essential to this is john eastman's knowledge. f greg jacobs testimony to that effect. >> did dr. eastman ever tell you what he thought the u.s. supreme court would do if it had to decide this issue? >> yes. we had an extended discussion an hour and a half to two hours on january 5th, and when i pressed him on the point i said, john, if the vice president did what you're asking him to do we would lose 9-0 in the supreme court. and initially started it, well, i think maybe lose only 7-2. after some further discussion, acknowledged, well, yeah. you're right. we would lose 9. >> tim, you also developed evidence showing john eastman, it's illegal violating the electoral count act. is there a place in the law a lawyer knowingly advises their client to break laws, their advise is illegal is that something that gets you in the hot seat as a lawyer? >> no. that makes it misconduct, we developed evidence beyond those snippets played from jacobs there was an email john eastman sent in october before the election essentially disputing this th

arizona house, conservative rusty bowers, describing a 2020 call he got from trump coup lawyer john eastman. >> and what did dr. eastman want you to do? >> that we would, in fact, vote, take a vote to overthrow, i shouldn't say overthrow, that we would decertify the electors and because we had plenary authority to do so. i said, what would you have me do? and he said, just do it and let the courts sorted out. >> plenary authority. absolute. total authority. the state legislators have total authority over who wins an election. we now have new reporting from washington post and special counsel jack smith has taken a keen interest in the fake electors plot, focusing specifically on potential fraud. new york times recently reported that one of the trump campaign's key players in this scheme may actually be cooperating with federal prosecutors. and tomorrow, republican georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger who trump infamously called and told to find votes to overturn the georgia election, will meet with prosecutors for the first time on the council's team in atlanta. more on the special

john eastman who architected donald trump's potential coup is facing disbarment. it was asked why he presented so many lies to keep trump in office. what do you make of this attempt to -- i mean, do you think he has any shot of holding on to his license in california? he tried this 20 years ago. he floated this theory that was not bright enough, not willing to try it. what do you think are his prospects for remaining a lawyer? >> he has zero shot at not being sanctioned and being disbarred. we can't forget there was a federal judge in california who found by a preponderance of the evidence, 51% more likely than not, that john eastman and donald trump committed two federal felonies together. frankly, for bar counsel's purposes, that's all she wrote. i mean, there's no way john eastman is going to be able to sort of wiggle out of this. the we have all been waiting for a very long time for an indictment that would include john eastman because usually, joy, the federal judiciary, the judges don't get out in front of prosecutors and announce guys like john eastman comm

hornet before you take my property. >> both jeffrey clark and john eastman have had their phones seizedarrant. rudy giuliani has been informed he's a target in a georgia investigation and appeared before a grand jury in august. at the moment perhaps the most perilous investigation for donald trump has nothing to do with the attack on the capitol. >> former president donald trump's mar-a-lago home in florida has been searched by the fbi. >> the investigation that at the moment seems most directly threatening to donald trump is one related to his handling of classified documents and taking documents to mar-a-lago with him when he left office. >> the government has recovered more than 320 classified documents from trump's home in florida. the redacted search warrant identified three federal crimes at the department of justice lists as the foundation of its investigation, obstruction of justice, criminal handling of records, and violations of the espionage act. justice department investigations of donald trump are certain to be helped by the 845-page committee report and the hundreds of doc

you because i want to discuss with you how they're trying to rush this hearing. >> the next day john eastman. >> i said to him are you out of your f-ing mind? now, i'm going to give you the best free legal advice you're ever getting in your life. get a great f-ing criminal defense lawyer, you're going to need it, and then i hung up on him. >> and the president released a second video condemning the violence more forcefully on january 7th. >> like all americans i am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. >> but according to white house aides cassidy hutchinson, it was only the threat of his cabinet invoking the 25th amendment that convinced him to make this video. advisers warned trump that talk of removing him from office was gaining traction. >> think about what might happen in the final 15 days of your presidency if we don't do this. there's already talks of invoking the 25th amendment, you need this as cover. >> and even then he still refused to admit the election was over. >> this election is now over. congress has certified the results. i don't want to say the election is ov

