criminal trial and how much he has incriminated himself. now, we all know a lot s happened this week, but there continues to be new reporting and developments including trump s focus on the boxes. the new york times reports trump was attached to the boxes of documents even while he was in office. a white house official said trump would notice if somebody rifled through them or they weren t arranged in a particular way. that s how his, quote, mind worked. those boxes were found ultimately in the bathroom and other unsecure areas in mar-a-lago. so trump has continued to lash out, to publicly bemoan this process, also in a way to give prosecutors evidence. trump has written that he is, quote, totally exonerated. he s asked, when are they going to drop all charges against him, apologize, and return everything that was, quote, illegally taken. he is basically saying out of court what his lawyers have not been able to prove in court that somehow this was an illegal search or s
election result. it s a pressure campaign that came incredibly and alarmingly close to actually working. it could have completely changed the game for trump and his allies on january 6th if and only if it had succeeded. washington post is out with stunning new details on efforts by doj official jeffrey clark to essentially take over the justice department, efforts which culminated in a january 3rd meeting previously reported on by the post, the new york times and other outlets inside the oval office between clark, the man who would become the acting a.g. and his deputy richard donahue and of course one donald j. trump from the post reporting. clark had outlined a plan. in a letter he wanted to send to the leaders of key states that joe biden won. it said the justice department had, quote, identified significant concerns about the vote and that the state should consider sending a separate slate of electors supporting donald j. trump for congress to approve. in fact, clark
officials to do our bidding. that didn t work. he ultimately, the final lever, was launching a mob of angry insurrectionists at the capitol on january 6th. that was the last and most desperate, and frankly most serious and criminal prong in this plan. you have to see all those arrows, which i think you helpfully nut a time frame in context. each one is arguably more serious, more threatening to democracy than the previous one. yeah. tim heaphy, at a time when wire looking at jack smith and he still has that whole other portfolio, you are a valued expert on this. thanks for making time. thanks, ari. appreciate it. what do we know about jack smith from before he took this post? video we ll be playing that has not played all week and gives insight into the crimes he s pursuing, next. our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the united states,
the vice president with no such authority. before the joint session of congress. and the truth is, there s almost no idea more un-american than the notion that any one person could choose the american president. hi again, everyone, it s 5:00 in new york. in the face of a brutal and unrelenting pressure campaign waged by donald trump and his end game allies in the face of hundreds of angry insurrectionists, literally chanting hang mike pence and a gallows that was erected outside the capitol building, the former vice president on the night of january 6th ended up honoring his oath to the constitution, and he certified the electoral college vote count, formalizing president joe biden s victory. but it is that failed attempt by the ex-president to have pence stop the counting of electoral votes, something he didn t have the authority to do, that will be the focus of the january 6th