0 speaking with him. it has been once again, as usual, now he's the man of the center of the question of what can or cannot be done in washington. but the biden administration can or cannot get past. we'll be speaking with senator schumer, live in just a moment. today of course is january 5th, a year ago today in the great state of georgia, georgia voters elected to new u.s. senators, democrat jon ossoff and democrat raphael warnock. they were runoff elections for both of georgia's u.s. senate seat one year ago today. at the democrats won both of those races. now, georgia electing to democrats to their two u.s. senate seats. that is how we got senate majority leader chuck schumer. that is what flipped control of the u.s. senator from republican control to democratic control. that is what made it possible for the biden administration in its first year to an act all the legislation that they have passed in the past year. including covid relief, the big infrastructure bill, and all the rest of. it not to mention confirming president biden's cabinet, confirming judges, all of. it all of that made possible by would have been a year ago today when those senate happen. that, said we are go tomorrow they wouldn't be until january six. that the election results actually became clear when it becomes clear, they was a huge suede of the pendulum in this country. massively consequential thing in what happened in the government and the biden administration would actually be able to. do of, course won those georgia senate rosa became clear last year, that news was overshadowed by something else that was going on at the moment at the u.s. capitol. here's an interesting thing though now looking back at it. as we were heading into those election in georgia a year ago today, a weird thing happened in the state of georgia. it was unexplained at the time and for a long time. the top federal prosecutor there suddenly and unexpectedly resigned. now this is a man who had been a republican state legislator in georgia. he was a trump appointee serving u.s. attorney. he was not a particularly high-profile time, certainly not a high-profile guy. but this, week last year before the january 6th attack. even before the january 5th senate election in georgia, that u.s. attorney in georgia resigned effective immediately with really no explanation of why. it was talking points memo that was first to report on january 4th that he had unexpectedly quit. this was the headline that they in the atlanta journal-constitution. u.s. attorney for georgia abruptly relied due to unforeseen circumstances. through reporting for us in the wall street journal and elsewhere since through bjay pak sworn -- i'm part of this plot to stay in power. in the years since bjay pak surprised the u.s. attorney in georgia. we have learned a little bit about would have been to cause that surprise resignation. but now, when you're on, mr. pak done a lengthy interview for the first time. with the atlanta georgia constitution. here is some of that interview. it was january six, a year ago, and bjay pak walking with his daughter in stone mountain. two days earlier, january 4th, he had resigned his post as the u.s. attorney in northern georgia. because donald trump and his flunky's were miffed that mr. pak was not digging up what was their. widespread fraud in georgia's 2020 presidential election. mr. pak figured fresh air and family time would help temper the unrelenting insanity that had been his existence for weeks. while walking mr. pak got a call. telling of the u.s. capital is under siege. minutes later, a stranger approached him. saying, quote, aren't you bjay pak? mr. pak was massed at the time. he was not carrying his pistol that day. he stood in front of his daughters, concern to this might be. in previous weeks, election workers in georgia had been followed home from work and threatened at home. bjay pak's face was a face that often been seen on tv. was this some urgent partisan angry at pak? no. the man simply thanked him for his service. bjay pak in his first lengthy interview since resigning uglier ago said that he had never been a fearful fellow. but i quote that if they are storming the capital, lord knows what people will do. mr. pak testified in august before the judiciary committee about the atmosphere on the white house at the time. and the unrelenting pressure from trump's team. pak recall telling the deputy general at the time, quote, well that seems -- that's very -- that's crazy. that is just highly crazy. the deputy attorney general agreed saying that it was bad shoot crazy. i don't think he said that shoot. but it's a family paper. what was so what was so crazy? well, it was during a phone call, december 30th or 31st, 2020, when the deputy attorney general told bjay pak that a trump loyalist wanted to enlist doj's help to overthrow the election in georgia. the official wanted to send a letter to georgia's legislators urging them to throw out the presidential electors and urging them to install a new slate citing significant concerns about the election including allegations of fraud that had already been debunked like the so-called suitcases of votes found. bjay pak knew that state officials and the fbi had shot down those allegations of fraud. in fact he knew of no confirmed fraud in the state. at that moment bjay pak told me, meaning the columnist writing this article, the scary reality of the situation sank in. quote, one thing i wasn't aware of until then was how far along they were with this plan and how far they were trying to go. bjay pak resigned because he was basically forced to, because the plan from the trump white house, from president trump himself, was to use fake, made-up fraud claims in georgia that bjay pak had investigated and knew were false. the plan was to use those false claims as a pretext to justify having georgia recall its electors and declare that trump had won that state instead. one year ago in georgia, as georgia voters went to the polls in those two crucial u.s. senate races, the day