elie honig is still with us, laura coates is still with us, dana bash is still with us. senator booker essentially trying to explain where this comes from, explain where your sense of justice, your sense of anti-discrimination comes from. a 68-year-old man who has been a prosecutor and judge on the bench for 36 years choking up talking about how his family escaped anti-semitism and persecution. he said it's the best use of my skills to continue a nation of fairness, justice. >> to pay back the country that took in his grandparents and his family. that was a moment, no question about it. and it was a genuine moment. what senator booker was trying to do was to harness what we saw all summer, the anger, the protests, the demands for changes in the justice system from top to bottom to make it so that the disparaities that he talked about would be changed. now there is a chance, more of a chance than before, to do that. so what booker was doing was trying to get the likely soon-to-be attorney general to make that promise, that he wouldn't just pay lip service to it but make i

laura coates show." to some of the arguments being made by the former president's lawyers here. i think they're so interesting and potentially flawed. one of the arguments they're hiding behind is the first amendment. let me read you a little clip here. they say the 45th president exercised his first amendment right under the constitution to express his belief that the election results were suspect. we'll get to the election results in a little bit. but first, the very idea that the first amendment is a defense in an impeachment trial, there's a different standard here. first of all, there's a legal understanding and representation of the first amendment may be suspect in and of itself. but is there a complete first amendment right in terms of impeachment? if a president goes out and says, i'm a nazi, right? that's protected, legally, under the first amendment. but there's no way on earth that it would not be impeachable, if the president declared today that he's a nazi, correct? >> right. remember, thin

elie honig is still with us, laura coates is still with us, dana bash is still with us. senator booker essentially trying to explain where this comes from, explain where your sense of justice, your sense of anti-discrimination comes from. a 68-year-old man who has been a prosecutor and judge on the bench for 36 years choking up talking about how his family escaped anti-semitism and persecution. he said it's the best use of my skills to continue a nation of fairness, justice. >> to pay back the country tha

back with us, david gregory and laura coates. laura, apparently it didn't stop with the presentation before the senate because david schoen went on fox tv last night to make more of the case that he was making before. and he was talking about trying to equate the violence at the u.s. capitol, and he was trying to accuse democrats of inciting violence or talking about violence from demonstrations before. but in doing so, in doing so, he laid out exactly what's different about these two cases. listen. >> they are using rhetoric that's just as inflammatory or more so. the problem is they don't have followers. dedicated followers. and so when they give their speeches. >> the problem, the former president's lawyer says, is the former president's followers will do exactly what he says. and to that, the house managers say what? case closed, right? >> absolutely not. i mean, the idea here, first of all, the what aboutism they tried to pursue. but also, are you trying to suggest that had democrats had bigger or better followers then we wou

back with anna palmer and laura coats. jeopardy do you think the former president is in the state of georgia? this is a real investigation. it put it into the impeachment trial because it is rather significant in terms of establishing a pattern for that as well. >> it does. it gives a factual predicate that he was using the big lie, the theories of the big lie, to rev up people to believe that they should meet him on the ellipse and then eventually march towards the capitol and do what they did. you have this basis of calling the arc of evidence in the context yule clues about what he intended and why he was spiking about these issues. it will likely be used to give greater context but he is also in jeopardy here, remember, when he was a sitting president, even at the time people thought, look, a state prosecution, even he could not get himself out of. now he's no longer a president and no longer has the luxury of being able to give those things out let alone possibly to himself. so now you have a state prosecution where th

i'm laura coates in for don lemon. breaking news. the house voting tonight on president joe biden's $1.9 t $1.9 t $1.9 trillion covid aid packaging. the vote expected to be tight after republicans dragged it out with hours of debate all day long. the latest on the vote the moment it happens. that as president biden traveled to houston today. his first trip as commander in chief to a state we know is suffering from a natural disaster. the president now promises comfort and support to texans. >> we will be true partners to help you recover and rebuild from the storms and this pandemic and the economic crisis. we are in for the long haul. >> as president biden is working to get covid relief the nation and stepping up in his role as consoler in chief, republicans at cpac are literally wheeling around, look at it, wheeling around a golden statue of the former president. seriously, that's what they see as the future of the republican party. a disgraced twice impeached one-term president. and then there is ted cruz. tone tdeaf ted cruz joki