mcdaniel, the rnc chair, said, he introduced me to a gentleman named john eastman. that was trump lawyer john eastman, the coup mastermind. he had the memo, he wrote it down. the panel asked about that. the response was that trump literally hands the ball, turns the call over to eastman, who says the rnc could help gather these what they called contingent electors. notice how the lawyers are a little more careful. they don't just say lie, they say contingent, alternate. quote, in case of any legal challenges are ongoing change the result. trump on the phone talked about electors, false or fraudulent electors. jack submit is active. he has a lot more than even the committee has. he has more than these leaks we're getting on a condition basis. he's clearly looking at the elector plot because it has emerged as one of the ways that they wanted, inside the white house and with their allies at rnc, with states, they wanted to create not actual factual challenges to the results. i told you before that ship had sail the. supreme court is stocked with three trump appointees,

a lot of people that try to steal the 2020 election but maybe john eastman the architect of a coup, no one is arguably more culpable than that man you see there on the right, rudy giuliani. in his capacity as trump's personal attorney, giuliani was the ex presidents point person for the so-called fake electors scheme, which has become a focus of the federal special counsel investigation. in fact, as washington post reported last night, giuliani oversaw the internal effort to gather the slate to flake fake trump electors in several states who falsely attested that donald trump and not joe biden won the most votes in their respective states. trump's lawyer, boris epshteyn, who also admitted he participated in phone calls with giuliani and the campaign 's legal team about this plot. we know giuliani helped lead the plot to pressure state legislators to push the slates fake electors as of the january six committee revealed. in december of 2020, giuliani even went on steve cannon's bannon's podcast to talk about it publicly, presenting the most respectable or legally plausible version of th

some in former president donald trump's orbit, like john eastman, were pushing for something called the legislature doctrine that goes like this, under the elections clause of the u.s. constitution, quote, the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof. proponents say state houses should be able to then set the rules in federal elections with no check, no balance, no check from state constitutions no check interest state courts, no check from state commissions, no balances. it wasn't just the maps at stake. this had the potential to stretch all rules in federal elections. let's talk about the consequences here. good morning. 6-3 roberts writes the opinion. there's an important part of the opinion here as it pertains to federal courts that gives people pause, but overall, is this a win for democracy? >> without question. had this gone the other way, it would have changed everything. i mean, i think judge lutic is correct, the way we vote and checks and balances. what it would have meant had i

and it was, use point out, the john eastmans of the world who are pushing this theory.efore the supreme court pedaling this independent state legislature theory, and today the court to use the words of a "new york times" columnist nuked it. nuked the independent state legislature theory. it's dead. it has no place in american law. it's gone. >> let me ask about that because what happens with dobbs is conservative legal activist sent case after case after case to the supreme court to be tested until they had their victory and overturned roe. will this deter the john eastma? is it decisive or is there anything in clarence thomas's dissent that means they'll keep pressing on this. >> i'm not sure anything will ever deter john eastman, but nicolle, i think it's important that this opinion, this was a 6-3 opinion, but it was actually 7 to 2 on the merits of the independent state legislature theory because justice alito didn't take a position on it so there's at least six votes right now that are saying we don't buy these kind of election shenanigans. to me at least for now i

in this incidence, kinzinger describes john eastman's memo, a coup in writing as, quote, a blueprintor a coup. where do you assess the january 6th case based on what is outward facing a and the kinds of people that are going in and out of the grand jury? >> yeah, it's looking really bad for trump. i don't know that i want to go as far as andrew did and say it's 100% certain that donald trump will be indicted there have certainly been hundreds of indictments already that the justice department has brought about january 6th. but prosecuting january 6th is another level because the president is going to say -- former president is going to say i was acting as president. you don't want to criminalize government action. all sorts of stuff, which wasn't available to him when it comes to the classified stolen documents at mar-a-lago. there is no claim that trump was acting as president, you know, when he obstructed the investigation or retained, willfully retained these documents. he had already been voted out of the office, at least for those of us in the reality-based community. we knew he

john eastman can read supreme court decisions, as well as he can read the constitution.theory that donald trump peddled that john eastman peddled, other republicans peddled in 2020 that state legislatures can do whatever they want. that's because remember there are about 60 court cases in the 2020 election. trump lost them all. they were all basically in state courts. and so this republican theory that was now advantagesed before -- advanced before the supreme court, state legislature can do anything from redistricting, and pointing the fake slate of electors, and they can do without the state courts, without the state constitutions having any role in this whatsoever. it's just raw political power, and that's what supreme court resoundingly rejected yesterday in the chief justice's opinion, an opinion that was notably joined by two trump appointees, brett kavanaugh, and amy coney barrett. >> you know, neal, congratulations on this victory, and of course there were some analysts concerned it was possible it would go the other way. let me ask you this, is it encouraging th