before the u.s. capitol attack, we know now that's what was happening behind the scenes in georgia. precipitating, among other things, the dramatic and at that time unexplained resignation of that state's u.s. attorney. here's the question, though. how illegal was all that? again, this was before the january 6th attack. how illegal was that other part of it, separate and apart from the violent attack on the u.s. capitol january 6th? i mean, there is a criminal investigation under way by state prosecutors in georgia, investigating whether president trump broke georgia state law when he called georgia election officials, when he told the secretary of state to find enough votes in georgia to declare that trump was the winner. there's some recent sort of murky public reporting about a lower level georgia election worker being pressured by people connected to the trump campaign, pressured that she needed to falsely confess that she had carried out fraud in georgia or else she would find herself and her family in danger. threatening and intimidating election officials, conversing them to try to get them to falsify the election results is against the law in georgia. i should note threatening and intimidating election officials to try to get them to falsify election results is a crime everywhere. it's a federal crime. but we don't know about any federal investigation into the actions the former president trump and the trump campaign's behavior along those lines in georgia. maybe there is one but we don't know about it if there is. what about what bjay pak got roped into, the reason he was forced to resign? which he's now describing, both in his senate testimony and to the press. what about this effort to use false claims of voter fraud as a pretextual justification for republican legislatures declaring that the vote in that state didn't count and they were going to invent new election results of their own and say that trump won? is that a crime? is that criminal? it's a conspiracy to overthrow the u.s. government for sure. is that a crime? does anybody get prosecuted for trying that? and i mean this literally, regardless of what happened a year ago tomorrow at the u.s. capitol. had there not been violence at the u.s. capitol on that one day, on january 6th, as part of this plan, would the rest of the plan have been okay? have fun throwing out the election results, you guys, better luck next time, get more ducks in a row next time, make sure there aren't any guys like bjay pak around next time who think this is bull bleep. feel free to try again. is that how we're going to handle what happened in our country last year? peter navarro, trump adviser, who was so desperate for attention that it hurts my mouth to say his name, this guy did an interview with my colleague ari melber here on msnbc last night. he has done recent interviews along the same lines with the daily beast and also "the rolling stone." he's also written a ridiculous new book. in all those interviews and his new book he claims credit for all the aspects of the coup they were trying to pull off except for the violence on january 6th. he says it was him and steve bannon and president trump and they had had plan to hype these gossamer, fantastical claims of supposed fraud in order to create a justification for republican state legislatures to throw out the vote in those states and just proclaim trump the winner instead. that was what they needed mike pence to effectuate for them on january 6th. don't count the electoral votes as they have been submitted by the states. instead say you won't count them or throw them out or send it back to the states somehow so we can get different electors. mr. navarro is publicly making the rounds, admitting to this, because, he says, the violence at the capitol january 6th wasn't part of that plan. that was a little blooper, that was a little messy overboil on the stove that they didn't intend. he's making the public rounds now saying the coup attempt to throw out the election results and thereby keep trump in power, it was for real. he says it involved a hundred republican senators and members of congress and it absolutely would have worked if it weren't for that pesky riot. that was such a distraction from their real effort to overthrow the government of the united states. is he right? is everything except the breaking windows and trashing congressional offices and beating up cops, is everything except that cool? try again, welcome to it, that was fine? today attorney general merrick garland gave his much-anticipated speech on what the justice department has done and is doing in response to the trump-led attack on the election this time last year. mr. garland today said we at the department of justice will do everything in our power to defend the american people and american democracy. we will defend our democratic institutions from attack. we will protect those who serve the public from violence and threats of violence. we will protect the cornerstone of our democracy: the right of every eligible citizen to cast a vote that counts. and that is great to hear. on that point about threats of violence to public officials, he actually spent a lot of his speech, about half his speech, talking about threats of violence toward everyone, from federal judges to airplane flight crews to journalists to election workers, to other kinds of elected officials. it was good to hear him give that so much attention. it is less good that he couldn't in his speech today point to much of anything the justice department is actually doing to stop those violent threats. it's true that lots of people who have threatened senators and members of congress have gotten in trouble with the law for that. but as we have reported here over the past few weeks and months, as reuters has reported aggressively over the last few months, people like low level election workers and low level officials who have been threatened even in the most egregious terms, they're not getting nearly enough help from law enforcement at the