. >> i want to bring in laura coats into this conversation, the former president's defense team says his instructions were to fight like hell. not literal words that he was speaking just before that mob. will they be able to successfully make that case? >> gee, where have we heard this before? doth tan president trump seriously, or literally, which was it? frankly they're going to have to prove more than the idea of literal and semantics. it will be about whether the president of the united states incited people to violence, but to prove whether or not he send the to do so did in fact have that results. so thinking about the intent. it's not the one isolated word it would be about the overall contextual rules that will lead you to be persuaded or not. >> in a new brief, laura, the how impeachment managers say there's no valid excuse for mr. trump's actions. what do we know about how they plan to support their kcase? >> they're going to have to go beyond what we all saw on camera and talk about why president trump was in a unique position. they called it a powderkeg to incite people t

director david chalian, co-coast of the cnn podcast politically sound and cnn senior legal analyst laura coates. that was effective, laura. i don't know that before we saw that presentation that we would have necessarily connected those two dots that was, i thought, a new kind of connection. what did you hear yesterday? t. absolutely was, alisyn. we have to keep remembering, we call this new day in infamy january 6th for the insurrection but what they're building is the knowledge that he was leading up to january 6th as being a save the date for this sort of behavior. that all of the things he was doing prior to that was leading up to this event. they did a very fascinating and methodical approach to present this evidence in a way that was so compelling, it has all of our heads scratchings too how you're going to defend against that. particularly knowing this was not coincidental. and i, like you, did not immediately draw the connection between, say, that bus incident and what happened, but what she did just there was actually show america and the world that he uses certain code words like patr

our senior legal analyst laura coats and the former repub kaun me -- republican member of congress. what is the 9/11 commission to investigate the january 6th attack on the capitol mean for the current president? we know the biden administration was actually pretty eager to leave the trump impeachment trial in the past and move on with its own agenda. >> yeah, and i still think that's the case when it comes to the former president, and punishing him by way of the impeachment process. but when it comes to understanding all of the failings in and around january 6th, that is not something that my impression from talking to people in the administration, that they're worried about at all. the fact is the opposite. they want those answers to come forward for lots of reasons, for history, for prevention in the future. never mind the fact that joe biden is a creature of the u.s. senate. he served there for 36 years, and he, you know, understands that you need to find out why just one example, the police were caught so flat footed, why there weren't national guard troops called in ahead of t

i want to bring in cnn senior legal analyst laura coates and also with us is former u.s. torney, former deputy assistant attorney general harry litman. laura, the house impeachment managers are pushing against the trump team's major defense team that the trial is unconstitutional. do you think they made their case in these briefs? >> i think they did. it was thorough and pointed to specific instances of presidential value going back as far as the 1700s to say how long ago the senate was trying former representatives, talked about this being a vindication of the first amendment, not somehow the infringement of it or the exercise of cancel culture run amok. talking about the link of his statements at the reality, during perhaps the insurrection and afterwards and what the conduct was. they made a key point of anticipating exactly what the defense would say, which is to have a procedural off-ramp of saying, hey, procedure stops us from having a former president. i think they obliterated that. but we're not in a criminal court where cooler heads and commonsense is the requirem

