Updated
Summary
New evidence including draft tweets made in advance of the January 6th Capitol attack showing Trump`s illicit intent. Also new evidence of a White House debate prior to January 6th of a plan where the U.S. military would seize voting machines. Former Mueller probe senior member Andrew Weissmann joins Ari Melber to share his thoughts and reactions to the January 6 hearing and the Trump witness tampering. Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested and former assistant special Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman join THE BEAT with Ari Melber to talk about the new evidence that links the violent groups of some Trump advisers.
Transcript
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: So in case you missed any of today`s hearing or any of our analysis over the last two hours, it`s not too late. You can tune in tonight at 8:00 Eastern for our primetime recap special. I`ll have the privilege of joining my colleague Rachel Maddow and all — and Joy Reid and all of our primetime colleagues for two hours of comprehensive coverage of the tape of the actual hearings, what we saw and heard today, and everyone`s smart thoughts about what it all means.
That`s tonight at 8:00 Eastern. Our coverage right now continues with a man who Neal just described as a very, very, very smart lawyer, Ari Melber.
Hi, Ari.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Hi, Nicolle. Thank you so much. I`ll see you tonight.
Welcome to THE BEAT, everyone. And here is what we learned at this packed insurrection hearing today.
Explosive evidence that Donald Trump planned to lead the march to the Capitol in advance. That`s bad for Trump because it undercuts the defense of a rally getting just out of hand, and this was revealed by furtive texts from Trump`s own aides.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): POTUS is going to have us march there, slash, the Capitol. POTUS is going to just caller for it, quote, “unexpectedly.”
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Now it was planned so it was expected. That text shows exactly how Donald Trump was cooking up a lie to make it look spontaneous.
That`s also bad because it shows some of Trump`s illicit intent by hiding the plan in advance and that the whole march was what Trump turned to after a grave meeting that was plotting a military role in a coup in the United States to take over your country, democracy and government.
This is heavy stuff. And this was also part of what was documented today, where Trump`s most extreme plotters were pushing for him to abuse power with an illegal order for the military to seize voting machines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): On Friday, December 18th, his team of outside advisers paid him a surprise visit. They proposed the immediate mass seizure of state election machines by the U.S. Military.
ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: It got to the point where the screaming was completely, completely out there.
RASKIN: Miss Hutchinson reported that the meeting in the West Wing was unhinged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: This was not just talk. There was an actual written draft order to carry this out. And then to promote one of the Trump lawyers, who frankly makes Rudy Giuliani look restrained, Sidney Powell, and I mean that literally. She does make Giuliani look restrained. The idea was to take her and put her in some new special counsel job where she might use the power and lethal force, potentially, of armed federal agents to carry this order out in concert with the military.
Now, yes, some of that sounds extreme, but this was not a drill, and the newly released evidence shows Trump and Powell took actions here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: Certain accounts of this meeting indicate that President Trump actually granted Miss Powell security clearance and appointed her to a somewhat ill-defined position of special counsel.
SIDNEY POWELL, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: He asked Pat Cipollone if he had the authority to name me special counsel, and he said yes. And then he asked him if he had the authority to give me whatever security clearance I needed, and Pat Cipollone said yes. And then the president said, OK, you know, I`m naming her that and I`m giving her security clearance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s not hearsay despite so much of what we heard in objection on the right. That`s just Miss Powell confirming that moment she got that job with the newest witness to face Congress, Trump lawyer Pat Cipollone confirming that she was acting like she had that job, and that`s all in the White House. Then today also featured testimony about the, quote, “armed revolution” with some of Trump`s own convicted supporters turning on him, speaking out.
So this hearing added material on Trump`s mindset, the military plot, and that militia violence. And now here we are, seven hearings in with likely just one to go next week. What does all the evidence show together? Because this is about evidence, not opinions or politics or ideology.
Well, here`s our best effort about what`s been proven so far in one sentence.
Trump led the plot, planned the march in advance, hid his own planning with illicit intent, doubled down when told his fans were armed, and then viewed the storming of the Capitol as a goal to be cheered, not a mistake to be stopped.
That`s not what Trump and his aides were saying before this investigation exposed all of this evidence because admitting that is like asking to be indicted, and that`s what it sounds like this committee is suggesting the Justice Department do to Donald Trump.
[18:05:08]
Joining us now to kick off the program on this busy news day is the former chief of the famed SDNY, attorney David Kelley, also full disclosure my former boss, and “The New York Times” columnist Michelle Goldberg.
