played in trying to reassure jeffrey clark that god was on his side and the doubts that existed in jeff clark's mind as he sought to run the justice department. right. well, we really don't have a great sense of why these two were so immediately open with each other on this level because clark is expressing doubts about his own ability to pursue this, and perry is saying, no, you are essentially, you know, the perfect person to do this. but i do think the back and forth shows a number of things. one of which i think is a really odd quirk of this whole thing is the discussion of tickets. and tickets in this context is -- they have a discussion about clark wants a ticket, and perry says he will try to get him one. and that is a discussion about security clearances. and what they're really talking about is the desire to get access to classified information that they think will help make their argument that this election was stolen. now, we know through a whole range of people who were in the intelligence community at that time that there was no meaningful intelligence that would help trump's argum

jeff clark, remember, it was prepared to send a letter to state legislators, essentially asking themld special sessions and put forth these alternate fake slates of electors. and publicly declared the justice department had serious concerns about election integrity without factual foundation. >> reporter: tonight, we are also following developments in the special counsel's classified documents case in florida. new reports indicate one of trump's lawyers testified to the special counsel that she told donald trump himself it would be a crime not to comply with the subpoena for the mar-a-lago documents, and she also testified trump, quote, absolutely understood that warning. remember that when he tries to say, it was the lawyers, it was the accountants, i didn't know better. today, we learned she said otherwise. with that, let's get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel this evening. susan glasser, staff writer for the new yorker, a man she knows, well peter baker is also here, chief white house correspondent for the new york times, and barbara mcquade, a veteran federal prosecutor

jeff clark was essentially an environmental lawyer and it wasn't clear even to people run at the department jeffery clark was suddenly a portion of such interest to president trump and now i have that much better from this, perhaps accidentally, unsealed violent why that. is because perry was apparently acting as a go-between between the president and clark. and so that sort of fills in a big blank and of the sort of question mark, as to how all this came to be. and really what you see is you see perry helping, sort, of navigate this where at budget religion should between clark and president trump. >> i was surprised to see trepidation on the part of jeffrey clark, a man who was a very much going against the grain of what basically every other legal mind thought, as far as the flexibility to overturn the results of the election. ten on the anything more about the sort of coaching role that scott perry played and trying to reassure jeffrey clark that dog was on his side and the doubt that because the jeff clark's mind as he sought to run the justice department? >> we really don't have a gre

jeff clark possibly the attorney general. >> mike flynn is selling t-shirts and making outrageous statements at conventions. >> right. >> those are the people who will be around him if he were to be elected again. the other thing that people have to realize is what it means if a president of the united states won't enforce the rulings of our courts and that is absolutely what he said he will do. he's gone to war with the rule of law. and a president who won't enforce the law creates a situation where things just unravel. and he will have people around him who will help him do it. he will i'm sure offer pardons to people if they're concerned about their own criminal liability. >> pardon january 6th? >> certainly. i think he's been very clear repeatedly about his glorification of that day and again, that's a, you know, the republicans were almost unanimous in the days just after january 6th, recognizing you know, he bore responsibility and he had to be held accountable. very quickly though that began to dissipate. that unanimity and now we have an effort underway to whitewash it, including wha

people, whether it is the jeff clarks of the world or people who tried to misuse the law are going through the system. we saw yesterday people who tried to say they were electors, even though they were not electors, those cases are going forward now and even the people who were standing by donald trump are pleading guilty, sidney powell and people like that because there aren't more lawyers out speaking about it, we wanted to be more vocal about the legal cases and in many cases, it's conservative lawyers. when you look at the 60 cases where time after time donald trump was kicked to the curb between november, 2020 and before jon 6, it was conservative lawyers saying no. in pennsylvania cases and in nevada and in georgia. it was conservative lawyers who had been supported by the conservative legal community. often they were attacked by liberals, maybe some folks here didn't like them. and donald trump said they are my lawyers and they weren't. he likes to call them my people, my lawyers. these are people true to the constitution. we like to highlight people that were true to the constituti

