let's discuss now with jennifer rodgers, jennifer, if we could begin with this case about the websiteok at this a layman and if a baker can say i'm not going to bake for them because they're a same-sex couple and if someone designing a wedding website could say i'm not going to work for them because they're a same-sex couple, is that p precedent broad so that a restaurant could say i'm not going to let in same-sex couples or make other judgments based on what they claim is their religious beliefs. >> well not necessarily, jim. because a restaurant doesn't have the same free speech claims this this plaintiff is asserting here. she's saying two things. she's saying i have a right to speak through my art, through my business. and a right to exercise my religious beliefs in the way that i want. a restaurant isn't is necessarily the same because they're not alleging constitutional rights when they serve food for money. but it is a very broad potential precedent in terms of the sort of business that she is. and there is a lot of businesses like this. people who are arguably creative, who do

also cnn senior political analyst john avlon and cnn legal analyst jennifer rodgers. 's a much easier title. jennifer, let's look at the three charges they are considering. obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the federal government, insurrection. which one would be the hardest to prove, do you think? >> that's a good question. i think probably the insurrection, the incitement to insurrection just because it's so rarely charged. what does insurrection mean? all of these things come into play. i think that's probably the most challenging for them. it's also the one, though, as john and i were just talking about, that carries the penalty that you can no longer have an office for the united states if you're convicted of that. so that is attractive to doj for that reason. >> one more question with your prosecutor hat on. now what? if the committee sends this over to the doj, does it move the needle for the doj? i mean how much of an impact does the committee's referral have on them? >> the referral not much. the evidence, a lot. they worked really h

. >>> john dean and cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgers.this news that perhaps as many as four others beyond the former president are being looked and possibly referred to the select committee of the doj? >> i don't think it will influence the department. it will certainly influence the public, which in turn might influence the department. this really focuses on these people there will be more information normally from a criminal investigation will be revealed about why the committee feels these people have earned a referral. so i think it's an important move, and i would not be surprised if there is some more that get named. >> jennifer, how do you think the attorney general of the department of justice weighed these referrals? >> not really at all, anderson. i mean, if the referrals were for matters like obstruction of congress or perjury before congress, then doj looks at it a little differently, because congress is effectively a victim there, and you would treat that the way you would the views of any other victim. but if it's just we'v

. >>> joining us to discuss, former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgers. so as we look at everything that has developed here, one of the things that i have found interesting is, as we wait for the potential criminal referrals, there is talk about can we look at what happened with the referrals for contempt, ome two of the four were acted on by the doj. a criminal referral is different. no? >> it is. it is. the work that the january 6 committee does in this investigation and in looking at these crimes of maybe seditious conspiracy, interfering with congress and is different than someone coming from congress and lying and refusing to answer a subpoena. in those instances, congress is a victim and doj looked at it that way. should we act on this crime that may have happened that victimized congress. this is different. doj doing its investigation. do we agree with the conclusions reached by congress? doj of course will be making its own conclusions on that. but i think they will be helped along by all of this evidence that has been gathered by congress over mo

. >>> joining me now is former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgers. let's start with that, jennifer. what do you make of ginni thomas telling the committee she regrets at least the tone of her text messages and was emotional when texting the former white house chief of staff mark meadows when she was encouraging him to fight, to challenge the 2020 election? >> well, you know, honestly, hindsight is 20/20 she knows now biden is the president. there is no benefit in continuing to push the statements that she was making at the time. i will note and i haven't been through the entire transcript yet, but after she expressed some regret for the tone and content of her techs -- texts, she still won't admit there was fraud. she didn't see the debunking of the fraud that happened after these allegation were made but at least as far as i've seen won't come out and say that they were wrong about the fraud and that there was not enough fraud to impact the results of the election. so her regret only goes so far but what she's really trying to do is distance herself

. >> jennifer rodgers, thank you so much. >>> and don't miss cnn coverage of tomorrow's hearing of the january 6 committee. i'll be joining our special coverage starting at noon eastern. >>> well soccer fans in argentina are celebrating their victory and one of the most thrilling finales in world cup history. [ cheering and applause ] >> there you see it. that is just a sample, a small sample of what was going on there in buenos aries after they captured the world cup title. our correspondent got caught up in the celebrations. >> it is just an incredible scene. coy probably see from behind our live location, patrick, tens of thousands of people just marching here. >> it is argentina's third world cup win but the first for lionel messi whose family celebrated with him on the field in qatar. don riddell joins us now from doha. that was a world cup final for the ages and quite a grand finale for messi? >> it was just extraordinary. i've been pinching myself all day knowing that i had a ticket to a world cup final. and now i'm standing here thinking, i might just have witnessed the greates