Welcome to both of you. We have more of the evidence to show, but big picture on today and the final point of what the case appears to be building. Your thoughts.
DAVID KELLEY, FORMER SDNY CHIEF: My thoughts were — the takeaway from today is overwhelming evidence of his intent. A lot of people have focused on the notion that, well, Trump really believed that the election was stolen, so we kind of want to give him a pass, and we have to find a way to get around that. I`m not buying into that. The question is whether or not his belief was reasonable.
If it was truly his belief that the election was stolen, the question is, was that a reasonable belief to hold? And the answer I think is absolutely not, and there was overwhelming evidence of that today.
The second thing I`d talk about in terms of the big picture is where do they go from here, and I think a lot of people are thinking in their minds, you know, seditious conspiracy and conspiring with the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and so forth. And I think that, really, from a prosecutor`s standpoint is not where I would begin. I would think, let`s not make perfect the enemy of the good here.
There are lots of charges here that I think the facts really speak directly to in terms of Trump`s involvement. You know, committing fraud, trying to prevent or impede a government proceeding from going forward. And I think those are the simple cases that can be made here, and I think there`s ample evidence for a prosecutor to bring a case.
MELBER: And just briefly, those are real crimes. You`ve put people in prison for fraud and for interfering with government activity.
KELLEY: Extremely serious crimes, and I think when you get into something like seditious conspiracy, now this really I think there`s something there, but is it really something that is the benefit of the country to pursue? Is it something that you can really sell to a jury and not risk nullification? Is it too big? Does it become too political?
MELBER: And by nullification you mean a juror saying even if the facts are proven they don`t like the feeling of convicting a former president for that.
KELLEY: Exactly. And so I think I would approach this from a smaller scale. Let`s focus on the lower hanging fruit. And I think if you`re looking — if you`re a prosecutor looking at this information — by the way, you need to look at what came out of the hearing as information, right? Not evidence. Because what a prosecutor needs to do is to take information and convert that into evidence.
What can I make as admissible evidence in a courtroom that is essentially unassailable? So number one, you have a challenge of, for instance, hearsay, Cassidy Hutchinson, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. A lot of that was hearsay. So the challenge is how can I take that information —
MELBER: But Sidney Powell wasn`t.
KELLEY: Exactly, but you also have witnesses who Sidney Powell, is she going to really hold up on a cross-examination? Because she wants that cross-examination. She wants to cave under cross-examination because she doesn`t want to help the government here. Whereas there are some other witnesses who — Cassidy being one of them — may not sustain cross- examination as well as she sustained direct examination.
MELBER: No, and I think you`re making a fair point whether people like hearing it or not, that this has been more like a prosecutorial brief and as they said in “A Few Good Men,” Michelle, the witness has rights. And if you go into a case, there will be cross-examinations. Some of this might not hold up the same way, although there was a lot today.
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, THE NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST: Right. I mean, I think that whether or not you can make a case for seditious conspiracy from a prosecutor`s point of view, from a legal point of view, just from the colloquial meaning of those words, this was a seditious conspiracy.
One of the things I think they`ve done, because Donald Trump behaved so erratically and chaotically, it sometimes seemed as if he was acting totally on impulse, and what they have done is really draw out the logic behind a lot of these movies. You know, draw out the fact that the January — I`m sorry, the December 19th tweet saying, you know, it will be wild, came as a last-ditch effort when his other plans were shot down the day before in this chaotic meeting. Drew out the fact that he supposedly tossed offline about let`s march to the Capitol, was planned in advance, that there was a tweet drafted that he decided not to send.
MELBER: Exactly.
GOLDBERG: That he put the word out so that Ali Alexander, you know, knew that this was coming or at least had word that this was coming. I thought – – before today`s hearing I thought it was possible that the best case that they would try — that they would be able to make a case that he incited the mob, right? It`s what sometimes researchers call stochastic terrorism, where you say somebody really has to do something. And you know that there`s violent people out there and you assume that one of them will act on what you say.
Whereas, I think what they did today was draw a much more direct link, that there was phone calls, that Roger Stone was directly in touch with the people who were planning these formations.
MELBER: Right. So —
[18:10:08]
GOLDBERG: And that they were getting their orders from the top.
MELBER: Right, an operative planned to march on the Capitol to, as David reminded us, commit the crime of obstructing the counting of the votes to see the lawful transfer of power.
