and how invalidating 2020 became a rhino litmus test in wisconsin. all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. it has been about 32 hours since a trump appointed federal district judge issued this astonishing ruling, essentially siding with donald trump s lawyers, giving the ex president nearly everything he wanted and more in the case of his clearly on lawful and possibly criminal retention of classified documents that are not his. now, we will get to the details of the ruling itself, but first, it is notable that this decision has come under unbelievable, overwhelming and near universal criticism. law professor of duke university telling new york times, quote, this ruling is laughably bat and the justification is even flimsier. paul rosen by a former george w. bush official cause the ruling, quote, a generally unprecedented decision by a judge. andrew weissmann, formerly prosecutor and law investigation, who i speak to at this table in a moment, w
was a hoax, two impeachments were a hoax, the mueller investigation was a hoax and much more. same sleazy people involved. and in the days after, trump kept bringing up that washington post report again and again and again. on august 26th, affidavit heavily redacted. nothing mentioned on nuclear. a few days later, again, quote, what happened to nuclear, a word that was leaked early on by fbi doj to the fake news media? something about that whole nuclear thing really irked donald trump. it really got right under his skin. but besides trump s littleout burst for days after that reporting we heard nothing about the washington post s reporting on those nuclear secrets, no other news outlets confirm the post s along-terming reporting. but then a week ago, a week ago tonight, the justice department revealed in a court filing in an unsealed subpoena from may for those documents that the doj was looking for documents at mar-a-lago, ones that including classification called formally
buddies and allies to overturn the 2020 election. as we reported on this program at this hour yesterday, mark short, he s of course the former chief of staff to former vice president mike pence, testified before a d.c. grand jury last week. now according to new multiple reports, we also know that a second senior pence aide also testified. that would be greg jacob, pence s legal counsel. both men, of course, had a front row seat to the extraordinary pressure campaign on mike pence by trump and his allies, people like john eastman, to get pence to stop the certification of president joe biden s election victory on january 6th. wall street journal reports these stunning details about their testimony. quote, one area of interest to prosecutors was a january 4th, 2021, oval office meeting where conservative lawyer john eastman pushed pence in trump s presence to either reject the electoral votes outright or suspend the proceedings and asked several state legislatures to re-examine
wisconsin and democracy of america, it is absolutely critical. go to the gerrymandering stuff is bonkers, truly exsentially ben wikler, thank you. that is all in on this tuesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. alex? a lot of bonkers out there in the world. thank you as always. thank you for being with us this evening, this breaking news evening. it was three weeks ago when the washington post published this bomb shell piece. it is hard to forget a report with a title like this, quote, fbi searched trump s home to look for nuclear documents and other items, sources say. the source fbi agents were classified classified documents relating to nuclear weapons could be found at trump s beach club down in florida. the former president told the world, quote, nuclear weapons issue is a hoax. just like russia, russia, russia
townsend seek communications relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an elector in favor of the then president and then vice president. the documents released monday cast a wide net for any communications that fann and townsend may have had with any member of the executive or legislative branch of the federal government, any representative or agent of trump or his campaign or trump boosters, jenna ellis, bernie caric, rudy giuliani, boris epstein among others. and then there is this a bomb shell piece of reporting breaking in the last couple of hours in the new york times. the inner workings on the scheme they knew was illegal from the trump campaign and lawyers. it shows that the campaign knew that the slates of fake trump electors were just that, totally bogus, totally fake, meritless. quote, that story says this. in emails reviewed by the new york times and authenticated by people who had worked with the trump campaign at the time, one