publicly known that the trump team at the willard hotel included steve bannon, boris epstein, and john eastman, the times is also reported that jack smith's prosecutors were, quote, in negotiations to reach a proper agreement with michael roman, the former director of election day operations for mr. trump's 2020 campaign, mr. roman was also instrumental in helping put together the so-called fake elector plan. rudolph giuliani was also forced, ten months ago, to testify in the fulton county grand jury in jury investigating possible election crimes by donald trump and his allies. that became a very visible area of overlap today, between fulton county district attorney fani willis's investigation, and special prosecutor jack smith's investigation. jack smith's team today interviewed georgia secretary of state, brad raffensperger. the person to whom donald trump placed the phone call heard around the world. >> all i want to do is this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. >> donald trump made that phone call on january 2nd, 2020, one it became public the next day. the

this is the escape valve so that next time they don't have to rely on dunces like john eastman.i know you're playing legal whac-a-mole. how does it even go into effect? how is it lawful? how is it constitutional to single out one county? you are really designing the electorate in these republican super majority states. >> yeah, it's an extension of what we see with partisan gerrymandering is now just the equivalent of partisan rigging of election results. and so you do that by gerrymandering, you can do that by election rules, you can do it through election subversion. the answer to you question is, it's not legal, it's not constitutional. but as you say, we play whac-a-mole. just earlier today, the arizona supreme court denied the last-ditch appeal of the arizona republican party to try to throw out mail-in voting in connection with the 2022 election. so great, we defeated that. i represented the democratic party in that. but it is whac-a-mole because there's a lack of a commitment to the legitimate transfer of power that we all have bought into up until very recently. and so w

this is a john eastman pick.ture doctrine doesn't exist without eastman. as the lawyer who led more than 60 victories for joe biden against donald trump, this is a big relief. we were fighting those cases one by one. we were fighting these theories and to have the supreme court put this to rest so we don't have to worry about it in the future is a real advantage. >> when the court said listen, you can't overturn the result of the election or you can't submit new electors because you don't like the original ones, this is the supreme court saying this is what the state court's rule is. they have the authority to do that. >> absolutely. so they said basically i think one thing directly, one indirectly. the first is where a state court says this is where the law is in our state or what our state constitutional requires, that's the end of the rope. so that's the first thing. the second is by inference and i think a pretty strong inference, it also says that the state legislatures are not these omnipotent entities and

if he comes totally clean here donald trump is in big trouble, john eastman is in big trouble, right down the line possibly general flynn, roger stone, steve bannon. i mean particularly i don't think they'd have anybody who's been in place in that willard hotel room. and what was going on there and was the connection between people in that war room and the proud boys and the oath keepers. that's what we want to find out, and that's what jack smith is going in for. absolutely this is it. this is the big kill. this is where he's going to learn how all of this was put together. >> yeah, striking. i mean it's such a development. nick acerman, thank you for walking us through the significance of that. on these big nights we appreciate you making time for us. corporate ceos have now been busted with how they're abusing inflation, which is real, to actually raise prices beyond what inflation demands. it's a type of reporting we've been sharing and important to shine a light on things that affect your life. and howard dean is here and have a look at trump's potential defenses. but first prof

john eastman arguing that 20 years apart that this insane theory is what should rule our elections. ur of the members of this supreme court had some role in bush v. gore. john roberts worked on bush's legal team, kavanaugh worked on his legal team. amy coney barrett worked on bush's legal team in florida, and clarence thomas was part of the 5-4 opinion. bush v. gore was said to be nonprecedential. but boy, does it feel like it. >> when you look at what a justice did in their past life and think they're going to approach it in a certain way and this stuff is going to live on forever. no, the nail was put in the coffin of all of this nonsense today. and it was put -- the nail was put in by chief justice roberts and joined by two trump appointees, amy coney barrett and brett kavanaugh, and what they said is basically, uh-uh, you know, there is -- there are standard checks and balances when it comes to federal elections, and you don't just, because you have the raw political power, republican party, you don't get to call the shots and say courts have no business. so to me, it's a really

