Updated
Summary
The “Washington Post” breaking news of the night is that the Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump and today, Attorney General Merrick Garland told Lester Holt that if Donald Trump becomes a presidential candidate again that will not change anything about any action that the Justice Department might consider taking against Donald Trump.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Mehdi. And we are continuing the breaking news coverage of “The Washington Post” report tonight telling us the Donald Trump was indeed the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. It really is happening.
MEHDI HASAN, MSNBC HOST: It`s a phenomenal date because he also turned up with Lester Holt to answer questions and then the story breaks. It`s a big day in the DOJ press office I think.
O`DONNELL: Well, we all saw with the attorney general said to Lester Holt today, that he will absolutely investigate everybody, that was his term. He went to it — Lester went back and forth at once, and the attorney general said more than once in more than one way, and then hours later, there`s “The Washington Post” telling us that Donald Trump is under investigation by the Justice Department. And Andrew Weissmann, former prosecutor is going to join us. He says based on what “The Washington Post” is reporting, says Donald Trump is a subject of the investigation at this point, not no doubt about that.
HASAN: Four words for you, Lawrence — better late than never.
O`DONNELL: Yes, it`s happening right now. Thank you, Mehdi.
HASAN: Thanks
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
Well, it is happening. Donald Trump is being investigated by the Justice Department. “The Washington Post” reports tonight that the Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump`s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election efforts, according to four people familiar with the matter. “The Washington Post” broke that story tonight, as we were just saying, hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland did an interview with NBC`s Lester Holt and said the Justice Department would, quote, bring justice to everybody who was criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power.
And hours after Lester Holt`s interview with Merrick Garland, with reporting from our lead guest tonight, Carol Leonnig, and a team of “Washington Post” reporters, “The Washington Post” broke the news, historic news under the headline, Justice Department investigating Trump`s actions in January 6 criminal probe.
That headline will now mark the moment in history when we learned that a former president of the United States is being investigated in a federal criminal investigation.
Donald Trump already made history as the first former president to be subject of a criminal investigation by a local district attorney with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis investigating Donald Trump for possible criminal interference in the Georgia presidential election. Yesterday, “The Washington Post” published a copy of a subpoena to Kelly Townsend, a Republican member of the Arizona State Senate.
In that subpoena, which begins with the words you are commanded, the Justice Department commands her to produce any and all communication to, from, with or including any member, employee or agent of Donald J. Trump or any organization advocating in favor of the 2020 reelection of Donald Trump.
That same subpoena also demands in communications with her about Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Jenna Ellis among other Trump operatives, and yesterday, NBC News was the first to report that Vice President Mike Pence`s chief of staff Marc Short and the vice president`s counsel, Greg Jacob, testified to a grand jury in Washington on Friday. That testimony came six weeks after their public testimony to the January 6th committee.
Tonight, Carol Leonnig`s reporting in “The Washington Post” has more about that grand jury testimony. Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states that Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021.
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His pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election, and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states.
Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump`s involvement in the fake elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani. In addition, Justice Department investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to two people familiar with the matter. That effort is another indicator of how expansive the January 6th probe has become, well before the high profile, televised House hearings in June and July on the subject.
The degree of prosecutors` interest in Trump`s actions has not been previously reported, nor has the review of senior Trump aides` phone records.
And joining us now is Carol Leonnig, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for “The Washington Post”. She`s an MSNBC contributor and author of “Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service”.
Carol, this is really astonishing reporting tonight. I have to ask you. It`s often said that “The Washington Post” has been publishing the first draft of history for a very long time. Did you feel you were holding history in your hands as you were turning in the story tonight?
CAROL LEONNIG, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I have to say we were extremely careful and cautious as we approached hitting the published button because we know how the story will be read. We know how closely it will be read as all of our stories are. We don`t want any error, but also in this instance, Lawrence, I think you hit on something important. That is well there has been a lot of swirl of investigative activity by the Department of Justice, this is the first time that we have known for certain that they are eyeing former president of the United States.