You both put it very well. Stay with me here. We turn to the military coup. This was called many things, unhinged, a major fight, you had Trump, Flynn, Giuliani and of course Powell, the aforementioned extreme coup plotting lawyer, and the clash was between them and other Trump officials.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEREK LYONS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE STAFF SECRETARY: There were people shouting at each other, hurling insults at each other.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN LAWYER: You guys are not tough enough, or maybe I put it another way, you`re a bunch of (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
HERSCHMANN: The screaming was completely, completely out there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Part of this sounds like yet another reality show, but to understand this, you have to put aside the screaming and the clownery and see that tempers were high because people were talking about something inside the White House that could get them all incarcerated for a long time. A military coup or military assist with a coup that may or may not have happened. Former White House counsel Cipollone testifying he of course opposed that as they debated this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERSCHMANN: What they were proposing I thought was nuts. Flynn screamed at me that I was a quitter and everything. Kept on standing up and turning around and screaming at me.
LYONS: We landed where we started the meeting. Sidney Powell was fighting. Mike Flynn was fighting. They were looking for avenues that would enable — that would result in President Trump remaining President Trump for a second term.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Remaining President Trump. When you`re doing that after you`ve lost, that is using government power for a coup. And they wanted to name Powell special counsel, a sort of Muller-esque idea that she would then have this power and exercise it.
Remember, when this did falter after that hours` long, quote-unquote, “unhinged meeting” is when Donald Trump then tweet about Navarro`s ideas about election fraud, and for the first time summoning everyone to come to Washington on January 6th. Michelle?
GOLDBERG: Look, I think that I would actually be careful about the word military coup. I mean, I think he was clearly attempting a coup. When we think about a military coup we might think about the military going around, you know, rounding people up, shutting down Congress. He wanted to use the military in furtherance of his own coup attempt, if that`s not too much of a distinction.
And I think that the fact — one of the things that — this goes to Trump`s mindset is that sometimes what he`s proposing seems so ridiculous that it`s hard for people to take it seriously, but what I think we`re seeing again and again is that it was really dead serious.
MELBER: Yes.
GOLDBERG: We saw, you know, some of the shocking testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson was about him, you know, his desperation to get to the Capitol. You know, there was some debate about whether or not he really tried to grab the steering wheel from the Secret Service, but he was certainly berating the Secret Service. And now I think we have even more insight into why he felt it was so important for him to be at the Capitol because of what his people were trying to do there.
And there was also a really important moment when one of the people who was at the Capitol, who marched on the Capitol and now has kind of recanted. When asked why they left, and he said that they left because Trump finally, at around 4:17, I believe, told them to.
MELBER: Right.
GOLDBERG: Which I think shows you again who was in charge.
MELBER: Exactly. And so, David, I want to get you on this mob here. You have them planning to go to the Capitol. They knew why they wanted to be there. The Capitol insurrection coordinated, organized. We have a text message here that was sent on January 4th. “POTUS is going to have us march there. Can`t get out about the second stage because people might try to sabotage.”
Now this is two days before the insurrection. The organizer knew in advance about the plan. And we know from Hutchinson`s testimony just last week that Trump was told the mob was armed but he doubled down and people listened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN AYRES, JANUARY 6TH CAPITOL RIOTER: We didn`t actually plan to go down there. You know, we went basically to see the Stop the Steal rally, and that was it.
MURPHY: So why did you decide to march to the Capitol?
AYRES: Well, basically, you know, the president, you know, got everybody riled up, told everybody to head on down, so we basically was just following what he said.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: What does that show, David?
KELLEY: Well, you know, it`s typical of Trump. What he tries to do is to have people do things and not have his finger prints on it, you know. And so — but it fails here because there`s a demonstrated capacity to rile up his tweet followers and other people, have him do what he directs.
[18:15:02]
And there`s a whole history of that. And that`s exactly what he exploited here and there`s no escaping it. And I think that, you know, certainly what he is directing in his tweets speaks volumes about his intent. It`s speaks volumes about what he intended them to do for him. And I think, you know, if he was ever charged this would be, you know, very difficult evidence for him to overcome in terms of establishing his intent, whether — and again this proof can be used for any one of the charges ranging from seditious conspiracy to interrupting, impeding a government proceeding.
MELBER: Yes. So you keep going back to those felonies.
Before we go, Michelle, Trump 2020 campaign chair Brad Parscale. He led this re-election effort. He is numero uno. And we`ll just put up briefly on the screen, there`s a text that he sent on the 6th to another Trump ally. So his president is in office, it`s a private message.