the issue is sort of related to the first part of our discussion, which is how are people like jeff clark, congressman perry, senator grassley, all of these people enabling this? who on god's green earth thinks it's appropriate to attack first the judges staff, and then when there was a gag order on that, to attack the judge's wife? that is the real issue for this country, is the people who are thinking that that is something to support and enable. and i think that is really the lesson that you've pointed out in the introduction of what we should take away from this today. >> reporter: andrew weissmann, glenn kirschner, thank you both very much for starting off our discussions tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. >> reporter: coming up, more positive economic news today. pennsylvania governor will join us next. stealing their basic supplies. with the freestyle libre 2 system, know your glucose level and where it's headed. no fingersticks needed. manage your diabetes with more confidence. freestyle libre 2. try it for free at freestylelibre.us my daughter and i finally had that conversation. o

so there could actually be people like jeff clark or sidney powell or rudy giuliani who are confirmed who is there as an acting one, there are beholden to the president. that is why i think you saw so many acting positions under donald trump when he was president, and they can do exactly what a official confirmed person can do. there is no difference in terms of their powers, but it does allow essentially a circumvention of those senate confirmation process for a time period, but you can just keep cycling through these people. and also remember that donald trump has talked about getting rid of the civil service so that the so-called deep state, his view is that those people should -- who are adhering to their oaths of office should simply be eradicated. >> this is very obvious, but i never thought how he could just cycle people through, even if they're a time limit of serving runs up. the other piece, i know you've talked about this, i've talked about, this is part in power. there are certain historic traditions, but they're not legal limitations that people might think that there are

and, he has said people like mike flynn will be the national security adviser potentially, jeff clark, possibly the attorney. >> mike flynn is like selling t-shirts, and making outrageous statements at conventions. >> ride, i mean those are the people who will be around him, if he were to be elected again. the other thing that people have to realize is what it means if the president of the united states won't enforce the rulings of our courts. and that is absolutely what he said he will do. he has gone to war with the rule of law. and a president who won't enforce the law, creates a situation where things just unravel. and he will have people around him who will help him do it, he will i am sure offer pardons to people, if they are concerned about their own political liability. -- do you think >> do you think he would pardon january 6th? >> certainly, i think he has been very clear repeatedly about his glorification of that day, and again the republicans were almost unanimous in the days just after january six, recognizing that he bore responsibility, and he had to be held accountable

we all know how that turns out for some difference of being a lawyer for donald, trump telling jeff clark'sabout these names and what it says about trump's brand of law in order. should he actually get a second term? >> well once again, if you are donald, trump and your argument is bill barr was enough of a obedient servant, then you really are entering a new territory in the american jurisprudence. the people who is talking about naming to the office are not in the great tradition of attorney generals independent of the president and the white house. we are not there to enforce the law. near their tune forces will. and so, again, these are people you would not hire as lawyers in a strip mall slip and fall law firm. but they are obedient to trump, they will do as you chooses, do ask the asks. they will re-direct the lie that they tell now about weaponization of the doj. and it is projection for what they want when they say it is happening right now. >> i will correct, you rid, wilson he does hire lawyers that confirms to malls and to assault injury. maybe it was a garage. so it was a garage

we know he was very directly involved and engaged in the effort to put jeff clark in as the acting attorneyat they turned over to the committee have numerous communications. the did the of justice is investigating him. >> mark meadows comes up in the book in a lot of interesting and important and crucial places. he has a skill. what do you think mark meadows' status is now? >> think that we were surprised that the department of justice chose not to indict him after the house held him in contempt. at the time, seemed that perhaps he was cooperating. there was a whole question about to what extnt does a former chief of staff have immunity. it became clear that the department of justice does not believe a former chief of staff has the full immunity he was claiming. so i don't know the answer to that question. i think that what we saw certainly in terms of his dealings with the committee was that it looked to us like perhaps his own counsel was u.n. aware he had this massive communications on his personal cell phone. and when he committed to the committee he would hand those over if they existe

