national correspondent for politico and an msnbc contributor, and with me at the table, nick con fi sor ree, an msnbc political analyst, betsy i want to dive into some of the reporting. the production of what they re doing, which is really writing to taped testimony is so intricate, and theirs goes on for two hours. the delay is understandable, but this piece and you ve done some reporting on this, the jeffrey clark plot, and there s some great new reporting in the post that brings us even further inside the room, this doj piece is central to the whole thing. this is that innermost ring that congressman raskin talked about, donald trump s plan to have the election results cast as invalid or corrupt by doj, and then in the words of donald trump has taken in notes by mr. donohue, me and our allies will do the rest. i don t know that people realize just how perilous this
campaign manager advised he wasn t going to declare victory what s the strategic imperative of all of these officials not only knowing trump had lost but telling trump he lost? i think it s important for the american people to hear firsthand the advice the president was receiving on the election and in the days after the election, and particularly to the campaign manager for a campaign. there is nobody who wants to win a campaign more than the candidate themselves than the campaign manager. so the campaign manager however fell back on his commitment to being honest and professional, and he said when he saw the president and the team heading in a direction that wasn t, he left. you see the attorney general trying to indulge the president s concepts of fraud and actually investigate all of those, debunk them, go to the president and tell him there s no merit. there s no evidence to any of these fraud accusations, and yet the president chose to continue
a lot of things, but on a lot of things, he couldn t figure out how to get the government to do exactly what he wanted, but he had someone that knew how to pull the levers and knew enough about the law to make up the arguments to push it to him to make it very, very dangerous. and it was that addition at that really critical point in the aftermath of the election where trump is armed with someone who knows something about the law, and i think that s why it scares people so much. well, and you ve got i think when you look at how the committee is pressing on this open door, as you describe, mike, this is what judge david carter, who ruled on a case regarding eastman s emails and records for the committee, and his opinion says this. every american and certainly the president of the united states knows that in a democracy, leaders are elected, not installed. with a plan this bold, president trump knowingly tried to subvert this fundamental principle. based on the evidence, the court
with the ambition of, you know, this guy s up on the 7th floor and he doesn t even come to the 8:00 meetings, and now he s swaggering and he s going to be the attorney general and he tells rosen maybe i ll let you stay if you sign the letter, too. it s a kind of pathetic exercise, an exploited ambition by trump, and yet it came closer than anything i m aware of to date of actually succeeding, and it would have, if nothing else, engendered chaos in the states and given an opening for trump to try to drive home different electors and, you know, complete electoral bedlam. and i think this is the point in the program, nick, where we should stop and say this isn t just about looking back at what jeffrey clark did. this is about looking forward and asking the question of what jeffrey clark as attorney general would do. that s right, and look, it s key here, ambition is a keyword
trump, thought that what they were watching was criminal. was more than this was more than a political act. this was a criminal act. but again, the committee doesn t have to make that case, and the committee can t make that case. the committee can t prosecute. the committee s not a grand jury. that s up to the justice department. as if on cue, select committee vice chairwoman liz cheney has just tweeted out that click. mike schmidt, let me play this for you. it was the day after. eastman i don t remember why. he called me, or he texted me or called me, wanted to talk with me, and he said he couldn t reach others, and he started to ask me about something dealing with georgia and preserving something. potentially for appeal. and i said to him, are you out of your f ing mind?