. >> out front now laura coates, cnn senior legal analyst. 7 billion. of course efrlg they said there was factually inaccurate. it was completely made up out of whole cloth at the time and we know it to be untrue. but do you think a lawsuit like this has real merit? >> it does. it's the definition of defamation, when you're trying to make statements that are knowingly false and you make them with malice and then you actually tarnish reputations. and it has a financial consequence. that's why people have defamation lawsuits in the first place, because you have to be able to quantify the harm. and when you know the statements are the same, that you would not have been able to make in a court of law, just because you opted to make them in a court of public opinion does not remove the accountability that comes. another instance where your words matter and speech has its bounds. >> it's a pretty stunning thing to say when you think about just the size of this. and by the way, when it comes to giuliani, he's also being sued by dominion voting system

part of our coverage, of course, is watching cnn tonight with the friday night upgrade, aka laura coates is, if that's the reason, if that's how he died, that is stomach turning. >> tell them what it means if you know that the person was planning to use it exactly to do that beforehand. >> it sounds like a conviction to me. it sounds like a

joining us now, cnn's senior legal analyst, laura coates, and cnn political analyst, david gregly. ow much of a role in this trial will the firsthand accounts of the people who lived through it play? so in other words, i know that we haven't heard yet if they're actually calling live witnesses, but maybe they don't have to if they have written accounts like this. >> these are really important, alisyn. because, remember, we all watched on television, as it unfolded on january 6th. and so we had one vantage point. and it makes it seems as if we are all privy to all of the information. but these staffers were inside. they were in the rooms where it happened. they had the fear. it was them who was directly imperiled. and they were able to see all the things that the cameras did not pick up. all of the moments, all of the comments that were being made. statements boebl could not hear. and the follow-up of it. were they frantically trying to call and get backup. were their leaders, their officials safe, were they themselves safe? this is very important in developing the case. and one of t

>> joining us now cnn's senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor laura coates.ob chancely the so-called qanon shaman say trump put out a tweet and asked everyone to go home implying he was hanging and watching for trump's every word. as a lawyer how important is evidence like this? >> it was very important. you think about the two different courts we're talking about. on the one hand for impeachment the impeachment management will look at that as evidence to show this person was directed by the president of the united states. they note singularly responsible and a very unique position to be able to instruct or tell people to go home or actually arrive. talking about a criminal court however they're probably going to use that evidence to show that he intended, that particular person and others like him, intended to perform these actions even though they were aware of perhaps the consequences because they're making a political point here. of course the fact that trump has tried to distance himself in prior videos will not bode well with their ability to say i'm di

laura coates, let me ask you this, because garland will be asked today how he would handle the continuingo hunter biden. what will his answer be and how much will that show a break with the way that the justice department was run under former president trump? >> you're going to see a thousand different ways to ask how he's going to look at and evaluate and handle and oversee politically charged investigations. whether it is the issue surrounding hunter biden or other issues, he's going to be asked a thousand ways and i suspect he'll give a singular answer about wanting to be as if he were a supreme court nominee, a little circumspect in the way he wants to handle the cases. he's aware of what he inherited. but you'll see four members on the judiciary who hope to be named as 2024 political hopefuls. and we know that at least to some extent the now vice president kamala harris was able to get a lot of attention generated around her incisive questioning of people who were nom nominee -- nominated by president trump. so people will have their own statements and trying to illicit a response. t

inch >> joining us is laura coats and gloria borger and counsel for the house democrats in the firsteachment and ambassador to czech republic. norm, the contrast between the two legal teams today was beyond striking. howf effective do you think eac side was or ineffective because that test came after 5:00 p.m. today. democrats only managed to gain one republican vote. >> anderson, thanks for having me back. i thought the house managers were extraordinary orordinarily. they blended an explanation why there is no january exception for a president who commits a high crime and misdemeanor. discussing the law, the precedent, the constitution and they told the story. they surprised everyone by telling the story that they'll be sharing with the senate and the country of the horrible insurrection donald trump incited and third, they brought a motion. the president's team was awful. they have no case. the law is not on the side. the facts are not on their side. the politics, the president has a lot of supporters in the senate caucus but anderson, another one broke with him today. senator cass