there are the yes men, the consigliari, the john eastmans, the rudy giulianis.went to law school, it probably wouldn't be the top law schools in the country. then there are the elite establishment lawyers like ty cobb, like don mcgahn, who i think try -- think that they can change donald trump, that the system, they can fit him into the rule of law. and you know, we saw as you said in the mueller report, don mcgahn trying and trying again, and really, you know, struggling there. and i think it's also -- i don't know if you noticed, but i reported in my book "kushner inc.", the reason trump hired don mcgahn was not because he was an establishment lawyer inside the republican community. it was because trump knew his father, and he represented him and had been on the other side. he said patty mcgahn was a nasty piece of work. he admired that. >> we know he likes that. you raise human side, which is so different than all the rules and all the case law you see in there a hope -- some might call it a delusion, others arrogance, that these people like mr. cork ran who

one of the proponents, former trump lawyer john eastman saying the court's ruling will make the arguments he made in 2020 murkier in the upcoming lixs elections. the decision was met with praise from democrats >>> former congress come liz cheney weighed in on her political future in a conversation with nbc's lester holt at the aspen ideas festival on tuesday cheney, a major critic of former president trump has been speculated as a possible 2024 candidate. she specified that she doesn't want to do anything that may help trump and will make a decision about what comes next for her later this year. she was ousted from her seat in a primary challenge by a trump-backed candidate in 2022 >>> an ever-widening gap in the polls is not stopping desantis from taking his main rival head on they held events in the pivotal state of new hampshire tuesday as desantis urged republicans to move on from trump or risk defeat nbc's vaughn hill gallaiard has. >> god bless new hampshire and god bless america, thank you >> reporter: gop frontrunners, donald trump and ron desantis, hosting dueling events just 40

prosecutors allege john eastman made false and misleading statements with his baseless claims of widespread to other lawyers he knew his plan was illegal. he even asked rudy giuliani if he could be considered to receive a presidential pardon from trump. today's hearing marks a step to holding to account insiders and plotters of the attempted coup that resulted in the deadly insurrection on january 6th, it's a position even doj has been hesitant to pursue as we learned in a blockbuster piece of reporting this week in "the washington post." we know from "the post" reporting there was trepidation at the highest levels of the doj about going after trump and his allies for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. reportedly it was out of fear they would appear politically motivated. "the washington post" found this, quote, that more than a year would pass before prosecutors and fbi agents jointly embark on a formal probe of actions directed from the white house to try to steal the election. even then the fbi stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation. in

this was a radical theory, defendant by none other than john eastman who was the architect of the january 6 policies and i'm pleased to see the supreme or rejecting it 6-3. to me, it's a signal that six justices are going to stand against monkeying, games and shenanigans. >> what message does it send of the chief justice author the opinion and two of the justices donald trump nominated joined with the majority in rejecting the theory? >> it's a thorough repudiation of the independent state legislature theory, and opinion offered by the chief justice who is no liberal joined by kavanaugh, amy coney barrett, again, it's a demonstration that law, history, the tradition of checks and balances still has residents and i think it will go down as one of his finest opinions if not his finest. >> the court in preserving the status quo, is that sufficient? guardrails? >> not at all. the court took a step by preserving the 200 year tradition of checks and balances , but, it was 10 years ago this week that the supreme court struck down the key provisions of voting rights. gamesmanship at the state and

conservative attorney john eastman today began defending himself against 11 disciplinary charges broughty the state bar of california. the hearings are scheduled to make more than a week, and at the end the court could recommend that eastman's license to practice law in the state is suspended or revoked. eastman was hired by donald trump to represent him in december of 2020 in connection with the 2020 presidential general election including matters related to the electoral college. in that capacity eastman drafted a memo in which he argued the then-vice president mike pence had the power to overturn the election results while presiding over the counting of electoral votes on january 6, 2021. that theory, of course, underpinned much of it rage against pence by the mob that stormed the capitol that day. but this disciplinary hearing is not the only major consequence eastman may be facing. fbi agents seized eastman's cellphones last summer reportedly at the behest of a justice department's inspector general. also last summer a federal judge agreed that his e-mails should be released to cong