What did you think of this and how striking this is for people around the country? Some people will never look at the evidence. But I think we`ll pull this up. What Brad Parscale can say, he feels here. I think we`re going to find it. This is Trump — president`s seen the Trump tweet and then we`ll show you — yes, Brad Parscale.
GOLDBERG: Yes, that`s it.
MELBER: “This week, I feel guilty for helping him win.” That`s his text on the left. Leave that up for a second.
GOLDBERG: Right, and he says —
MELBER: Go ahead.
GOLDBERG: And he says the president trying to start the civil war. And at one point I think Katrina Pearson says, well, you know, he says people got killed, and Katrina Pearson said, well, it wasn`t just rhetoric, and he said, come on, Katrina, it was. And yes, it`s an astonishing moment of him acknowledging privately what he won`t acknowledge publicly, which was, you know, the sort of monstrous nature of the presidency he enabled.
But to me, one of the things that`s even more remarkable and so telling about the kind of people who surround Trump is that by the next month he`s supporting Trump again, right? And he I believe is working for Trump right now. I could be wrong, but at least was after this tweet was sent. And —
MELBER: Well, I`ll just say briefly. Parscale is going to Parscale. He`s doing what he`s doing. But the evidence that`s new is it actually draws the curtain back, that if you put out the money and the self-interest that day —
GOLDBERG: Right. That they know — right. That they know.
MELBER: He knows who did it and he felt at least for a moment privately, it seemed he felt bad about it.
GOLDBERG: Well, I think, you know, one of the questions that we all have I think about a lot of these characters is whether or not they`re capable of shame, and what we see here is that they are, however momentarily.
MELBER: Momentarily.
David Kelley and Michelle Goldberg, with a lot of key points. Appreciate both of you.
It`s a special show. We have a lot coming up. Today`s revelation of a coup alliance on the militia groups. We have the filmmaker imbedded with the Proud Boys and a deep dive into what testimony today reveals about what David and I discussed Trump`s criminal intent. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:22:08]
MELBER: Turning to our breakdown, this committee hearing today had evidence on Trump`s criminal intent about unleashing the violent mob at the Capitol. We spent the top of the show talking about much of what was happening inside the White House. But this rebuts one of the Trump`s defenses that it was a rally that got out of hand.
The committee showing how Trump knew, planned and then directly led this march on the Capitol, hiding his plans as he went. There was, for example, Trump`s main mechanism, one that everyone knows he loves and that he takes careful attention with — tweets. They may seem spontaneous, but there actually are draft tweets and you see here the system.
Here`s one that was written, “I`ll be making a big speech on January 6th. Arrive early. Massive crowds expected.” And then look at the screen, quote, “March to the Capitol after.” And you see the stamp the president has seen. That draft tweet actually never went out, but it`s in some senses worse that way as evidence.
Then four days before the riot, you had a phone call with Trump`s chief of staff for the rally there, saying, quote, “POTUS expectations are to call on everyone to march to the Capitol.” The committee also revealing this from a different rally organizer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MURPHY: The organizer says, you know, this stays between us. We`re having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the Ellipse. POTUS is going to have us march there, slash, the Capitol. I will be in trouble with the National Park Service and all the agencies, but POTUS is going to just call for it, quote, “unexpectedly.”
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s that unexpectedly thing. We might hear a lot more about that because it shows that Donald Trump not only was planning this, but was hiding that he was planning it, which suggests he knew he needed to hide it, and why would you need to hide the location of a gathering if it was going to be lawful and peaceful? You can meet anywhere in Washington.
No, it dovetails with the other incriminating evidence that he also continued to push for this march after finding out attendees were armed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don`t care that they have weapons. They`re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Let the people in. Lead them on a march. And all of that, all of this march stuff, overlaps with the related fight to try to press Pence, and when he resisted, press him further, which sparked a fight with the White House Counsel`s Office, which is why it`s a big deal that they got this new witness testimony from Mr. Cipollone.
Meanwhile, even one of Donald Trump`s most loyal aides, Stephen Miller, was pushed into a kind of lawyerly concession about this Pence strategy and why it was a, quote, “counterproductive approach.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you ever speak to anybody in the White House at the time about the disagreement between the president and vice president other than the president based on the objection from your counsel?
STEPHEN MILLER, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: Maybe had a brief conversation about it with Eric Herschmann.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me about that.