now let's continue this conversation with our cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgersso much for joining us for this. this burning of documents, it's got to be something the justice department and special counsel jack smith is very much interested in. >> reporter: 100%, abby. this kind of evidence is like gold to prosecutors. first of all, of course, it could support freestanding criminal charges if they can demonstrate these were documents subject to the presidential records act, if they were inculpatory against meadows and trump and the other plotters, it could be a destruction of evidence charge but equally important to them as they sift through the evidence for a january 6th set of charges it's consciousness of guilt evidence and the kind of thing that juries inherently understand and get, that if you do something you know is wrong, you try to cover it up so throwing documents in a fireplace is really phenomenal evidence as to the plot itself and also really great leverage for prosecutors as they think about mark meadows as a potential defendant but also a potentia

i want to bring in gloria voyager along with cnn legal analyst and former prosecutor jennifer rodgers. gloria, is there any parallel in u.s. history that you are aware of for a white house chief of staff to be burning documents in a fireplace inside of the white house? >> you, know of the top of my head i cannot think of any. even richard nixon did not bring the tape. there was a gap, but he didn't bring the tape. this is stunning. look at the timing of this. after the election, before january 6th, i think that we should point out that we do not know what those documents were, we don't know whether they were required by the archives because of the presidential records act to be preserved. but i would say that unless this was some kind of a shopping list that he was throwing inside the fireplace for these dozen times, that this is a real problem for mark meadows. what was he thinking about when he threw things in the fireplace that he thought needed to be destroyed? >> and we know that according to the testimony from cassidy hutchinson, two of the times where after meeting with the rep

. >>> joining me for now on this, jen jennifer rodgers.ormer trump white house attorneys being ordered back to a grand jury. it is executive privilege and attorney/client privilege are now off the table. not protections that they could apply if you will against testifying in this. what more could these witnesses speak to? >> well, kate, what they had refused to speak to before was the actual details of the conversation they were having. so pat cipollone was in there trying to counter what was happening between trump and other lawyers like rudy giuliani, sidney powell, john eastman who were telling him that this coup attempt could work. sip cipollone was pushing back on that and he said not only was that plan unlawful, but that trump could criminally be charged for it at some point. now the grand jury could hear the details of those conversations which is really important because trump's knowledge and intent is the key issue as to whether he could be charged here and what he knew and what cipollone particularly told him is really important

. >> gloria borger, jennifer rodgers, jessica schneider, thank you so much. >> sure. >>> still to come tonight, the supreme court rules on title 42, the covid restriction on migrants. >>> and later, a rise in the death toll from that epic snowstorm that buried the buffalo region. and a look at the travel nightmare that has ensued, much of it due to southwest airlines. what exactly went wrong there. we're going to take a look. introducing the new sleep number climate360 smart bed. only smart bed in the world that actively cools, warms aneffortlessly responds to both of you. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep per nit. proven quality sleep. only from sleep number. waiting. sometimes it's just inevitable. but if you're over 50 or live with a chronic condition, untreated covid could be deadly. got covid symptoms? get tested and get treated right away. it can't wait. about two years ago i realized that jade was overweight. i wish i would have introduced the fresh food a lot sooner. after farmer's dog she's a much healthier weight. she's a lot more active. and she's able to

cnn's sara murray is at the capitol also with us legal analyst jennifer rodgers, good to have you here. what can we expect with this roll out? >> well, you know, we're obviously still waiting on the report to come out but expecting them to release this report today. it's eight chapters. there could be append disease that go along with it and could start to see the transcripts. hundreds of pages here we are going to be sifting through. the committee already made the big news about their criminal referrals but this lets us get into the meat of the underlying evidence and in particular lets us dig in a little bit more into some of the things the committee teased out which is they believe there may have been obstruction of their investigation, some witness tampering when it came to their investigation so we're going to look for indications of that today. >> there has been debate over whether these reams of transcript also actually make things easier or harder for the doj, especially if there are discrepancies and witness testimony, how do you see it? >> well, i don't know if it's going to

