change results in machines tallying votes, something that was false. and when the director of national intelligence at the time rebutted those claims in a briefing, clark wouldn't believe him. so we learned that. there were also new revelations in this testimony over the weekend about trump and how much he actually pressured the acting a.g., jeff rosen, to back up his false claims of fraud. take a listen. >> how directly personally involved the president was. the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen. it was real. very real. it was very specific. this president is not subtle when he wants something -- former

we will soon release a photo of the last c-17 departing afghanistan with major general chris donahue and the u.s. ambassador to afghanistan. while the military evacuation is complete, the diplomatic mission to ensure additional u.s. citizens and eligible afghans who want to be continues. i know you have heard and will going -- hear more shortly. tonight withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component, but also the end of the nearly 20 year mission that began in afghanistan shortly after september 11, 2001. it's a that brought osama bin laden to a just and, along with many co-conspirators. it was not a cheap mission. the cost was 2461 u.s. service members and civilians killed, and over 20,000 injured. that includes 13 u.s. service members killed best week by isis-k suicide bomber. we honor their sacrifice, we remember their heroic accomplishments. no words for me could possibly capture the full measure of sacrifices and accomplishments of those who serve, nor the emotion they are feeling at this moment, but i will say i'm proud that both my son and i have been a part of it

and the skies exploded with taliban soldier, after the last american soldier, major general chris donahue his way home. when we drive through the streets of kabul, the city seems much the same, until we get to the banks. to the queues stretching all the way down the street. most banks are shut, most don't have any money. some people have stood here for days wondering if they can withstand this for long. i should build a future, i should study. so definitely if the situations are like that, you should stay for one weekjust to take 10,000 afghani...$100 from the bank, so it's not possible to live here. a country turned upside down and inside out. an old order suddenly ripped away, a new one suddenly started, in chaos and uncertainty. lyse doucet, bbc news, kabul. at the white house, within the past couple of hours, president biden has delivered a forthright and detailed defence of his decision, to order the us withdrawal. despite criticism from many quarters, the president said the evacuation efforts had been an "extraordinary success", and insisted he'd been faced with a stark choice betwe

the fact that donahue is a professional it took him temporary medias notes it's very helpful. it will allow him to refresh his memory. he make a good point, lauren. so there is more in the notes we aren't even talking about which is, donald trump admitted he was a keen observer and leader of the internet. you and i know now that before january 6th, there was a lot of internet chatter about plans to storm the capital on january 6th. the big question on the impeachment two point oh wasted donald trump read those plants? there was no witnesses, no way to figure it out. he is here admitting that he is very attentive to the internet, far more so than the department of justice. i don't think that gets you all the way that you need to get to in order to demonstrate that he knew what the plans were before january 6th, but it is certainly very helpful. >> daniel goldman, thank you very much for your legal expertise on these notes. really important. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. joining us now is tim bryan, senior con -- columnist and author of trump nation. he was sued by don trump in

the house oversight committee releasing notes taken by then-acting deputy attorney general richard donahueuring a december phone call with the then-president and then acting attorney general jeffrey rosen. according to the notes, trump said this. just say that the election was corrupt, plus leave the rest to me, or and leave the rest to me and the "r." the "r" meaning republican there. so joining me now, cnn's legal analyst and former u.s. attorney preet bharara. thank you so much. man, this is really concerning. these notes from donahue are stunning, and we are learning more by the week just how far trump was willing to go to pressure the doj to undermine the election results. do you think this could be his third impeachable offense? >> you know, i tweeted that half in jest. i think if there had not been two prior impeachment attempts, i think if he were still in office, if some circumstances were different, maybe there would be some movement in that direction because this conduct, by the way, is arguably the most egregious conduct of his entire presidency because it didn't involve ukrain

