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sorry, kara scannell joins me now.hat more can you tell us about this recorded testimony provided by the georgia governor brian kemp. >> anderson, governor kemp is providing this testimony today, it's being recorded, and it will be presented to the grand jury in the near future. the reason he's not providing live testimony is because he's the governor and it's a concession the prosecutors have given him. his testimony is important because he had direct conversations with former president donald trump after the 2020 election. trump had called kemp and was pushing him to convene a special session of the state legislature to try to get them to overturn biden's victory. trump was also pressing kemp to order an audit of the absentee ballots on those signatures. now kemp someone of the most high profile people to go in, but he won't be the last. allies of the former president, including his personal attorney rudy giuliani have been ordered to testify as soon as next month. >> and the judge blocked -- one of the 16 fake elect

. >> let's go to cnn's carakara scannell, what more do we know about the justice department's focus on former president donald trump. >> reporter: this investigation has clearly been intensifying and from what we learned, the focus is turning to the white house. as you mentioned, mark short and greg jacob, two of mike pence's aides, two people that were in the room with him, two people that were in meetings that know about the pressure campaign from trump and his allies trying to get pence to not certify the election and certify joe biden's win. they went before a federal grand jury in recent weeks. that's one step that the department of justice has taken that brings you into the white house. they have also, according to to alyssa farah griffin, she was on "new day this morning," she was trump's communication adviser. she's aware that doj has reached out to other former white house officials wanting to have interviews with them, and then "the washington post" had new reporting and details abts what they learned about doj's conversations with witnesses. prosecutors have asked hours of d

kara scannell, thank you. >>> joining us to discuss is josh dawsey, political investigation reporter for "the washington post" and paul callan, prosecutor. paul, what is the significance of doj investigators really trying to focus in and ask questions about the former president's role in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election? >> i think that it is a clear indication that the department of justice is now looking carefully at the president's activities, with respect to the 2022 election. and this is new. and you have garland coming out, making a public statement in a news interview, which attorneys general never do, and he makes no mention of policies that have been in existence for a long time in the justice department about not starting major investigations or indictments during the election season, no mention of that. he said anybody who obstructed or interfered in the transfer of power is going to be investigated. so it was a powerful statement by this very soft spoken man, merrick garland. >> josh dawsey, these events took place more than a year and a half ago. is it your sens

cnn's kara scannell is part of the reporting team that wrought in information forward. learned is sources tell us prosecutors are weighing bringing criminal barges against hunter biden. no final decision has been made, but discussions within the department have really intensified in the past few months. this investigation began around 2018 and it was fairly wide ranging, looking at foreign lobbying activities, looking at money laundering and in recent weeks and months sources say that this has really narrowed now, they are looking at possible tax violations as well as making false statements in connection with the purchase of a firearm. now, one issue that the department is encountering now and confronting is that we are heading up to the midterm elections and so there is justice department policy not to take any overt steps which would include possible indictment around an election and that cutoff officials say is about 60 days before. so we're getting to this point where there could be a decision as soon as next month or they could wait until november. there is a lot

joining us now to explain all of this is cnn's kara scannell, and criminal defense attorney page patecame down to the issue of conflicts of interest, the georgia state senator, burt jones, who is the person at issue here. he asked the judge to disqualify the district attorney, fauny willis. he's returning for lieutenant governor of the state. willis, who is the district attorney, has held a fundraiser for jones' rival, his political opponent in that race. the judge said that is an untenable conflict of interest. he has disqualified lewis and her office from investigating jones. she can't question him. she can't call him a target, and he can't be included in the report that will be produced by the special grand jury. however, the judge said that she can continue to ask questions about him and any potential prosecutorial decision would be made by another district attorney appointed by the attorney general. this does not have broader implications on the investigation. 11 other fake electors are scheduled to appear before that special grand jury this week. >> the judge called this a what