one, the slates of fake electors, two, the roles of other lawyers including john eastman and sydney powell, and three, the scene at the war room -- the war room scene at the will ard hotel on january 5th. if you're looking at those things, what is of most interest to you in terms of what giuliani can give you? what is the most useful for a federal prosecutor in terms of his vantage point? >> you hiknow, i really think is likely the idea of the fake electors and that's because it happened across multiple states, andle that's something federal prosecutors look at. how broad is the net? how do i get outside one state's jurisdiction? have we crossed state lines with this crime or with this fraud? in that instance they have. we know the special counsel is interested in this because he's been talking to other witnesses. he's had people come in and folks in other states come in and talkth about how this got setup. so the idea that the architects of this scheme might somehow be of interest to him would be important. and whether or not giuliani is one of thoseet architects that' what he's looking t

indeed, john eastman who many describe as the arc type of president trump's january six theory, even. supreme court in this case trying to pedal this theory, a theory that has now been resounded lee rejected by the court. i think one interesting thing about the case is that most people thought we were going to lose this case, including people on our site. in fact, almost all the lawyers on our side for different parties tried to tell the supreme court, get rid of this case. do not decide this case, you do not have jurisdiction. those arguments were totally wrong, totally misguided, and they stand as a powerful lesson that if somebody carefully studies the supreme court decisions, litigants can win cases that stand up for our democracy and that is what happened today. >> neil, i wanted to ask you about what happened this week. as you probably know cnn exclusively obtained a 2021 audio recording of president trump, he was holding a meeting at his golf club in bedminster new jersey and he is talking about holding, literally in his hands, top secret documents and showing them off to gues

also add in terms of lawyers and the reaction to trump and what they've done, you've also got john eastman in the georgia case who also had one of his emails produced to the january 6th committee because of a statement in furtherance of a crime as opposed to attorney-client privilege where he admits that trump knows he's filing an affidavit in federal court in georgia that's full of lies about the election being rigged. so we do have this pattern running throughout these cases where one of the chief witnesses against trump in each of these cases is really his own attorneys. >> nick ackerman, carrie cordero, thanks so much. appreciate it. >>> republican lawmakers returning to the hill today. who is staying mum on the trump indictment and who is talking? that's next. baby i hear one every night... every night. okay. i'll work on that. the queen sleep number c2 smart bed is now onlnly $899. save $200. plus, 48-month financining on all beds. shop now only at sleep number. subway just keeps getting better. break it down candace. they got world class bakers to develop their tastiest bread yet. t

now, john eastman who was a legal advisor to donald trump had embraced this fringe theory as a means to try to overturn the 2020 election. arguing that then-vice president mike pence had the power to refuse to certify the results. in an e-mail exchange yesterday with nbc news, eastman claimed the ruling would prevent legislatures were addressing illegality and fraud in a timely manner. but when asked if the ruling invalidates the arguments he himself made in 2020 eastman wrote, quote, no, but it would be murkier than it was previously. barbara, let's get your assessment of this ruling, and what impact could it have on the 2020 election? did it just make the election process a little safer? >> yeah, so this would have been disastrous if the case had come out the other way. the theory says a state legislature gets to decide a time, place and manner for holding elections within that state. and no one can overrule that. if they do something crazy, if they say, you know, voters you all voted for a particular candidate and we the legislature in our infinite wisdom decide we're going to sub

john eastman might lose his law license in california.fense that could determine this. eastman of course wrote the coup memo, which pushed this basic paper work idea that you could steal and overthrow an election. he spoke on january 6th. last summer the fbi memorably took his phone without his consent, because it was a warrant search. you see him with his hands up. took the phone away. the committee put him on that short damning list of referrals. he repeatedly pled the fifth when asked to explain his own conduct. >> i assert my fifth amendment right against being compelled to be a witness against myself. >> did the trump legal team ask you to repair a memorandum regarding the vice president's role in the counting of electoral votes on january 6th, 2020. you will not discuss those same conversations with those committee? >> fifth. >> he pled the fifth. he knows the truth could -- him in crimes. while it may not surprise anyone who watches this program that we have a wide level of respect and support for what lawyers do -- lawyers literal

and indeed, john eastman, who many describe as the architect of president trump's january 6th theory, even filed a brief in the u.s. supreme court in this case, trying to peddle this theory, a theory that's now been resoundingly rejected by the court. and i think one interesting thing about the case is, you know, most people thought we were going to lose this case, including people on our side. in fact, almost all the lawyers on our side for different parties tried to tell the supreme court get rid of this case. don't decide this case. you don't have jurisdiction. an those arguments were totally wrong, totally misguided, and they stand as a powerful lesson that if someone carefully studies united states supreme court decisions, litigants can win cases that stand up for our democracy. and that's what happened today. >> neal, i want to ask you about what's happened this week. as you probably know, cnn exclusively obtained this 2021 audio recording of former president trump. he was holding a meeting at his golf club in bedminster, new jersey, and he is talking about holding, literally, i