It`s no small thing because lots of presidents, former and current have been investigated, but no former president has been prosecuted by the Department of Justice ever, despite some evidence on the part of crime by some. When we write this piece, we are saying something significant about our knowledge, but we are also saying something significant about the precedent that is being set by the Department of Justice here today.
O`DONNELL: So “The Washington Post” published this subpoena yesterday showing that what they are interested in among other things is any communication to and from or about Donald Trump, agents of Donald Trump, anything involving Donald Trump. If they commuted that they want to know about. That subpoena now, framed in your article tonight, along with the information about Marc Short, these two grand jury witnesses who were just there, and others apparently that you are aware of who have been asked many questions about Donald Trump, how would you describe the level of focus on Donald Trump in some of the grand jury testimony?
LEONNIG: You know, here is a moment where I would like to say kudos to my colleagues on this byline along with me. Devlin Barrett, who covers the Department of Justice, Josh Dawsey who covers nearly everything, Spencer Hsu who covers the U.S. attorney`s office, All of them plied into this territory for many, many days to try to unearth what these details.
And what the team learned was that so much of — particularly Marc Short`s conversation with the grand jury was dominated by what did Trump say, and what did Trump do? What did Trump tell his lawyers? Then what was Trump`s reaction to that?
That description over and over again of the grand jury prosecutor who`s not asking for a fishing expedition, right? A grand jury is one of prosecutor is asking questions they know they need the answer to in preparation for trial, in preparation for prosecution. So, the significance of this goes way, way up when a prosecutor says, so tell me with the former prosecutor set a president said about this.
That dominant feature of the grand jury also took us aback about that questioning. If this is been an FBI agent and a 302, in which an agent as somebody a bunch of questions about Donald Trump, it would be just slightly less dramatic because the agent is trying to learn things as they go.
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In this case, we are waiting for prosecution.
O`DONNELL: How many grand juries are at work now? There`s been a grand jury in place that has been operating, for example, on the actual insurrection, on people actually attacking the Capitol, grand jury investigation targeting targets like that. Is this is a separate grand jury involving a higher level?
LEONNIG: You could be my editor, Lawrence. So that answer I don`t have, and I`m sad to say it. The — my sense is that that would be it is distinct grand jury. That the rioting to trespasser, to domestic extremist charges are being handled in one, and that this work starts a new this year with a fresh grand jury.
But to be fair, I don`t know for certain.
O`DONNELL: So we have all sitting out here have the impression, some of this more confidently than others, I haven`t been very sure about this, that the January 6th committee is running far ahead of the Justice Department in terms of investigating this arena. You have now jumbled that impression because you are now showing us the Justice Department running ahead of the January 6th committee and some of this?
LEONNIG: Well, yes and no. I think it`s right to say the January 6th committee put intense pressure on the Department of Justice and its probe. But it`s also accurate and news to me and frankly when I learned that the phone records that the Department of Justice sought and ultimately obtained in late April was before these high pressure hearings.
Again, there is one more wrinkle as I`m sure you know, Lawrence, because you`ve been working on this yourself for so long. The committee before they began the hearings, the congressional committee interviewed so many witnesses. So just based on the witnesses, the transcripts, the evidence they have taken on board, they are loads and loads ahead of the Department of Justice on that.
And actually, some of that testimony under oath, I am led to believe the department of justice will be making good use of. In other words, it`ll be purposeful for them as an investigative tool as they proceed. In other words, they won`t have to interview a ton of people unless you want to bring in people to the grand jury to make sure the grand jury hears the full story.
But those transcripts are really gold for the Department of Justice and the January 6th committee is so light years ahead of them in terms of gathering that roadmap.
O`DONNELL: Carol, as you are gathering information about what was included in the grand jury testimony, what piece of it struck you the most as focusing most clearly on Donald Trump? Is there an Oval Office moment that the grand jury is studying most closely?