major general chris donahue, last u.s. boots on the ground in afghanistan as he was boarding the last c-17 out of kabul. the 20 years of war there costing trillions of dollars but most importantly claiming more than 2400 american lives, including 13 service members killed in the terror attack at kabul airport last week. over the last few weeks, the u.s. and its allies pulled off a major feat, evacuating 123,000 people but it was not entirely complete. between 100 and 200 americans are believed to still be in afghanistan and they want out along with thousands of afghan allies that america promised to protect. the taliban is celebrating america's departure. [ sound of gunfire ] >> fireworks and celebratory gunfire could be heard across kabul overnight. a los angeles times journalist captured this video of taliban fighters roaming ago helicopter hangar. let's begin with jeremy diamond at the white house. jeremy, what are you expecting to hear from the president this afternoon? >> reporter: well, listen, kate, when president b

we got these famous notes from donahue. and again, i'm getting all this truth from the reporting and the documents it seems fairly rock-solid that rosen and donahue did the right thing here. but this of course as trump saying, don't expect you did do, that don't expect you to say -- say the election was, crab leave the rest of me and republican congressman. that was in december 21st. at that, point they really did have a plan. and i think that this has been a little slow to don on the american people, and it's kudos on your to your committee for doing this, it was not just the wheels spinning cringe inducing carnival that was sydney powell and and rudy giuliani. >> there was a plan and the reason why it matters to look backwards because they could try to use this plan in the future. their plan is to say that state legislators can overturn the popular will. and in bush versus gore, it's not people who have the right to elect the a president, it's state legislators who have the right to elect let president. -- say it's corrup

general donahue was working in the pentagon on 9-11. his fourth deployment to afghanistan.led a delta force squadron a decade ago and head of special operations forces. secretary of state anthony blinken explaineded who some of these american citizens are that are left behind. >> they're long-time residents of afghanistan that have american passports and who were trying to determine whether or not they whether or not they wanted to leave. many are duel-citizen americans with deep roots and extended families in afghanistan that resided there for many years. for many, it's a painful choice. >> we've learned many of the americans left behind are in fact babies with u.s. passports born to afghans with green cards that gave birth in the u.s. those babies were dependent on parents to get them to the airport. many of these green card holders wanted to bring a dozen or more non-american family members with them and the taliban blocked them. 20 years ago, the u.s. military defeated the taliban. today the taliban rule afghanistan again. very hard to watch from the pentagon. >> very h

deputy attorney general, richard donahue at the time. and the guy who wrote it, jeff clark, the head of the civil division, at the time. had rosen and donoghue agreed with clark that they should sign this and send it, think about what that would have meant. there, of course, would have been a national clamor that the u.s. justice department had declared the election to be corrupted, potentially fatally so. the georgia republican legislature, if trump was right -- if -- if trump was right that they were onboard with this, they're on our side. and they -- if he was right, they would have tried to call themselves into special session to -- to, what, try to recall the state's biden electors from the electoral college. instead, consider whether the other slate, meaning the trump slate, should have been sent, instead. so, jeff clark sent over this draft letter, dated december 28th. he also sent over an e-mail, accompanying the letter, to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general. in that email he spelled out exactly that the plan wa

general donahue is the guy in charge of that. he knows how to do that. you slowly reduce the size:0 the air head and get out in the middle of the night. you're out of there and you're gone. tomorrow morning when the sun arises in afghanistan, the united states military won't be there. that air field will go back to control of the commercial activities that are currently there. that is what they're doing right now. that's militarily makes sense to me. i mean tomorrow morning when the sun arises in afghanistan, i think everybody in america will take a deep breath and go wow, 20 years and this is how we leave after 9-11? it was disorderly to get out of there. a lot of unforced errors. i think there's a really bad after taste in this whole thing, neil, going forward. >> neil: i just wonder as well, general, just to pick your brain on what will be afghanistan after we leave? we have the taliban. dealing with this isis-k element. i don't know what the intelligence is on that. it will be a mess, it's safe to say. i'm wondering how you see this sorting out if it