. >>> and joining me with now, a cnn legal analyst jennifer rodgers. your reaction to this report?dations to try to prevent an attack on the u.s. kp capitol from happening again and that the committee is putting this squarely on one person, donald trump. >> well, it certainly is a powerful report, kate. the committee did an incredible job collecting evident and laying it out in a way that people could understand. it is not a prosecution memo. it doesn't go through which pieces of evidence applied to which elements of the crime, it doesn't deal with any negative evidence inconsistent statement of witnesses so, it is not the sort of analysis that prosecutors will need to go through. but i think the committee did a tremendous job and the parts of their work that prosecutors won't do, things like legislative proposals, and trying to get some sort of enforcement mechanism in place for the disqualification provision, those things are really important and so i don't want to lose sight of those. those are things uniquely congress's to do and so i was so glad to see them in the report. >> a

with us to share reporting, cnn sara murray up on capitol hill and jennifer rodgers.ve summary, more referrals. what new or what importance are we expecting? >> we want to know everything about the referrals, particularly any criminal referrals to the department of justice. bennie thompson says he is hoping to get eight chapters of the report out monday. that may prove to be a little too optimistic. in our conversations with other members they're talking about still putting the finishing touching on it and it could still slip. we may not see the real dots of the report. it is clear we will see a number of the top line headlines, full executive summary in the monday meeting and details on referrals. what are the names? >> as we get to the end the republicans are about to take over the house, maybe this is housecleaning or a concession that we weren't going to win here. the january 6th committee withdrew subpoenas in additional to phone records. roger stone, sebastian gorka and, a, what does that tell you, one of your points tells you because of all the successes, and y

me to share the reporting is cnn sara murray, cnn's evan perez and former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgersn the sense we can put up on the screen this myriad of investigations, one of them was the investigation, the verdict yesterday in a lawsuit where he was not named as a defendant but there were certainly questions raised about the ethics and tax practices of his business, the new york manhattan district attorney says that's a stepping stone, more work to be done. >> the investigation is ongoing. this was a chapter in it, a case against the corporations who sanctioned the conduct on behalf of the corporation is a different standard from proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to an individual, but, you know, we're continuing to do our work. >> this is an office that has been trump critics have criticized in the past saying that he backed off from other investigations that he inherited. do we get a sense, does the tax case give them more fodder, evidence to move forward or is he just holding his options? >> i think he's trying to have it both ways. i mean, they had an option certainly when th

. >> jennifer rodgers, thank you so much for your insight. >>> "outfront" next, a savage russian missile blitz, pounding ukraine. ukraine's defense minister calling it one of the biggest missile attacks since the war started. yes live from kyiv. >>> plus, congressman-elect george santos, no, the story is not over. feeling more heat about wild lies he has told about his life. now there are questions about claims he has made about his mother. but will any of it change his swearing in as a member of congress next week? >>> and transportation secretary pete buttigieg with a warning for southwest airlines tonight. do right by all those stranded passengers or else. the house whisperer! this house says use realtor.com to see homes in your budget. you'rere staying in school, jacob! realtor.com. to each their home. my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... the tightness, stinging... the pain. emerge tremfyant®. with tremfya®, most people saw 90% clearer skin at 16 weeks. the majority of people saw 90% clearer skin even at 5 years. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your r

. >> phil, stay with me, i want to bring in cnn senior analyst elie honig,, jennifer rodgers. our chief political correspondent, dana bash. cnn senior national correspondent, doug lavandera, who is in el paso texas tonight. elie honig, can you just explain the legal implications of this ruling, and walk us through the difference between the remaining mexico program, which is what the ruling deals with, and title 42? >> yeah, anderson. so, the policy of the united states, going back many years through administrations of both parties, was that when a person seeks asylum in this country, generally speaking, as you said, those procedures, those legal proceedings can take months and years. and people, while they were waiting, were allowed to wait here in the united states. now, in 2019, the trump administration change that. they said, now a person has remain in mexico. that could be potentially very dangerous because the northern regions of mexico where people are waiting to be controlled, in some areas, by drug cartels, could be very dangerous. could be a deterrent for something t

share their insight paula reid and evan perez and legal analyst and former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgers. all right, let's start off looking again, i know we've been going over this again and again but the four charges and criminal referrals include assisting and aiding an insurrection of obstruction of official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the u.s. and to make false statements. here's what congressman jamie raskin had to say about these referrals. >> we only stated charges where we thought that the evidence was abundant or overwhelming and we believe that the prosecutors could satisfy easily every element of each of those. interference with a federal proceeding was donald trump's entire purpose and plan. >> and it's interesting, evan, to bring you in, interference of a proceeding, a charge we have seen doj bring against some of the rioters but not insurrection. does doj view that charge as something with overwhelming evidence? >> i don't think they do and i think it's something that certainly they looked at when they started doing the investigation after the attack on the capitol.