LEONNIG: I think it would be skewing the audiences` impression about what we know and don`t know to focus on two grand jury appearances, that of two very serious senior pence aides that we know about, we know the details of. It would be unfair to say from that, we can conclude that the Department of Justice is focused overwhelmingly on pressure pants, poly pants, tried to get Eastman to agree to push an effort for fake electors, because we don`t know about all the other willing grand jury witnesses who come in, and hey if you subpoena me, I`ll be happy to tell you what happened.
We don`t know everything yet, and I would just say — stay tuned.
O`DONNELL: Carol, your reporting has been eagerly studied tonight by Neal Katyal, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann — you will now be followed by all of them analyzing line by line what you have delivered tonight. And so, we all appreciate your reporting as we always do.
LEONNIG: I`ll keep listening then.
O`DONNELL: Thank you very much, Carol. Thank you.
And joining us now is Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general and a Justice Department official and now, an MSNBC legal analyst.
Neal, this — this is as big a development for me as I was reading it tonight as anything that we have read in this investigation story this year.
NEAL KATYAL, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: That`s exactly right, Lawrence, it is hugely significant. In a sentence, the former president appears to be under criminal investigation by a grand jury.
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Grand jury for your listeners know. They`re always criminal, there fact finding bodies about deciding whether somebody should be criminally prosecuted, and an investigation doesn`t mean an indictment. That only comes later after all the evidence is looked at.
Lawrence, this is one of the rare times if any that a grand jury`s looked at a former president. The only example I`m aware of in American history at all is President Nixon in June of 1975 about Watergate, but he had already been pardoned at that point, so he couldn`t be criminally prosecuted. This is brand-new, as far as I can tell, it`s a momentous thing.
O`DONNELL: It comes on this day when we heard Merrick Garland, first of all, deliberately, you know, in effect, seek an interview with Lester Holt today, he decided this is the day I want to talk. Lester began the interview about January 6th, and they talked about some other subjects after that.
But the attorney general once again today, we saw that not so much impatience anymore but a real forcefulness and insistence about, we absolutely will follow this investigation and follow it to whoever it hits.
KATYAL: Yeah, exactly. Merrick Garland didn`t seek out this task. He`s the opposite of a bloodthirsty prosecutor. And the political left, of course, has been complaining about that for a long time. Now we`re about to see how that might actually help, because Garland is one of the most respected people in this town. He was chief judge of our nation`s second highest course for 20 years, never overruled once by the Supreme Court.
In a town where people talk trash about everyone, nobody, even Republicans couldn`t find trash on him when he was nominated to be in the Supreme Court. That kind of steadiness and a politicalness did really help him. What this to me says that DOJ investigative strategies are bearing fruit.
You know, Lawrence, you talked about flipping in the past. The idea that prosecutors start low and trying to build a criminal case by getting others to turn on others. We`ve seen that with the insurrectionists, then moving up to hires to extractions like Stewart Rhodes. We now as a result of reporting last week, the White House top aides to Pence, Marc Short and Mr. Jacob, were both interviewed as well. That is all bearing fruit.
Now the question is, does the department have the goods right now? Do they need more? Do they try to flip John Eastman or Jeffrey Clark or Mark Meadows? None of these are guys who are particularly known for being particularly strong or stable, so they all may be targets.
And one other big question is, is the Justice Department going to bring Vice President Pence — the former Vice President Pence before a grand jury? I think they have to. Personally, I`d be very curious about Andrew Weissmann`s views on that. But to me, that`s part of the story. Pence has been letting his aides tell the story, but I think everybody should hear from the man himself.
O`DONNELL: That`s a good point, because the grand jury is a totally different environment from the congressional committee. The grand jury is 100 percent private. The vice president`s testimony is absolutely secret and can only be revealed in a later court proceeding, whether might be a statement from the grand jury that is quoted.