and of course rosen and donahue, they are expected to give crucial insight into how a trump ally within department pushed others to pack those claims of election fraud. >> good morning. i'm jeff clark. i'm the head of the civil division. >> he was in charge of a department at doj that would have had no role investigating voter proud. but in the weeks after the election, clark seemed to cozy up to trump by parroting the president's false claims of fraud. >> that was a rigged election. >> and pushing the justice department to step in. >> jeffrey clark reportedly told you that your days as acting attorney general bewere numbere. is that true? >> congressman, the items you are talking about, i have seen media accounts. >> jeffrey rosen has never publically confirmed the intense pressure campaign coming from clark to get the doj to help overturn the election for trump. but new documents and detailed uncovered in connection with an in depth probe shows just how far clark went. a draft letter details how clark planned to write georgia officials to falsesy say doj found voting irregularities in

that's the ex-pacting deputy attorney general, richard donahue. one person, the ex-acting attorney general, jeff rosen, he spoke for seven hours with the committee. and rosen specifically was talking about five key episodes where a su porbordinate of the men was trying to act out of the chain of command at the justice department to push election fraud claims that he held that were in line with president trump's. now, it's an open question at this time whether jeff clark was acting on his own or taking specific directions from the white house. that is something we know the committees on the hill will be asking about. but what we did learn over the weekend after both of those interviews with donahue and rosen is that the senate judiciary committee chairman spoke to dana bash. he didn't provide details about new information that was shared, but he did have a key takeaway. here's what he told dana. >> just how directly personally involved the president was, the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen. it was real. very real. and it was very specific.

this nightvision image showing the last soldier to leave, major general chris donahue seen boarding the last c-17 out of kabul. the withdrawal finished 24 hours ahead of the delay but military leaders already admitting some have been left behind. >> a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. we did not get everybody out we wanted to get out but had we stayed another 10 days we wouldn't have gotten everybody a we wanted to get out and there still would have been people who were disappointed with that. >> reporter: anthony blinken insisting the us won't abandon those still in afghanistan. >> protection and welfare of a man's -- americans is vital. if they want to stay for now into a week or a month or a year they reach out and say i've changed my mind we will help them leave. our commitment to them has no deadline. jillian: as us troops moved out heavily armed taliban moved in to inspect what was left. meanwhile, the white house dodging a question on whether the administration turned down an offer to secure kabul. >> the washington post reports that taliban and offered to stay ou

. >> general donahue and his staff. >> walk us through that. >> a couple of things there.is what the 82nd airborne does really well and as a global response force their job is to be ready to assist in an expeditious manner. the task of securing and operating an airfield is a unique task the 82nd can do and general donahue has experience in that. so that's one reason. number two the admiral commanding on the ground has other duties he has to attend to, to include liaison with the state department, allies and partners that are also on the ground in kabul. the turkish support element. there is a lot of things to do so we felt like this division of labor made the most sense given the urgency of time and what we are trying to accomplish in a couple of weeks. >> 82nd is in command at the airport and the general you mentioned is the one talking to the taliban. >> i won't talk about specific conversations, barb, or who is having what. i don't -- admiral has been there throughout this thing and i don't know exactly. but just suffice to say our commanders at the airport are charged

. >> donahue has this to say -- >> coyotes are pretty reserved.hink they will attack somebody. >> donahue said that several people have been spotted fielding coyotes in multiple places across the city, including golden gate park. that incident led to a coyote having to be lethally removed. you could be finalled if you're caught feeding while live. >> the wright brothers may have put kitty hawk on the map. the bay area could be the area for another aviation first. yowrnld scoring how aichuation continues to boost our economy. two new tests are priesmedding proofer of its promise. >> anticipation is growing that this all-electric aircraft could be in early stage production next year. with its ability to do vertical difficultoff and landing, na see it as a perfect riled share trrmt craft. they went public today on the new york stock exaifng. off a new long-range test flight. that distance is key to their goal to be an airplane taxi as much as. >> having that ability to priesmed a really transformational service across a range of different trip distan