. >>> former trump attorney john eastman is facing a disciplinary hearing today in los angeles. council for the state bar in california is asking to court to revoke eastman's law license. he is faces disciplines for allegations he tried convince mike pence to overturn the 2020 election. thanks so much for joining "inside politics". cnn news central starts right now. >>> some urgent unanswered questions for the coast guard at this hour. we're going to be hearing from them any moment at a press conference as this tourist dive vessel has not been found. oxygen levels running low. it lost contact with its support ship about an hour and 45 minutes into its voyage on sunday. they say the vessel has enough oxygen to last three or four days. anywhere from 50 to 76 hours until they run out of breathable air. the vessel, by the way, is about the size of a machineny van and the it's the property of a company called ocean gate. let's head to boston where the coast guard is holding this press conference. >> reporter: with five people on board, along with providing a update on current search

john eastman created a memo arguing then vice president mike pence could overturn joe biden's 2020 electionin. counsel for the state bar of california is asking a court to revoke eastman's license to practice law in that state eastman's disciplinary hearings are expected to last at least eight days >>> french investigators searched the headquarters of paris olympic into two proebs into suspected corruption. one investigation was opened the year paris was picked as the 2024 host looking into suspected embezzlement of public funds and favoritism the second opened last year concerning suspected conflict of interest and favoritism involving several olympic contracts. the games are set to take place in july and august of next year. >>> forecasters warn a tropical storm brewing in the central atlantic could strengthen into a hurricane in the next couple of days there's a lot of uncertainty about the storm's path right now, but it is expected to pummel some eastern caribbean islands. and the name will be brett, so no bertha this year in the hurricanes i'm quite relieved. >> bertha, thank you very

. >>> former trump attorney john eastman is facing a disciplinary hearing today in los angeles.nse. he is faces disciplines for allegations he tried convince mike pence to overturn the 2020 election. thanks so much for joining "inside politics". cnn news central starts right now.

it was a theory that was defended at the supreme court by none other than john eastman, the architectt of president trump's january 6 policies. i'm very pleased to see the supreme court rejecting it 6-3. to me, this decision is a signal that six justices, a solid six justices will stand against monkeying and games and shenanigans in the 2024 election. geoff: what message does it send that john roberts, the chief justice, authored the opinion and that two of the justices donald trump nominated joined with the majority in rejecting this legal theory that trump and his allies pushed and promoted? neal: it is a thorough repudiation of the theory. an opinion offered by the chief justice, who is certainly no liberal, joined by justice kavanaugh, not a liberal, joined by amy coney barrett, not a liberal. it is a demonstration that law and our history and our tradition of checks and balances still has resonance. i think this will go down as one of the chief justice's finest opinions, if not his finest. geoff: the court in effectively preserving the status quo today. in your view, is that suff

jeffrey clark, john eastman. no movement toward any of them. so there has been sort of radio silence. it's still pending. it wouldn't surprise me if the ultimate decisions from doj is no charge against trump on january 6th. >> right. i guess that's really what i was asking -- do you read into this that maybe trump is getting a pass in the eyes of doj for gymn january 6th, or is it a straightforward case? >> i think both. i think this case and the indictment is fairly straightforward and well done. i think the charging of this case gave was merrick garland some political cover if he ends up not charging january 6th. i know we see garland and jack smith as the naun political icons, but they're aware of public perception. they understand it's important that doj be seen as fair. i think ultimately if garland does not charge for january 6th, people who would be upset may look at the charge we saw this week and think, well, at least he charged one of those cases. >> okay. i'm glad you brought up merrick garland, the attorney general, because previous