i want to bring in cnn's kara scannell, former nixon white house counsel john dean and former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe. nice to see all of you this evening. also, he is the author of the threat how the fbi protects america in the age of terror and trump. written by our guest here tonight andrew mccabe. kara, let me begin with you here. what are you learning about these missing text messages? >> good evening, laura. this is new reporting from my colleagues whitney wild back home. what sources tell them is the inspector general of the department of homeland security knew as early as may of 2021 that some of these secret service text messages were missing. that is seven months earlier than we had known that he was informed of this and more than a year before he informed the house select committee investigating january 6th. the secret service says that is due to a data retention, a data reset issue that they had when they collected these phones from the government employees, and they were doing some data migration. this is just one of many new details we're learning that raised more

. >> laura scannell, thank you, back with us prosecutor jeffrey toobin.this investigation in georgia, out of all the investigations that the former president is involved in, it could be the most consequential? >> it certainly is the one at the moment that looks like, is most likely to lead to an indictment of the former president. if you look at how this is being structured, if you look at the infamous phone call but i think most people are familiar with where the president trump called the secretary start, raffensperger and said get me 11,000 votes, which really is about as clear almost a confession a corrupt intent. >> let's play that. >> let's hear it. >> so, look, all i want to do is this, i just want to find 11,700 made votes. which is one more than what we have. because we won the state. he's not saying i want to correct vote total, he's not saying let's get this accurate. he say, just get me enough votes so i win the election. that is really very difficult to explain. and if you look at how fani willis is approaching this case, she's brought everyb

. >> kara scannell, a moving investigation and a lot of parts. thank you for staying on top of it. >>> no signs of slowdown for the january 6th committee. they've just released new videos of witness testimony and images of donald trump's handwritten notes. you can see he crossed out several key lines in this draft of remarks that he gave the day after the capitol attack. they've already seen or shown a video of the outtakes. let's go to ryan nobles on capitol hill. >> reporter: the big takeaway from this is the committee had so much content going into the hearing thursday night they didn't have time for all of it. i'm told when they did the first dress rehearsal, the hearing would have lasted 4 hours if they kept it all in. they cut stuff they believed was important, like this video what was tweeted this morning by congresswoman luria about the process of putting together that speech on january 7th. take a listen. >> do you recognize the handwriting? >> it looks like my father's handwriting. >> looks here like he crossed out that he was directing

cnn's kara scannell and evan perez have details.vestigators need to decide soon on whether or not to charge hunter biden? >> one factor prosecutors are confronting is the midterm elections. there are justice department guidelines ubs bringing any politically sensitive cases around an election. those guidelines include things such as taking any sort of overtsteps like an indictment or executing of a search warrant, anything perceived as putting a thumb on the scale, they try to avoid that. current and former justice department officials say that deadline is effectively 60 days before the election. so that implies there could be a decision soon about what steps they want to take, or they could decide to wait until after the elections in november. >> evan, president biden, not to mention hunter biden, are not on the midterm ballot. is there any indication that attorney general merrick garland might buck this justice department norm or this wouldn't be included? >> well, jake, we know one thing about merrick garland, he is going by the

let's bring in cnn's kara scannell. why did the skruj decide to do this?, in this situation, the issue here was the judge found there was a conflict of interest that the district attorney, fani willis, had. the back story is that this fake elector, he's a georgia state senator, burt jones, he was also a target of the investigation, but he's also returning for lieutenant governor in the state. and here's the rub. so fani willis, the district attorney, had a campaign fund-raiser and had donated money to his rival, his political opponent, in that race. the judge saying this is untenable conflict, saying she cannot question him, that she cannot include him in whatever report the special grand jury produces. but he said that she can continue to ask questions about him and any of that material can be turned over to an independent prosecutor and different district attorney to look into that issue. otherwise, this investigation will continue. >> i was just going to say, what does this ultimately mean for the broader investigation into trump going forward? >> as of