skies exploded with taliban celebration once it was clear the last us soldier, major general chris donahue way home. this is what they left behind. hangars full of helicopters, even blackhawks, all disabled, destroyed, so the taliban can't use them. the best of american military hardware, the best of its generals, were part of its longest war. and now it has ended in the worst of ways, and it will live long in memory, here in afghanistan, in america, and far beyond. today, an airfield flooded by taliban. their urgent task, repairing the runways so commercial airlines can fly again. translation: as you can see, these infidels destroyed - the entire airport. they haven't left any machinery in good repair. we had a team ready to fix this mess ever since we came to kabul. now that the americans have left we are ready to clean it up. all flights have stopped, but afghans still keep trying to get in, to find a way out of this country. taliban guards turn them away. when we drive through the streets of kabul, the city seems much the same, until we get to the banks. to the queues stretching all th

rich donahue. that's the number two in command of the justice department.ment, effective immediately, end quote. the acting attorney general survive that attorney meeting, so the resignation liver was never. sent the reason we're learning this now as their ongoing active congressional investigations, into those final weeks in the trump white house. the senate judiciary committee is investigating chairman dick durbin, the chairman of the committee told my colleague last night, they will be calling witnesses in the coming days and weeks, in the house oversight committee reportedly spent several hours yesterday, interviewing that top justice official, who drafted the resignation letter. what more can we expect to learn? joining us now is a member of the house oversight committee, illinois congressman, thank you for joining, us you and i have talked about some amazing things over the last few. years this is really out there. there was a senior official of the justice department, fully expecting his two bosses to get fired, because they would not agree to donald

rich donahue and i resign effective immediately,ent quote.e acting attorney general survived that white house meeting, so the resignation letter was never sent. the reason we're learning this now is because there are ongoing active congressional investigations into the final weeks in the trump white house. senate judiciary committee, chairman told ari melber they'll be calling witnesses and oversight reportedly spent several hours interviewing the top justice official who drafted the resignation letter. what more can we expect to learn? joining us now is a member of the house committee. congressman, thank you for joining us. we've talked about amazing things in the last few years, but this is really out there. there was a senior official of the justice department fully expecting his two bosses to get fired because they wouldn't agree to donald trump's request to call the election corrupt or somehow undermine the election, he was ready to hit send. it was surprising to him that jeffrey rosen didn't get fired. >> that's right. it shows how clos

that's the ex deputy attorney general, richard donahue, he was in for five hours on friday.rs. that was jeff rosen. and what rosen specifically was talking about was a subordinate of both of these men. a man named jeffrey clark who was sort of at the number three level at the justice department. an environmental lawyer who was trying to get the justice department to substantiate these election fraud claims as well. trying to get the justice department to take steps publicly to support what trump wanted. now those five episodes we know a little bit of the details of those, but we don't actually know any new information that may have been presented from jeff rosen or richard donahue to the committee. that was something that dick durbin, the senate judiciary chairman, declined to expand on this morning, but this is what he did say to dana on cnn. >> just how directly personally involved the president was. the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen, it was real. very real. and it was very specific. this president's not subtle. the former president. he's not subtle when he want

senate judiciary committee has ber viewed former acting attorney general jeffrey rosen and richard donahue as part of the investigation as to whether the former president was trying to enlist the department of justice to help in his effort to over turn the 2020 election result pps the chairman of that committee dick durbin revealing what they learned from rosen's testimony yesterday. >> what was the most shocking to you? >> how directly, personally involved the president wads involved. the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen. it was real and specific. this president is not subtle when he wants something. i think it's a good thing for america that we had the person like rosen in that position who withstood the pressure. >> the senate is back in session today as they work to pass that $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. democratic senators expressing today they believe they will get the votes but some republicans pushing back in opposition. >> i think it was very clear we had 18 senators on the republican side who joined us in closing debate. two others said they would do so but