joined now by cnn senior media reporter oliver darcy and for the legal angles, there are many, laura coatesalyst back with us. this is a company that became swept up in conspiracy theories around the 2020 election. what more are you learning? >> yeah. any deranged conspiracy theories. smartmatic, a voting technology company, has file add lawsuit $2.7 billion lawsuit against fox news. some of its hosts lou dobbs, maria bart chrome oh, jeanine pirro and rudy guiliani and sidney powell alleging that they worked in concert to wage a disinformation campaign against the company, disinformation campaign that the lawsuit says has really endangered the existence, whether this company can even survive. i talked to the ceo of the company who said they really had no choice but to file this lawsuit, because he's not sure if they're going to be around in a few years. he says that the -- one tiny error. right? this was a deranged conspiracy theory promoted on fox week after week for a long period of time. a period of time they should have known it wasn't true and promoted by rudy guiliani and sidney powel

. >> laura coates, what are your thoughts as you hear these news, that the democratic impeachment managersrmer president trump to testify under oath at his trial? >> well, of course, it's important to think about what they're trying to prove here, and part of what they're going to need to show is intent. they need to show this was not protected speech, brianna, that it was intended to incite violence, that he had the intent to imperil the government. the best thing is to get it out of the horse's mouth. what did you intend to do? what were your actions? but that would be for someone who would be transparent. remember, he's a private citizen now, but if he were amenable to it, i suspect he would try to rely on the privilege that may have been available to him as the president of the united states in terms of being able to have deliberations with people who are his advisers, executive privilege he may try to assert as well. but it shows you the intent that the impeachment managers are not just looking for evidence of what you and i saw on january 6, watching on cameras, watching the insurrec

. >>> perspective from ross garber that teaches impeachment law at tulane andboringer and laura coats and former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. ross, i mean, house managers could theoretically call witnesses, that seems unlikely even after this reporting. >> it's not even theory. the rules provide for an opportunity for the house managers or trump lawyere e s t request it and let's keep in mind the perspective, which is this is probably one of the most significant proceedings in a democracy to have. the motion of an impeachment trial without witnesses without any sworn testimony is extraordinary. i mean, we all know, we've all practiced law, i mean, in a dog bite case you have testimony, you have witnesses, you have evidence and we haven't had any of that in this proceeding. ist is an amazingly quick process and in my opinion, it's hard to justify how quick it's been. >> particularly since even is th there. tommy tuberville is saying what the president said to him. for the life of me, i can't understand why kevin mccarthy, the leader of the republicans

laura coates joining us now. >> i think he's doing exceptionally well. and you hear him and you hear about his background and visions and experience as a prosecutor but somebody who knows a great deal about the justice department and justice in general and you say what a shame that he missed out on the highest court in the land. but as an attorney nominee,ez extraordinary in being able to be as nimble as dana as talking about knowing about the political independence of the justice department and improving the moral and leading it to the line on career attorneys and navigate politically sensitive things and not wanting to address lindsey graham want him to agree and talk about james comey but instead relying about the policies that he believed were part and parcel to being a good justice department and why that was the focus as opposed to former officials. he talked about the ideas of the p opioid crisis. he a wide range of topics and wide aware of the umbrella of things that the department of justice has to deal with. but to name two things in particular

get perspective from our guests, cnn legal analyst that took part in the first impeachment and laura coats a former federal prosecutor. ross, i know earlier today you said you watched the impeachment managers presentations from someone that is undecided. day two, how do you see things? >> yes, i'm actually watching it from perspective of somebody who defended impeachments. and yesterday i thought the managers did a terrific job. today i thought they also did just an amazing job of weaving together facts and emotion and videotape and audio and all of those things and, you know, yesterday was about legal things, jurisdiction and first amendment. today was stripping it away. this isn't a technically legal proceeding. it's constitutional proceeding. and i dare anybody to watch the presentation that they put on today and not feel moved. anybody who cares about the country, who cares about the cap t toll, who has family members they can picture in that building. and one of the things the managers did skillfully is they made clear, tried to make clear this isn't a partisan issue. they had video o