march 2021, just two months after the attack, john eastman and the memo about fake electors have beeneeks. you can't deny that there was a lot of pressure put on doj by the house select committee, and what they were turning up, by the wave of programs from critics around the country. there just was at that point in timem finally, a little bit of breathing room inside the department of justice, inside the u.s. attorney's office, where they are putting oath keepers and proud boys, and those are getting ready for trial. they said, we still need to look at these other areas of investigation that we have. they brought in an investigator named tom windham, and he went to the fbi and said, will you help me investigate the fake electors? even then, 10 months afterwards, we fbi washington field director said no, you don't have enough evidence. i'm not going to subpoena the hotel. geoff: final question, based on your reporting, to what degree was the investigation, now overseen by jack smith, to what degree was it adversely affected by this delay by the doj? aaron: there really became such a sp

points of the special counsel's investigation down to the fact that he along with sidney powell, john eastman, that were representing donald trump legally and being paid by that save america pac, the fact is there are questions from the january 6th committee's work that we know is publicly available that rudy giuliani acknowledged that the voting machines, dominion machines didn't change the outcome of the election, but at the time, before january 6th, he was touting and filing lawsuits, and raising money for save america pac that he was getting paid for out of the election conspiracy theories. the question is what did rudy giuliani know, did he know, in fact, these were false allegations of praud. refugee rudy giuliani was part of all of the conversations, to what extent has he shared conversations with prosecutor . >> tell me how rudy giuliani and brad raffensperger overlap in particular? >> rudy giuliani, we know from the beginning of this, he was a target of the investigation. we have seen court documents that showed they were looking for communications that other parties that got receive

was serving as a personal attorney for donald trump at that point, along with sidney powell, and john eastman. we know that from cassidy hutchinson's testimony that on december 18th in her own words, the oval office, it was unhinged in which there was a meeting between giuliani, with trump, with powell, with eastman, and white house counsel over disagreements about the efforts to file litigation in several key states, and of course, rudy giuliani is also believed to be a key individual involved in the effort to build those fake slate of electors. we also know there are questions the special counsel's office is looking around to the fundraising operation. that was the save america pact. that was the pact that was set up, and reached out to americans asking for donations to help fight the fraud to overturn the 2020 election. rudy giuliani was paid out of that account. there are a lot of questions which rudy giuliani could answer in terms of his own conversations with donald trump, but also others who may be targets of the investigation in the special counsel's office as well. >> got to wonder w

the election that fell on deaf ears then that federal judge, david carter, said donald trump and john eastman had attempted to overthrow the government, that it was obviously illegal and that doj needed to step up its responsibilities jason, none of that worked it took almost two years >> you know, i want to play you some sound by a pair of incredible analysts and get your thoughts on the other side >> we have so much information here about what appears to be conspiracy we have people sending text messages back and forth saying hey, want to take over the government sounds cool. let's do it. legally, are there ways we could be moving faster >> what i see is congress, which is an oversight, which has an oversight function, doing with deliberate speed, as quickly as they can, putting together a case, and the fbi doing nothing to go get these people that is my question and that's my problem i think it all comes back to joe biden's decision to appoint merrick garland, a slow-moving institutionalist to the department of justice. >> now, the guy on the right has great hair made a point two years ago

federal judge in california, that case involved one of those members of the post-election team, john eastmanis reporting interest in rudy giuliani and sidney powell, among others. the charges that have been talked about include a conspiracy to defraud the united states. alex, passing phony electoral certificates can be analogous to passing counterfeit money. you can't have an electoral certificate saying one person won the presidency when in fact another did. also possible obstruction of an official proceeding in congress because these electoral certificates -- and remember, this was pushed by these lawyers, allegedly. these electoral certificates were part of the pattern of behavior that led to january 6th. so, those kinds of charges are a very real possibility. but we'll have to see how far up the chain it goes. >> norm eisen, thanks, as always, for breaking that down for us. appreciate it. >>> and up next, we will turn back to the submersible disaster and the specific areas of interest for investigators. efforts to explain what went wrong now underway on multiple fronts. ♪ ♪ [typing] ♪ yo

because sidney powell, john eastman, rudy giuliani, they were the add on lawyers to donald trump therenovember, december, january of 2020. and the white house counsel was telling donald trump and pushing back against the allegations that rudy giuliani and these other lawmakers were making. they were in the white house on december 18th, cassidy hutchinson, the aide to mark meadows, sent a text message saying the oval office is unhinged and even took a picture of mark meadows escorting rudion giuliani out because there was talk about seizing election machines. rudy giuliani was that central figure and he was the personal lawyer to donald trump at that time. he knows an awful lot. he's been defiant they were in the right, but that's why jack smith is likely going back to him a second time. >> is rudy a target or a witness? >> that's a good question. i'm not aware whether he's a target in this investigation or not. we know he also went before the fulton county district attorney and is potentially a target down there as well. >> okay, and fani willis' investigation. michael, what do you exp