MILLER: I don`t want to get this wrong. Sort of something to the effect of thinking that it would be counterproductive, I think, he thought, to discuss the matter publicly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: It would be counterproductive to discuss it publicly. This is a politicized lawyered way of saying that even Mr. Miller loyal to Trump understood the objections that were being offered to him and Trump about this public effort to combine the march with the demand that Mike Pence break the law to break democracy.
We`re going to get into this with one of the top prosecutors in America, former Mueller deputy, Andrew Weissmann, when we`re back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREA MITCHELLE, MSNBC HOST, ANDREA MITCHELL REPORTS: I have witnessed so many hearings going all the way back, Iran contra, I have never seen anything like this.
KATY TUR, MSNBC HOST, KATY TUR REPORTS: That was some of the wildest things I`ve ever seen, Andrea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shocking and even terrifying testimony today.
JONATHAN TURLEY, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ATTORNEY: The account of that meeting in the office is really breathtaking, it`s very disturbing.
LESTER HOLT, MSNBC HOST: The most comprehensive telling yet of a wild meeting.
HALLIE JACKSON, MSNBC HOST: Connect the dots to show that there was a link to Donald Trump`s inner circle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Some of the first reactions today to the explosive testimony and evidence. Veteran journalists, longtime Washington insiders, quite stunned by the documented lengths Trump went to overthrow the transfer of power, which bring us to, if I may, another seasoned expert, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, the most recently a top lieutenant in the Mueller probe, previously the chief of the Federal Criminal Division in Brooklyn where he led several high-profile mafia cases.
He`s also a former director of the Enron Task Force while Mueller ran the FBI, and now among other things an NYU law professor.
Thank you for being here.
ANDREW WEISSMANN, FORMER MUELLER PROBE SENIOR MEMBER: Nice to be here.
MELBER: I mentioned all of your credentials because it`s so relevant to the intersecting challenge here for America and law. The hearing packed a lot, but it`s also ended, and this is the first time we`ve reached this in our program, with Congresswoman Cheney revealing this new evidence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): After our last hearing President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation, a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. Their lawyer alerted us, and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Andrew, is that important?
WEISSMANN: Potentially. So, you know, this is the second time that Liz Cheney has had a shot across the bow about witness tampering and rightly so because she does not have the ability to prosecute it, but she does have the ability to call it out.
And so here, one of the ambiguities that I`m really interested in is it`s not really clear whether the president or former president left a message, in other words, how did this person who reported to the committee, how did they know it was from the president and the president was calling? So it`s really unclear exactly what evidence there is, and I obviously would be very curious about that.
If there is no voicemail and it`s simply a telephone record, I`m not really sure how much DOJ`s going to be able to do with that other than pursuing other leads. And certainly, you know, witness tampering, incredibly important to prosecute it, to thwart it, and if you can prove it, it is incredibly strong evidence because if you are not culpable, why would you need to tamper with witnesses? You would just be telling witnesses, just tell the truth.
So, it`s potentially interesting, but I found that the information was so thin and maybe deliberately so that Liz Cheney was giving because she wants to let DOJ, you know, have its say, but it`s a little too early to tell whether this is going to really be anything.
[18:30:00]
MELBER: Yes. Appreciate your precision there. That`s part of what we wonder. People watch the hearings, that`s a government perspective, and then we`re getting further context analysis. You have this experience in complex prosecutions. That includes going after, you know, shrewd mafia, and business leaders who try to avoid providing evidence that may be familiar to people.
I also want — while we have you to know you`re making waves with your New York Times piece that advises the A.G. to investigate. This is a hub-and- spoke conspiracy. You write that this bottom-up investigation approach. Sees the attack on the Capitol as a single event. An isolated riot, separate from other efforts by Trump to overturn the election.
But you`re right, that is actually inadequate because the evidence reveals a, quote, multi-prong conspiracy where Trump`s January 6th speech and the attack on the Capitol where one spoke of a grander scheme, end quote. Very interesting for those who understand that it`s a big deal when people with — again not to embarrass you, but your stature here in the DOJ.
You know, a lot of those people, I know you respect them professionally, but you`re basically saying that there is a road not taken best you can tell. And that`s potentially a mistake and they can do more, which you think would be good for nonpartisan law enforcement. Explain.
WEISSMANN: So, I think one of the things that you saw today at the outset of the hearing, and certainly I think the series of hearings has shown is that the committee has really not looked just at what happened on January 6th, but put it in context of all the other ways in which the White House and the former president were trying to stay in power.