we know he was very directly involved and engaged in the effort to put jeff clark in as the acting attorney meadows turned over to the committee have numerous communications with scott perry. clearly the department of justice is investigating him. >> mark meadows comes up in the book in a lot of interesting and important and crucial places. he is -- he has a skilled lawyer. what do you think his status is right now? do you think he is a cooperator? do you think he will be charged? >> i think that, you know, we were surprised that the department of justice, you know, chose not to indict him after the house had held him in contempt and at the time seemed that, you know, perhaps he was cooperating. there was a whole question about, you know, to what extent does a former chief of staff have immunity and it became clear that the department of justice actually does not believe a former chief of staff has the kind of, you know, full immunity that he was claiming. so i don't know the answer to that question. i think that what we saw certainly in terms of his dealings with the committee was that it

so to is the campaign by jeff clark to send this proof of concept letter to states begging them to somehow defer their judgment on who the electors should be until after mike pence can make a ruling on january 6th. so i don't know that the ef dench yar presentation changes that much and deprivation of civil rights is essentially what jack smith and his team are saying they tried to take the right away from millions of americans the right to choose their president. again, i don't know how that really changes if you were to remove an obstruction charge. >> all right. no one is going anywhere because when we come back, happening now in court, ruby freeman is testifying against rudy giuliani. >>> plus, the supreme court picking up another important case with huge implications. this time, the very common abortion pill. >>> and later in the show, the evidence free fishing expedition against joe biden will be put to a full house floor vote in the next hour. this as the president's son in a rare public statement called the republicans' attempt to link his behavior to his father's shameless. all th

six committee revealed that perry even brought clark to the white house to meet trump in late december, 2020. trump considered firing the attorney general jeff and replace him with clark in order tosehe department of justice to steal the election. this was a perry, trump, clark, plot. peru is a focus of the january six investigation, when she must've subpoenaed 88 nord. last summer the fbi seized perry's phone, and jack smith has also sought information from perry since he took over the federal investigation. a new court filing that case has revealed a slew of damning text messages when congressman perry said to jeffrey clark and many others in the trump orbit in the wake of the 2020 election. in the midst of the effort to elevate clark to top of the doj where he could set up that letter saying the department of justice doesn't know if the ballots are legit, perry texted him, quote, you are the man, i have confirmed it. god does what he does for a reason. between the end of december in january 5th, 2021, congressman perry also texted former doj colleague and embraced a plan to hava vice president mike pence, quote, at admit testimony prior t

to the piece you wrote wrote in the magazine you mention some of the loyalist jeff alludes to steven miller, jeffrey clark, vivek ramaswamy, maybe even ted cruz having cabinet level positions, but you alsobri up the point that requires senate level confirmation. how worried do you think the countries too be worried about ksh patel running the cia? >> it's a good question. some of the names being floated for the positions seem pretty unpalatable, you know, to a senate confirmation process. and what they told me was, look, maybe that's true. if we can't get stephen miller, for example, confirmed as head of department of homeland security we can install him as white house chief of staff and he can take over the same roles he would have in that role. i think they're already gaming out ways to get around the challenge of confirmation to ensure that the people most loyal to trump, most obedient to trump are the ones who will have the power. and i think you're going to see a pretty broad restructuring of government in a second term. you i mentioned this at the top alex, but this isn't just about the cabinet leve

jeff eludes to. stephen miller, rick grenell, kash patel, mike davis, jeffrey clark, vivek ramaswamy, maybe even ted cruz having cabinet-level positions. you bring up the point that requires senate confirmation. how worried do you think the country really needs to be about kash patel running the cia? how feasible is that? >> so, it's a good question. i asked a number of people in trump's orbit about this. some of the names that are being floated for these positions seem pretty unpalatable to, you know, senate confirmation process. what they told me was, look, maybe that is true. if we can't get stephen miller, for example, confirmed as head of department of homeland security, we can just install him as white house chief of staff, and he can take over a lot of the same rules that he would have in that role. they're already gaming out ways to get around the challenge of confirmation to ensure that the people who are most loyal to trump, most obedient to trump, are the ones who will have the power. you're going to see a pretty broad restructuring of government in a second term. you mentioned this at th