And so, it`s — there is no spectacle aspect to it, but there is a huge historic influx to the point that we do is subpoena the vice president? And, of course, that decision to go all the way up to the attorney general.
KATYAL: That`s exactly right. The grand jury is the opposite of a spectacle. It is truly a fact-finding body. And if I`m Donald Trump right now, Lawrence, I think the increasing pace in broad and scope of the investigation which Carol just confirmed tonight and in even broader language that is in “The Washington Post” story, all of that would make me nervous if I`m Donald Trump.
It looks like the Department of Justice is taking a close look at all the different ways in which Trump broke the law. And when you`re Donald Trump and your ways of breaking the law are so numerous and varied, that`s going to spell real trouble. So, I think this is a very dark day for Donald Trump. It`s a good day for the rule of law, let the investigation proceed let`s see what happens.
O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal, thank you very much for joining us on this important news night. We really appreciate it.
And coming up, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who taught constitutional law to Attorney General Merrick Garland, and has known him for 50 years, will join us with his response to the breaking news tonight that Merrick Garland`s Department of Justice is — is investigating Donald Trump. That`s next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: The indictment of a former president, perhaps candidate for president would arguably tear the country apart. Is that your concern as you make your decision down the road here? Do you have to think about things like that?
MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We pursue justice without fear or favor. We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6 or in any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another accountable.
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That`s what we do. We don`t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is professor Laurence Tribe, who has taught constitutional law at Harvard Law School for five decades.
Professor tribe, I had two experiences with that Merrick Garland interview today. I washed up before “The Washington Post” reporting came out tonight, and then I watched it after “The Washington Post” reports that Donald Trump is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department.
And when you watch it after “The Washington Post” reporting, the language Merrick Garland chooses seems even stronger.
LAURENCE TRIBE, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: I agree. It seems to me very clear that when Lester holt asked Merrick Garland are you worried about tearing the country apart, all these possible collateral consequences of criminal possibly cutting a former president, there are so many ways that Merrick Garland could`ve answered. He could`ve said, well, we have to weigh everything, we take everything into account. It is the job of the attorney general to weigh all these factors.
I`m glad he didn`t. He very carefully said, almost said that`s above my pay grade. That`s not my job. I`m the chief prosecutor. I follow the evidence where it leads.
And when he said that, of course, he had to know — he had to know when he was scheduling this interview that people who had testified before the grand jury had spoken to people at “The Washington Post”. He had to know, didn`t know exactly would Carol Leonnig`s story would say but the fact that the president is being investigated, the former president is being investigated as a potential target of a criminal prosecution would become public.
And in light of that, when he chose to say that`s not my business, I`m not the healer -in-chief. It`s not my job, might be the presidents job when he`s asked to perhaps grant a pardon the way for did to Nixon, it`s someone else`s jurisdiction to worry about those things. But when I heard him say that in the first place, I thought that`s a very good sign, and suggests he is not usurping a role that doesn`t belong to him. And then when I saw the remarkable reporting in “The Washington Post”, it all came together. It became clear that the Department of Justice all the way back before the public hearings began have been carefully probing several different converging strands of a combined plan to overturn the election, the strand that involved pressure on Pence — Pence asking probing questions of Marc Short and Greg Jacobs, and the strand that involved phony electoral certificates, all of it coming together.
And it seems to me that when Merrick Garland said what he did, he was coming as close as would`ve been appropriate to say, yes, we are investigating Donald Trump because we have to make sure that whoever is responsible or for attempting to overturn the election is held criminally accountable. He didn`t quite say that but interpreting somebody that I`ve known for 50 years, that`s when I was hearing him say. And then reading “The Washington Post” I thought, yes that`s it.
So we are now on a completely different face. We now know that a former president who quite obviously did all he could to overturn the election is not going to get away without being carefully probed by this department. Of course, there are a lot of choices that remain to the attorney general, because there are so many different crimes that this fellow committed — defrauding the United States, attempting to overthrow the election, fomenting a violent insurrection, probably seditious conspiracy.