So that could include what he was doing with respect to DOJ, what he was doing with respect to Georgia, the pressure campaign that you referenced with respect to the vice president. In other words, putting it all in context. And if you notice, at the outset of today`s hearing, there was an effort to say, you know, we`re going to focus on one part of this plot. But this is — you need to see it in context.
And the reason I think that`s important is, as you mentioned, you know, everyone look thinks from a criminal perspective, what`s the evidence of intent? And, you know, if you`re a prosecutor, you want all of the evidence, and you want to see all of the ways in which the person you`re thinking of charging, has conducted themselves.
So, it is relevant to know what the president did with Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, when you`re thinking about what is he doing with respect to the riots on January 6, it`s relevant to know what is he doing with respect to the heading the Department of Justice, so we can put it a flunky to say that there`s fraud going on when that`s false, I mean, all of it becomes of a piece.
And if you`re a juror, you would want to see the whole picture. So, what I was trying to encourage in my op-ed was really having department not have a sort of very myopic, single focus to their investigation. And to really be thinking of this the way the January 6 committee has presented it to the public.
MELBER: Have you thought about lending them your glasses, if you think they`re myopic?
WEISSMANN: Yes. So, this was a way of doing that in a — in a written way.
MELBER: In a written way. Well, let me read a little more of your writing because, again, striking coming from you and I — again, people I think know you`re chops. You say, quote, prosecutors at DOJ were reportedly surprised by the testimony of Hutchinson not a sign of a robust investigation.
The department has more tools than Congress does to learn the truth. It could have interviewed Hutchinson long ago, as well as many others whose evidence is relevant. Fact check — true. Anyone who wanted a crash course reminder of these powers has seen that even a very effective committee like this one has to then ask DOJ to do stuff for example, with the had multiple people resisting, some of them got indicted for contempt. Some didn`t.
The final calls with DOJ, but anytime they want to get a judge-approved warrant or lawful surveillance powers, or scoop people up or compel witness testimony, they can do that. You`re basically saying with regard to some of these witnesses, they`ve been asleep at the wheel.
WEISSMANN: You know, I think that`s basically right. And, frankly, the Cassidy Hutchinson reports that the department was just as surprised as the public was the impetus for why I wrote this. That was surprising to me.
MELBER: Let`s pause on that and then I let you continue. You`re saying this is not a long-standing thing that you were sure of, say three months ago, that it was that — what many people saw as bombshell testimony that when it was in the papers that DOJ was surprised by it. That set off an alarm bell for you?
WEISSMANN: Yes, exactly. Because I thought you know, the Department of Justice has more tools not fewer tools than Congress to get at the truth. It has one of the broadest powers in the — in law enforcement, which is a grand jury subpoena. And it seems pretty clear from those reports that the department was not looking at people at the White House with lots of very, very relevant information.
[18:35:00]
And, you know, to me, they were conducting an investigation that was too narrow and I thought that their investigation could really follow the model that was set by the January 6 committee which was to look at this holistically in terms of what is the grand scheme, what are all of the different prongs and not just be focusing on the people who entered the Capitol. As bad as that is, it doesn`t get at the — the person who was likely behind all of that.
MELBER: Now I`m over on time. Have you heard back from anyone at DOJ?
WEISSMANN: Um, yes, I have, and — they can`t really talk about it, but I`ve heard from people from inside and people who have recently left.
MELBER: Very interesting, all of it, which is why we want to hear from you on this big day and I appreciate you coming on THE BEAT, Mr. Weissmann.
WEISSMANN: Glad to be here.
MELBER: Absolutely. When we come back, we turn to the filmmaker who is embedded with the Proud Boys, a January 6 witness. I told you, we always go to the sources when we can and we do that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:40:43]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN AYRES, PARTICIPATED IN JANUARY 6 RIOT: The president, you know, got everybody riled up, told everybody head on down, so we basically, we just following what he said.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD), JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE: Was it your view that these far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and Three Percenters and others, were on your side?
AYRES: That time, you know, like, I didn`t have a problem with it. I thought it was a good thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: I thought it was a good thing. The witness you see there, Mr. Ayres was actually at the insurrection at the Capitol. But he`s turned, he`s cooperated. He`s testifying. The committee revealing as well today, an email from a month before this, before January 6, we`re an Oath Keeper leader says there`ll be an alliance with the Proud Boys to shut it down.
It`s always helpful to investigators when you put what might be your conspiracy in writing. Hearing also highlighting and this is important links between some Trump figures like Flynn, with Oath Keepers founder and defendants to a Rhodes, there they are together in Washington.