and the aftermath of 2020, it gets picked up by people likely to mitchell, john eastman, all these lawyerssay, can we hang anything on this? is nothing we can try with this? and all those 60 cases that they threw up to the supreme court, many of them were hinged around this theory that was just cooked up out of nowhere. >> and now, the state of north carolina saying, our own state supreme court has nothing to say to us the legislature. what's amazing about this, this is a really important point, one of the things we've seen in these laboratories of autocracy, oregon's democracy, taking away the checks and balances. one of the things they like is, well, we can't control who wins statewide often, it is wednesday. there's a governor. and we can't control who's in the state supreme court, because maybe that's appointed, the one thing we're sure we can always control are two things in america. state legislature bodies, because we've gerrymandered them, and the federal judiciary, which we've packed with our people. and it just so happens, our constitutional theory gives these two entities the mo

two is the hold of other lawyers including john eastman and sidney powell. and three is the scene at the war room at the willard hotel on january 5th. if you are looking at those things, what is of most interest to you in terms of what giuliani can give you? what is the most useful for a federal prosecutor in terms of his vantage point? >> you, know i really think it is likely the idea of the fake electors. and that was because it was happening across multiple states. that's something that federal prosecutors look at. you know, how broad is the net? how do i get outside one state should-ish diction? do i look at if we cross state lines with this crime or with this fraud? i think in that instance they have. we know that the special counsel issued in this because he has been talking to other witnesses. he has had people come in, he has had folks in other states come in and talk about how this got set up. so the idea that the architects of this scheme might somehow be of interest to him would be important. whether or not giuliani is one of the architects that i

voting rights, a basic standard and adds another rebuke to the coup plotters like trump lawyer john eastman who's facing other setbacks this week as california considers yanking his law license. when i tell you tonight this is a big story out of the supreme court, that's because it's national news. if you hadn't heard about this case that much, well, it's with one of those times if it went the other way you'd have heard about it for years because it would have rewired democracy. this for some people seems like a victory, it definitely had a bypass coalition. for others it's a warning, and for others still it's a reminder of something we've talked about on this program and heard from our experts about, that the fight for democracy in america is not something that is over, that is complete, nor is america, if we define income as a place where we all get to vote a very old democracy. at best we're a young democracy. and we need coalitions of people who are willing to fight for everyone's rights, not just some people's rights and not just go with the elections when they like the outcome. that m

ask michael cohen, ask john eastman who is currently dealing with more legal trouble for the attemptedn than trump himself. ask giuliani who is not fit to practice law right now because of the consequences, and perhaps ask mr. corcoran or these newly departed lawyers, whether the facts show that trump, the now federal defendant, is responsible or other people is separate from when whether he has at times, i'm sure you can weigh in on this, gotten out of trouble by blaming other people. michael cohen didn't benefit from arranging those payments. but for years he was the one who went to prison form. >> so does he blame corcoran? >> what do you think? >> i wanted to take it back to your question about mark meadows. your question about what could be a possible defense. mark meadows is a tricky witness. and the reason i say that. unless mark meadows is going to say i, mark meadows, did something wrong, i knew that i was trying to overthrow the government. i knew there were classified documents being sent to mar-a-lago. unless he's willing, the "w" word, i did something wrong. he in many way

federal judge determining that felonies more likely than not were committed by donald trump and john eastman. there's been so much evidence and documentation of trump's criminality, that it is more the pattern than him being responsible in and around classified material. when you see jack smith underscoring the men and women who protect and preserve our national security by gathering intelligence information, do you think some of that is to wake the republicans out of their zombie state of ignorance and ignoring things that some of them know very well to be true? >> you know, i don't think the special counsel is looking at it through a sort of a partisan lens of what will resonate with republicans or democrats. i think it will have that effect. you know, certainly those of us that worked in the intelligence world and of course i chaired the intel committee for many years, are stunned by the sensitivity of these documents, the fact that they included military plans in case we were attacked, our vulnerabilities, nuclear capacities of some of our adversaadversaries. you know, and that these wer