Which of them should be charged in what order? All of those decisions, six quintile decisions, whatever needs that is necessarily going to be decided overnight but those decisions of a typical prosecutorial kind. They are not momentous decisions about whether the attorney general is going to make history.
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And I think he`s performing his job admirably, and those of us, including me who were impatient, I think have now been told, “See, I was really ahead of the game all along. And you can be happy.”
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O`DONNELL There was a phrase that he released — there`s a phrase that he used in one of his answers today where he used the phrase, “from the beginning”.
And after reading the “Washington Post” article, words like that resonate so strongly. Let`s listen to that piece of it.
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MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Justice Department has from the beginning, been moving urgently to learn everything we can about this period and to bring to justice everybody who is criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which is the fundamental element of our democracy.
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O`DONNELL: From the beginning, he is stressing, that we have been on this case while everyone out here has been so impatient.
TRIBE: He certainly has. And I don`t think he is crowing. He is not saying, you know — yes, yes, I was, right you are wrong. He`s very measured. He`s simply saying, we are doing our job, let us do our job. And that is exactly what I think the country needed to hear.
And I think normalcy is really important at a time like this. It is important to know that he didn`t have a vendetta. He wasn`t out to get the former president, but all roads led to the same conclusion, a conclusion that there has to be an investigation of the former president`s role in attempting to overturn an election. Something that Merrick Garland went out of his way to say was really a very central part of preserving democracy, to make sure that no attempt to overturn an election can succeed.
So that is what we are watching now. We are all living through this historic moment.
O`DONNELL: A Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, thank you very much for joining us on this night when this story does appear to be taking an historic turn. We really appreciate you joining us.
TRIBE: Thank you. Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: And coming, up a prosecutor who has investigated Donald Trump`s actions in the Justice Department. Andrew Weissmann will join us.
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O`DONNELL: The “Washington Post” breaking news of the night is that the Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump and today, before the “Washington Post” reported that, Attorney General Merrick Garland told Lester Holt that if Donald Trump becomes a presidential candidate again that will not change anything about any action that the Justice Department might consider taking against Donald Trump.
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LESLIE HOLT: If Donald Trump were to become a candidate for president again, that would not change your schedule or how you move forward or don`t move forward?
GARLAND: I say again, that we will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer — legitimate lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Hours before the “Washington Post” broke the news that Donald Trump was being investigated by the Justice Department, the “New York Times” reported on previously undisclosed emails revealing details of Donald Trump`s fake electors plan.
The “New York Times” reported, the emails show that participants in the discussions reported details on their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump`s personal lawyer, and in at least one case to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. Around the same time, according to the House Committee investigating the January 6th attack, Mr. Meadows emailed another campaign adviser saying we just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.”
Joining us now is Andrew Weissmann, former FBI general counsel and former chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of New York. He is a professor of practice at NYU Law School. And Andrew, there is so much for a former prosecutor to deal with in today`s avalanche of news about this.
But let`s begin with what we have learned from the “Washington Post” just in the last couple of hours. This reads to me as if Donald Trump is a subject of a criminal investigation. A federal criminal investigation.
ANDREW WEISSMANN, FORMER FBI GENERAL COUNSEL: You are right. That`s the short answer. And Lawrence, I think you are doing yourself a disservice because in your interview with Carol, she said something that went further than the “Washington Post” article.
And what I`m getting at is, the definition of a subject of an investigation is a technical term under the Department of Justice manual — the Justice Manual. And it is quite broad. It can include anybody who is actually a participant in a meeting, whether they have criminal liability or not. So it can be somewhat of a misleading term.
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WEISSMANN: But I think your interview with Carol, what stood out to me, was her telling you, in the grand jury the prosecutors weren`t asking questions that this was Donald Trump just happened to be there. They were asking questions, she said, that were what did he say, what was said to him, what was his reaction.