. >> that is something that i think is really interesting, laura coates, that he brings up and dick durbin said this to repo reporters walking into the hearing, i want merrick garland to focus on the attacks and not on other things and the just department does not report to him. hold that thought. let's listen to the nominee judge merrick garland. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. ranking member and members of the judiciary committee. i'm honored to appear before you today as the president's nominee to be the attorney general. i would like first to take this opportunity to introduce you to my wife lynn, my daughters jesse and becky and my son-in-law zan. i'm grateful to them and to my entire extended family that is watching today on c-span every day of my life. the president nominated the attorney general to by a lawyer not for any individual but for people of the united states. july 2020 marked the 150th anniversary of the founding of the department of justice. making this a fitting time to remember the mission of the attorney general and of the department. it is a fitting time to reaffirm

. >> joining me now, chief political analyst gloria borger and our legal analyst laura coats, eli hoething and ross garber. gloria, we just heard a couple questions there specifically saying did the president know vice president pence was in danger. the answer was deputyfinitdefin answer is no. >> that's wrong. that is a lie. look, jim acosta is reporting that source close to pence says that is a lie. i'm reporting that source close to pence said that mark short, the vice president's chief staff called mark meadows when they were being whisked away and told meadows exactly what was going on. you also have tommy tuberville talking to the president of the united states saying that they just took the vice president out of here. you have secret service with who would be talking to other secret service. there is no way that the president had absolutely no idea about what was going on with the vice president and the other people in the congress. it just does not make any sense. the time line needs to be pieced together minute by minute. we do know that the president tweeted at 2:24 and, you

i want to bring in ross garber, laura niez and laura coates for legal analysis.e constitutional argument going back in history and making it a very personal argument almost in the end, and he talked about this january exemption which when phrased as he did, it does seem moronic to believe that there should be a magical exemption for the month of january where a president can do anything they want and get away with it. >> yeah. let me say this. i could -- i could argue about the law, but what we just saw was a master class in advocacy, you know, from all of the managers. anderson, you and i spent time together during the first trump trial and i was very critical of the advocacy in this trial. this really was a master class. they started off. they reminded everyone why we were sitting through this, why this was happening, and i think they it that very effectively, and then they marched through the law. they talked about the constitution. they talked about the history. they talked about the precedent, and then they brought it back again, back to something personal a

. >> you know, our senior legal analyst laura coats is with us.perspective did the house impeachment managers the nine of them present a complete and persuasive case? >> yes. full stop. and when you're a prosecutor you actually have to meet the burden of proof to unbiassed jurors that know nothing about it. in an impeachment trial you have to do that and change the minds of those politically obs nantz. the president intended to have the conduct that occurred, lawless action that did occur, but they're facing a herculean effort for those looking for an exit hatch that's sealed off by the compelling testimony. they broke it down two ways. what the president did and what the president did not do and i must say for an impeachment trial that everyone thought would divide the country these house impeachment managers went above and beyond to show that they should be unified as one. it happened to them. it happened to us they kept saying. the president, they said, left everyone, all of us here in the capitol to die and left with the three questions why th

. >> laura coates, former -- oh, she's not with us right now. so the first attorney, caster, is it possible he was -- you know, he did say toward the end that the presentation he had sort of planned to make that they alternated because he thought the house managers had done such a good job. is that really possible? i mean, is it possible he was just trying to kind of fill time in order to kind of take the air or the emotion out of what we had heard from the house managers? >> i think it was totally possible that that's what went on. it's hard to explain it otherwise. it also seems like there was supposed to be a presentation maybe by another lawyer on the team that they just never got to. it was such a rambling presentation that seemed to have no point and seemed to go nowhere, that it did kind of have the feel of improvisation. i'm not sure why they thought it was a good idea to do it that way. i wouldn't be surprised to see that it was a line of scrimmage decision. >> back to jake. jake? >> thanks, anderson. it's difficult to not imagine that