to sign on but donahue said i will not sign this, this is not even within the realm of possibility. all of this is part of a large trove of evidence that lawmakers and likely the inspector general are now sifting through to uncover the links that trump and his allies went to push their claims of election fraud in what was ultimately a failed attempt to get the election overturned. jessica schneider, cnn, washington. >>> an attorney for trump says the former president won't try to block testimony from former officials, but he still believes that communications are protected by executive privilege. senior legal analyst elie honig explains what the new evidence means to him. >> i see several potential federal crimes here. it is a federal crime to deprive a state of a fair election. it is a federal crime to solicit false counting and false certification of an election. it is a federal crime to conspire against the united states. could a good defense lawyer quibble with some of it? sure. i gladly take on that fight. but high point is there is more than enough here for the current justice

personnel on that airfield, we ought to put to general donahue in charge right now, maybe just maybe he can find a way to get us out. too bad they do not take your advice about opening up some other airfield, pray for us all and those who we have tried to help. god bless america, the only good news coming out of all of this is what is happening in the pangea valley, starting out with the force of about 590 at 500 aviators leave and move their airplanes to lose pakistan and turkmenistan. >> sean: you get your stands mixed up. it happens, colonel. but it does not take away the profound nature of that note. >> i will tell you, the good news up there is it started out with about 500 aviators and their family members, and i asked going back to general jones that is out with them and led them out there is another nation that has airplanes up there. they flew him up to his temple to ask more help and that's where they found out that the turks were coming out tonight. and he came back today and said only 60 of my aviators have asked to leave, the rest of them want to stay and fight. so now y

donald trump had similar plans to fire jeffrey rosen and fire richard donahue and then to elevate jeffrey clark to be the a.g. so that that letter we now know could go out. this is scary as you point out. the thing that gnaws at me, it's all royal and good for the senate judiciary committee to pursue this and they should. it's all well and good for the department of justice inspector generals office which, initially evaluate whether or not individuals employees of the department of justice violated regulations or protocols or perhaps laws, but they are not a prosecutorial arm of the department of justice. the big question here is, what is going on with these allegations and the ongoing january 6th criminal investigation? it is clear that in the information that jeffrey rosen have, is that dj pac is gonna give next week or in a couple of days, relate to what happened on january 6th. we do know there is a massive criminal investigation related to january 6th, we don't know at this point whether that investigation has included any interviews with jeffrey rosen, or richard donahue, or vijay p

jeffrey rosen and rosen's number two, richard donahue, passing those interviews instead to the january 6th committee. rosen and donohue are of particular interest right now because of two developments. first the revelation the ws president called the acting a.g. almost daily. and, second, the proof that backs up those revelations, notes, contemporaneous notes taken by rosen's number two, richard donahue, showing trump told rosen, quote, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and our congressmen.ren. now that trump is no longer president and not protected against the justice department's rule against indicting a sitting president might a criminal investigation against the ex-president come next? in an op-ed today in "the washington post" two former u.s. attorneys and constitutional lae professor argue it should be. they write this. the time has come for the justice department to begin if it hasn't already a criminal investigation into the former president's dangerous course of conduct. if we're to maintain our democracy and respect for the rule of law, efforts to ove

that's when donahue convened a late afternoon call laying out clark's efforts to replace mr. rosen. should mr. rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. that coup that almost came off, right, was a product of two things, the anti-st democratic, flatly dick that toerl aspirationings of donald trump, which have always been there for decades, as well as mark meadows and jeffrey clark, men whose names should live in infamiliary. it was part of a tradition that is being cultivated and revived on the right that comes from a contempt for the voters and a contempt more deeply for democracy. freedom, liberty and democracy. there's been a long conservative lineage in rejecting democracy. you envount countered it, i'm sure. drawn from the fact that indeed our founding document has a complicated relationship to democracy, to self-rule. the fact that the electoral college is enshrined as an institution, we don't have a popular vote for. even though we should. the current system has resulted in dafrsz. the idea that supreme court justice antonin scalia explained is, quote, the individua