Those are questions of what we used to refer to as a subject plus. Meaning somebody who you are actually looking at in terms of potential criminal liability. So I thought that was quite revealing in terms of additional information from her story.
O`DONNELL: Talk about what it is like to be in that grand jury room, none of us know. It`s the secret chamber in the judicial system. My sense of it is that the grand jury time is process. Their attention is precious, especially if they are sitting on complex long cases. And you don`t want to, number one, waste their time.
So it strikes me that if you are repeatedly asking questions about Donald Trump. If you are repeatedly using grand jury time that way, that alone tells you something about how important the focus on Donald Trump is.
WEISSMANN: Well, I think there are two types of witnesses who go into a grand jury. There — sometimes, you have a sort of hostile witness and you are putting the witness in and it can be quite a back and forth. And you really are trying to get information.
And in that situation they can take a lot of time. And it`s not always clear that the questions is going to be productive. There are other witnesses that I think Marc Short and Mr. Jacob fall into, who are most likely quite cooperative, and you have a good sense of what they are going to say. Sometimes you interview them before.
And so those are much more streamlined presentation, and the questions you ask and the answers you get are all going to be important because you are not going to waste your time on things that are extraneous to the investigation.
So I think that is a fair inference. It`s sort of guesswork, but educated guesswork in this situation.
O`DONNELL: So what is your chance now of the shape of the Justice Department investigation? Because we — there is a couple of versions of it that have been suggested, that they were working from the bottom up.
You recently, in an op-ed piece suggested a different kind of a different shape to this sort of investigation. What do you think the shape of it is now?
WEISSMANN: You know, I don`t think we know. I think Carol was very careful on answering your question. I don`t put too much weight on the fact that there were telephone records that the Justice Department got it in April. You know, that`s — my question on that is it could be months and months earlier than that. I mean telephone records are so easy to obtain just by vis-a-vis (ph) subpoena. So I didn`t view that as terribly telling. I actually view (ph) something that the attorney general said in the interview with Lester Holt today quite important where he did not talk about the investigation being limited to what happened on January 6. He deliberately described the investigation as the illegal transfer of power.
And all of the events relating to January 6. So I thought that was a really good sign that he was not looking at this as some isolated event and understands, because obviously, he`s a very smart, serious man, and all of the different facets of the investigation. But I, like Neal and Carol say, there is definitely a long way to go.
But I think between the “New York Times”, the “Washington Post”, and the attorney general interview today, these were all very good signs for the rule of law.
O`DONNELL: Andrew, I felt that I heard something different in Merrick Garland`s voice today. That he has been asked these kinds of questions in the past, he has never put himself in a position really that invites the questions. It has been — he`s been at a podium trying to talk about something else, and we get questions about this.
There has always been some impatience with our impatience. And there has always been a certain defensiveness about the impatience of built into the question about what are you doing on investigating January 6? And what about Donald Trump?
And today, in all of his responses to Lester Holt, after he knew that yesterday the “Washington Post” published a subpoena with Donald Trump`s name all over it, and probably knew that — he also knew that of course they know that the vice president`s staff has been into the grand jury. They know that already. That is public information.
I was hearing a kind of confidence and a definitiveness about this is what we are doing.
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WEISSMANN: Yes, I agree. And you know, the one thing nobody can take away from Merrick Garland is he has the necessary backbone to do this investigation. And I can`t stress enough how important that is. It is going to be important for the Justice Department to have the skill set, the confidence, to do the investigation.
But it is absolutely necessary from the top to have a leader who is fully supportive of the investigation. And for whatever reason, whether it has to do with the January 6th Committee hearings, whether it has to do with criticism, I thought it was very important for the attorney general to send that message, externally and internally to the department that he is fully on board because it`s going to take that. This is going to be a difficult road. They are going to be chopping waters. There can be a lot of criticism.
You know, God knows I know firsthand that — you know, what it takes. And it`s really important to have a leader behind you. And I think Merrick Garland is that leader.