Or take Roger Stone, tied to both groups was guarded on insurrection day by two Oath Keepers who have since been indicted for seditious conspiracy. And then there`s the coordination with the Proud Boys` leader in the run-up to the insurrection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP OUTSIDE ADVISOR: This is nothing less than an epic struggle for the future of this country, between dark and light. Between the godly and the godless. Between good and evil. And we will win this fight, or America was stepped off into a thousand years of darkness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s not just anybody. It`s Donald Trump`s longest-serving advisor Roger Stone, who was close enough with him to get a commutation and then a pardon before January 20th. That said, I want to be clear with you. Today was the hearing exploring these links and it, as I note, mentioned Flynn and Stone, it did not yet directly tie anyone who was working for Trump in the White House at the time, directly to the plotting by these groups.
I`m joined now by someone who has been a witness before this committee, the filmmaker embedded with the Proud Boys. January 6 witness Nick Quested, and we`re showing a little bit of that footage there, which was used by this committee. And former federal prosecutor Nick Akerman, who has dealt with Roger Stone all the way back to the Watergate prosecution. Welcome to both of you.
NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: Thank you.
MELBER: Let`s start with what today did it didn`t show. Links to some Trump figures, but not anyone in the White House. How bad is it?
NICK QUESTED, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: I don`t know how bad it is. But there`s — you can see the links between Proud Boys and Roger Stone because of the footage we shot on December the 12th. The end of a rally — at the end of the big rally for the Proud Boys, you could see Stone and Tarrio holding an impromptu rally. So, you can see the proximity of Stone and Tarrio. And you can link that back along the way.
AKERMAN: Oh, I totally agree. I mean, I think that the — you`re going to learn more at the next hearing, tying in Donald Trump to Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and Michael Flynn. I mean, I think we`ve had a number of tantalizing facts that have been put out there by the committee. We know that in the last hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson testified that her boss called Roger Stone, are we also know that Meadows also attended the meeting by phone at the Warwick war room the day before the January 6th.
MELBER: So, let`s slow you down. What you`re saying is, well, the primary link might only be to Stone, and in fairness to other individuals, if it stops there that doesn`t automatically legally implicate them. But you`re sort of suggesting, no Stone was playing a role he`s played before as a cutout, potentially, allegedly for Donald Trump?
AKERMAN: All right, I think allegedly, potentially, and most likely. I mean, look at the whole underlying big lie here that Trump, the election was stolen from Trump, goes back to the Republican primary in 2016, when Roger Stone set up the stop the steel movement. I mean, he`s the one that started this whole thing. He is the prime advisor of Donald Trump in terms of these crazy political machinations.
MELBER: But let me press you on that doing my job and you`ll get the same question. In fairness to Donald Trump and others in the White House. Based on what where it landed today, where it stopped. Isn`t it also fair to give a reading potentially that Roger Stone is a longtime blowhard, that these people that you were embedded with, were largely doing it on their own in response to public messaging, and that as of now, the public evidence hasn`t landed the link?
[18:45:00]
AKERMAN: The public evidence hasn`t landed the link. I grant you that much. But certainly, if you look at Roger Stone`s past behavior, I mean, this is the same kind of thing he did in the Bush-Gore with the Brooks brother riot, he was out there organizing that. He was the guy right at the center of their Russian-Trump election scandal in 2016.
He is the primary adviser to Donald Trump. Donald Trump knows nothing about politics. It`s Roger Stone that brought him into it. It`s Roger Stone that encouraged him to run for president. And it`s Roger Stone that`s manipulated this entire process.
MELBER: Mr. Quested, same question.
QUESTED: I mean, there`s also other things that haven`t been brought up, like there was a meeting between Roger Stone and President Trump at Mar-a- Lago on December the 28th, or 27th, five days after he received a pardon. I mean, I think you`ve got to just look at the quid pro quo here, like you get a pardon and then we`ll look what happens.
MELBER: Let`s turn as well to the other witness today, Jason Van Tatenhove, and some of what we heard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON VAN TATENHOVE, FORMER OATH KEEPERS SPOKESMAN: I do fear for this next election cycle, because who knows what that might bring if a president that`s willing to try to instill and — and — and encourage to whip up a civil war amongst his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil, and regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again? All bets are off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Mr. Quested, what did you think of those witnesses, and how does it correspond to what you personally observed, these people being true believers, or whatever you want to call it, and are they movable?