local level, the state level, or at the federal level. so the talk about how corrosive and dangerous those threats are today from the attorney general, that was nice as a sort of consciousness-raising exercise about those threats being bad. but calling them bad isn't stopping them and isn't prosecuting the people who are issuing those threats. i mean, tell it to the local election officials who are being called up and told how they and their families are going to be murdered, only to have law enforcement shrug it off. talking about that being bad is not the same thing as the justice department stepping up and making sure that people who issue those threats are caught and punished for it. and that hasn't happened nearly enough. beyond the lip service on the threats issue, though, what was most anticipated from attorney general garland today was his explication of why it is so far only low level people who showed up at the u.s. capitol at trump's urging on january 6th, why it is that only those low level people have been charged, while no one who actually ran the plan, no one who actually organized the plot of which the january 6th attack was a part, none of those folks has felt any kind of heat from law enforcement at all. now, to his credit, in my opinion, the attorney general answered that question today in a sort of helpful expository way, in a way that involved a helpful explanation for us, the public, about how complex prosecutions work. because we're not lawyers, no matter how many, you know, legal procedurals you watch or read, it's good to hear for real about how these things work. it's good to have it explained, how simpler crimes, lower level crimes, the easier stuff to prosecute, on purpose gets prosecuted first because that not only frees up resources to devote to more complex and serious crimes, it can also help you secure convictions against people who committed more serious and perhaps more complex or hard to discern crimes. that's a real dynamic in criminal prosecution, and i -- again, to his credit, i think, attorney general garland today explained that very clearly and very well. >> in the first months of the investigation, approximately 145 defendants pled guilty to misdemeanors. mostly defendants who did not cause injury or damage. such pleas reflect the facts of those cases and the defendants' acceptance of responsibility and they help conserve judicial and prosecutorial resources so attention can be focused on the more serious perpetrators. in complex cases, initial charges are often less severe than later charged offences. this is purposeful, as investigators methodically collect and sift through more evidence. we build investigations by laying a foundation. we resolve more straightforward cases first because they provide the evidentiary foundation for more complex cases. investigating the more overt crimes generates linkages to less overt ones, leading us to others who may also have been involved. and that evidence can serve as the foundation for further investigative leads and techniques. in circumstances like those of january 6th, a full accounting does not suddenly materialize. to ensure that all those criminally responsible are held accountable, we must collect the evidence. we follow the physical evidence. we follow the digital evidence. we follow the money. but most important, we follow the facts, not an agenda or an assumption. the facts tell us where to go next. >> and where do the facts of this particular set of crimes tell you to go next? attorney merrick garland today explaining that 150 misdemeanor cases have already been resolved related to people who took part in the january 6th attack on the capitol. those have already been resolved with defendants pleading guilty. he said 17 felony defendants are already scheduled for trial. more than 300 other people today stand indicted on felony charges. he's laying all that out, as you just heard there, to make the case that small fry defendants always go first, that's on purpose. people who do less overtly obvious crimes come first because the more easily prosecuted stuff often provides evidence you can use in other cases. helpful. but still, the basic question remains, is he only talking about crimes that were physically committed at the u.s. capitol building on january 6th between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and dinner time that day a year ago tomorrow? or does this investigation include -- is there a criminal investigation into those who hatched the overall plot, not the plot to break windows and smear poop on the walls. the plot to stop the electoral count and keep trump in power. because that's what all the january 6th folks were doing in washington. they believed they were part of a larger plot, and indeed they were. and lots of people are happily confessing now to having been part of that larger plot or witnessing it when the president tried to enlist them to do it. what peter navarro is happily confessing to live on msnbc on a tuesday night. what trump and his colleagues did to try to get the mob to dc on january 6th in the if i were, because january 6th was the counting of the electoral votes and they needed to stop that count so the electors could be switched in the states, which was the rest of the plan. what about that rest of the plan? was that cool? getting republican state legislatures whatever gossamer or false pretext they needed to throw out election results and instead replace them with, we're just going to say trump won, because that was a real plan, and we know a lot more about that plan today than we did a year ago. did attorney general merrick garland today let the country know if that other part of it was okay? we know they're prosecuting people who broke windows and did bad stuff in the capitol. did he let the country know today whether the rest of it, the rest of the plot to overthrow the u.s. government, was all right and anybody who did that is free to try again? and i am phrasing this as a question because i honestly don't know. what do you take