O`DONNELL: Andrew Weissmann, thank you very much for joining us on this very, very important night in the story. Really appreciate it.
WEISSMANN: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, a 27 year veteran of the Secret Service, former deputy assistant director, Jim Helminski will join us next on a day when the Secret Service story got even crazier. That is next.
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O`DONNELL: Hard to believe, but it got even crazier today at the Secret Service. The chairs of two House committees are calling for the replacement of the inspector general who has been investigating the Secret Service. In a letter today to the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, Bennie Thompson in his capacity as chair of the Homeland Security Committee and Carolyn Maloney chair of the committee on Oversight and Reform describe quote, “Inspector general Cuffari`s failure to promptly notify Congress of crucial information while conducting an investigation of the Secret Service`s preparation for and response to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“Inspector General Cuffari failed to provide adequate or timely notice that the Secret Service had refused for months to comply with the inspector general`s requests for information related to the January 6th attack.”
And the Secret Service has replied to my question, did Secret Service director James Murray delete his January 6 texts? In an email reply to us, the Secret Service spokesperson said quote, “The only text messages on Director Murray`s phone on January 5th and 6th where notifications from his alarm company at his residence. By policy, Secret Service employees are not to conduct official government business via text for information security purposes as well as government record retention.”
And joining us now is Jim Helminski, who served as deputy assistant director of the United States Secret Service until 2015. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
I want to begin with this issue involving the inspector general. Another turn in that road where suddenly the House representative certainly has lost confidence in this inspector general, and wants him replaced. What is your reaction to that?
JIM HELMINSKI, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, U.S. SECRET SERVICE: Well that was an article by Carol Lennox who obviously is the master of all things Secret Service, whether good or bad.
My opinion on that situation is — when you read the article, it talks about that the inspector general knew about other messages as early as December of 2021 that were deleted. And that was the cause of the (INAUDIBLE) the expected removal of the inspector general to another more neutral inspector general.
Now if you look at that, this sort of brings Tony Ornato into more question here. Because it goes back, you have to start asking the question, what about the Oval Office meeting on December 18th, where the Stop the Steal actually began? And you see the text messages between Cassidy Hutchinson and Tony Ornato. Maybe that is where this investigation starts to begin.
O`DONNELL: I want to go to the issue of text message policy. So we have learned in our response about our question to the director, that apparently at the Secret Service now, it is against Secret Service policy to use any text messaging in your official Secret Service capacity, on any Secret Service subject.
Now, you were at the Secret Service when text messaging was actually invented. When it came into our lives. Did the Secret Service develop that rule while you were there?
[22:54:40]
HELMINSKI: Well I don`t know what their exact policy is now. But text messaging was a casual form of communications across a broad spectrum of agencies. You know, I read your media inquiry and on one hand, it says that we have a policy that strict policy of no text messaging.
But on the other hand, they are asked — they`ve identified 24 people, ten of which, that they said have deleted, erased messages. So what is it? Do you have a policy? Or you don`t have a policy?
O`DONNELL: And so, what would you suggest we should expect as this investigation goes forward on the text messages? What should we be looking for at the Secret Service?
HELMINSKI: Well the Secret Service, first thing that they should be doing is that their Secret Service legal department should be discussing with these 24 people what did you text? Now did you text on government phones? Did you text on private phones?
Either way it becomes part of a record. And, you know, anyway you look at this, Lawrence, it`s not a good look for the Secret Service.
Justice has been obstructed, whether it has been through a malicious intent or ineptitude, by not having strict policy for texting.
O`DONNELL: Jim Helminski, thank you very much for joining us. I really appreciate your expertise on the Secret Service which is a very Secret Service. And so we really appreciate your enlightening us. Thank you very much.
HELMINSKI: Thank you sir. It was a proud career.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
We`ll be right back.
[22:56:24]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: We went into overtime.
“THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE” starts right now.