QUESTED: Well, I think that the unifying aspect to the proud boys was Trumpism. When we — when we were with them, we would always try to find some type of consistent ideology and the consistent ideology was Trumpism. So, whatever he was asking them to do they were going to do.
MELBER: How confident were they before the 6th, before the breach that this was all going to, quote-unquote, work?
QUESTED: I mean, I think that hubris is a word that they`re becoming more aware of now.
MELBER: Hubris is a word. You sound like a lawyer.
QUESTED: Yes. I mean, I don`t know — I wasn`t privy to the planning. I was in the garage where they — were Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio met together. I can`t speak to them actually conspiring suspiciously in that meeting, but they discussed their communications and the fact that Enrique had been arrested, and they wanted to stay in close proximity to his — hi — his boys as you refer to them.
MELBER: Yes. So that night — we`ve got the video up, I appreciate your precision. Did it feel like, this was going to happen or did you think, god, these guys are nuts?
QUESTED: I mean, the optics are not great, are they? If you`re having a meeting between two, you know, outright militia leaders in the day before, you know, what they`d been texting about, then it`s — it doesn`t look great.
AKERMAN: I think this was a very calculated plan. It was very sophisticated. Donald Trump knew at that point in time, few days before, that the only way he was going to stop the electoral college vote was to create violence and mayhem at the Capitol so that nobody would do anything and he`d have another day to take a stab at this.
And so, what he did is he organized the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as the primary movers to go into the Capitol, the rest of the people like the poor guys who thought that Donald Trump really lost the election showed up kind of as cannon fodder as sort of keeping —
MELBER: And the testimony was powerful on that today.
AKERMAN: Right.
MELBER: That some of them were just like, hey, I`m here, I`ll go where I`m —
AKERMAN: Right, exactly. But they were used to basically divert attention away from the people that were really going to go in and cause the damage, which they did. And the idea that Donald Trump did nothing and did nothing during that day on January 6th is consistent with the idea that he wanted the mayhem up there and he wanted the con the — stopped — the vote to stop.
MELBER: I think, as often is the case, you`re bearing down on something important. That`s what`s incriminating for Trump. I just went through some of the open questions in fairness to them. But we began the broadcast with that point. He it didn`t act like it was a mistake. Oh, I got out a good job. No, he welcomed that as the goal.
Now I`m over on time, but you`ve joined us now twice. We appreciate it. You`ve been a filmmaker for a long time. So, you`ve made a lot of different kinds of films. In addition to this work, which American history seems to be valuing. How many rap videos have you made?
[18:50:00]
QUESTED: I estimate as a director about 120 and as a producer in the six to 700 range.
MELBER: Favorite one?
QUESTED: Phone Tap, Dr. Dre.
MELBER: Shout out to Dre.
QUESTED: And nature. Supernatural was really good.
MELBER: Who was your favorite on-camera rapper presence, meaning like on, you know, with hands out rapping into the camera that what we`re so familiar with in those videos` structures?
QUESTED: My favorite emcee, probably Trick, like trig — Trick loves the kids. You know what I mean?
MELBER: Yes, Wu-Tang, also, is for the children.
QUESTED: Wu-Tang, we had (INAUDIBLE) —
MELBER: I don`t know if you heard that. Wu-Tang is for the children.
QUESTED: I heard they like ice cream too.
MELBER: And cream.
QUESTED: And cream.
MELBER: We could do this all day. Nick, do you have a Wu-Tang reference you`d like to make?
AKERMAN: Not really. I mean, I do listen to them all the time because — but I will refrain from making my references.
MELBER: And which artists surprised you most when you met them and work with them?
QUESTED: I — It was always a surprise working with Puff, like, because he could throw you a curveball at any time.
MELBER: Why? Because he was — he would always change, he was nimble?
QUESTED: He was very nimble. And he — and he was very opinionated about what he wants it, like you — and you had to —
(CROSSTALK)
MELBER: You want to know what he`s saying?
QUESTED: Yes.
MELBER: We got to go. So that`s it. That`s against me. Now you, I could listen to you all day. We got to go. We got more, Nick Quested and Nick Akerman, our two Nicks, We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:55:55]
MELBER: Thanks for spending time with us tonight in our special coverage on THE BEAT. I want to let you know the entire MSNBC team will be back for you with our regular recap special 8:00 p.m. Eastern tonight led by Rachel and more importantly in terms of urgency, please keep it locked on MSNBC right now. My friend Joy Reid`s coming up including with a newsworthy interview with that witness from today`s hearing. “THE REIDOUT” is next.
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