away from how he said this today? >> as judges have sentenced the first defendants convicted of assaults and related violent conduct against officers, we have seen significant sentences that reflect the seriousness of those offences, both in terms of the injuries they caused and the serious risk they posed to our democratic institutions. the actions we have taken thus far will not be our last. the justice department remains committed to holding all january 6th perpetrators at any level accountable under law, whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. we will follow the facts wherever they lead. >> the justice department remains committed to holding all january 6th perpetrators at any level accountable under law, whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. people who were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on the capitol, january 6th? or does he mean people who were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy as in the assault on the election and its results, the effort to falsify those results and thereby seize power? i don't know. i don't know what he means. tonight at "the new yorker," jet ran journalist david rohde, who has seen some things in his time, he writes the decision whether or not to prosecute the former president donald trump is becoming the defining issue of attorney general merrick garland's tenure at the justice department. in hindsight, he writes, donald trump's intentions could not appear clearer. he conducted a disinformation campaign that convinced many supporters that the election would be stolen by democrats. he repeatedly pressured state election officials, justice department prosecutors, federal and state judges, members of congress and the vice president to overturn the results. after those efforts failed he appeared at a rally in washington where he urged tens of thousands of supporters to stop congress from certifying his defeat. for hours as they stormed the capitol, he failed to act. those steps, the leaders of the congressional committee investigating the attack contend, seemingly constitute a crime. at the justice department, merrick garland, a former federal judge, has made restoring public faith in the political neutrality of the justice department his goal. despite garland's attempts to divorce the justice department from politically charged prosecutions, it is increasingly clear that investigating trump is forcing garland to decide whether to prosecute a former president. attorney general garland based his speech today continues to believe that the majority of americans still support the principle that all people should be treated fairly under the law including donald trump, and that the majority will reject political violence and trust the judicial system. at the moment that belief for garland and all americans is an enormous political gamble. david rohde writing today at "the new yorker." joining us now is david rohde, executive editor at newyorker.com. thanks for making time to be here tonight. >> thank you for having me, rachel. >> tell me about this bold contention that you're making, that the question of whether or not to prosecute trump is the defining issue of garland's tenure. why do you see it that way? >> i think, and you've done a remarkable job of laying this out, i think it's the most important issue of merrick garland's career, of his life. the challenge throughout the trump years has been a failure of imagination to look at the broad pattern of what he does, to look at our current laws and see do they stop this sort of behavior. particularly if democrats lose the house this fall, the january 6th committee will go away, republicans will get rid of it, and it will come down to merrick garland to decide, you know, whether everything you've talked about, bjay pak, harassing officials in georgia, the months before the election itself of laying the groundwork of, you know, making his followers believe that this was going to be a stolen election, so it's a months-long effort. and, you know, will the federal government, will federal law enforcement, will merrick garland hold trump accountable for it? and it's really -- garland is the last chance, i think, for that to happen. >> david, i know you've done some reporting on the sort of interplay between that decision at the justice department and this very energetic investigation that's happening in congress, the select committee in congress has interviewed hundreds of witnesses, they've got millions of pages of documents, they're working tonight, taking depositions from another former trump official right now as we speak. is there an interplay between that decisionmaking process at the justice department and attorney general garland's office and what's happening with that investigation in congress? >> i think there is. it's a huge team. the committee has 40 people headed by two former prosecutors. and i think they're trying to pressure garland to act. i think it was excellent that he spoke today. he needs to speak out more. he needs to be sort of explaining how federal law enforcement works, how they're investigating this case. and i worry that he is -- and he's totally sincere. he believes in the judicial system. most americans don't. so i think he needs to be a more present, more public attorney general who is talking, you know, when appropriate more openly about this investigation. >> david rohde, executive editor at newyorker.com. thank you for this thoughtful, well-reported piece today. thank you for being with us tonight. >> thank you. as i mentioned, we've got the senate majority leader chuck schumer, leader of the senate democrats, joining us live here right after the break. stay with us. stay with us it's time for our lowest prices of the season on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to relieve pressure points. and its temperature balancing so you both sleep just right. save up to $1,000 on sleep number 360 smart beds. plus, 0% interest for 36 months when you add an adjustable base. only for a limited time.