laura coates, first impressions of the defense?a way you expect. end of the day, raskin said, essentially, what about us? what about the members of congress? why did the president not concern himself with us our well-being? what they did here say, what about you? what about all of the people in this room from every senator they tried to outline, to members of the house as well, about their own contact? made it seem as they they were the ones now on trial for their own statements. what they've missed, this impeachment is what about thissism. it's not about every instance ever happening. it's not about every statement taken out of context but why this president with the unique position he's in to divide or quell incitement. why he chose not to, why his words on this occasion prompted the contact that actually resolved it? the more they stray away from that the more they risk alienated those waiting for the answer to that question. what about us, mr. president? what happened then? they haven't answered it. talked how they actually sai

laura coates and former federal prosecutor, norm eisen. russ gasher is teaching political investigations and impeachment law at tulane and gloria borger. let's talk about what was done yesterday and what you think the house managers need to do today. one of the things that some republicans are saying that she haven't done is shown that president trump was involved and in not only instigating the violence but the details of what actually he did do, we saw what he didn't do, but what he did do while this was happening. i want to play something that david cicilline way saying about ben sasse comments. let's watch. >> senator ben sasse related a conversation with senior white house officials that president trump, was quote, walking around the white house confused about why other people on his team weren't as excited as he was. >> do they need to kind of get more details if they can? >> they should have corroboration of what ben sasse was referring to in that moment. i would note that the end of the event of yesterday you had senator mike lee j

laura coates, is the president exposed here? >> yes, the former president certainly is. he is by his own admission, by his own words. when he was actually the president of the united states, he was protected in part from his own self-inflicted wounds, by the idea of there being a rule against indicting a sitting president. now you have somebody who, by his own admission, was trying to interfere with the election. gave the numbers that he wanted. her is persona non grata. even if he were friends with the governor who normally could give pardons in georgia, it's not the governor who hands out pardons it's a state board who does it, independent of the governor himself. you have him now being possibly indicted by his own words. he's got misdemeanors or felly exposure for his own statement. it's going to come in the presentation of the impeachment today about the big lie. this is part of that factual predicate. it's not a wonder now why he doesn't want to testify, because all of those words could be used against now citizen donald trump. >> can i just remind people that the e

i heard our colleague, laura coates say yesterday, they cut both ways. once you get a witness on the stand, it's open season. >> it certainly is. and this has thrown a real monkey wrench into what was supposed to be a day, day five of this trial, where they were wrapping things up by doing their closing arguments, no witnesses, moving on. then all of a sudden this has happened. they were supposed to have a final vote on acquittal or conviction by around 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. that's clearly now not going to happen. they're now, for all practical purposes in a sort of recess, although they're calling it a parlia parlia parliamentary quorum call. jeff zeleny is watching this closely. he's up on capitol hill. so the working assumption is, yes, they've approved witnesses, but then they're going to have to vote separately on who the witnesses should be. >> reporter: exactly and that was some of the confusion on the floor among some senators who were voting on this. but it is clear that they have voted for the idea. they've opened the door, if you will, to

coats are the new tambourine. >> ted lu had a line which hung out there. i'm not afraid of the former president running, i'm afraid of the president losing because we see what happens there. laura want to one more time, you've been eloquent about this, the witness thing. i know at this point it's open and shut and republicans don't want it. it will prolong the trial. democrats don't want them because it would get in the way of the biden agenda. i'm just not so sure. i'm not so sure that's the case. if the goal is the historical record, why not get them on record. joe biden has been pushing through the relief plan. >> reporter: if you're going to do it, why not just do it? if you are going to lay out the historical record, what do you have to lose when you call a black officer who repeatedly heard the n word or one of the officers who had his eye gouged out. instead i think they feel they made their case through argument and the video is so compelling. their work is done here. i don't see what they lose. if they think they're going to lose the case anyway, why not make their case to the american people and lay out that case for history. >> i think that's such an important point,