and keep the rest of the citizens safe. it is very sad that we have ten lives lost and ten more people injured. it is always very sad, with so many of these mass shootings it is not shocking. law enforcement i think at every corner of the country has been prepared so that this can occur any large gathering. this one happens to be the lunar new year. not sure if there is a bias or hate crime involved in this, that certainly is a consideration as well. and carol, there is a sense, we talked about what can legislation do. what can politicians do. from your perspective of having been a judge, is there anything in the judicial system that can do here? often in these cases the mass shooter ends up dead. we talk about so much in this country about crime, about public security, safety. we just had midterm election that revolved around crime and
who would not who do not believe in the democracy or who are election deniers. to me, all of it s important, but the biggest stakes still exist in the threats that still exist in our democracy and people who were accurately involved in this. carol, would you expect anymore possibly criminal referrals against other people to come out of this? so possibly because well, we don t know what s going to happen exactly today and we don t know what the court is going to say, but i think that there s something very important to bear in mind about why is the committee using the statute insurrection instead of the statute that they used with respect to a lot of the mob members of the mob that went into the went into the capitol building. the word insurrection is important here because the 14th amendment says that an officer
hillyard, carol lamb, and matthew dowd, an msnbc political contribute. ali, tell us more what you ve learned in this exclusive reporting. reporter: a source familiar with the committee s plans told us that they would be meeting here on sunday. we were able to stake out their dress rehearsal so to speak that was being done in the hearing room just a few feet away from me and where we ll see the committee gather for this final business meeting where we expect them to not just lay out the culmination of their findings after 18 months of investigating, but also where we expect to see them vote on criminal referrals, including for former president donald trump. you mentioned the inciting or assisting insurrection charge. that s one that we overheard them talking about yesterday. but they re also expected to refer him on the grounds of obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the government. this is, of course, historic
so it s important to keep that in context. and i think in fact what they re debating right now, what the committee is debating right now is how much they how much pressure they want to put on the department of justice. they want to make their statement to the american people that they believe that there s a good likelihood that crimes like insurrection, which is a very serious charge, are a possibility here. but they do want to make the department of justice make them look like they were not doing the job if they ultimately decide to not bring a very serious charge like that. matthew, carol has laid out the legal navigation involved here. the committee is also walking a tight rope as well when it comes to the politics. there is a risk in recommending a charge that may barred trump from ever holding office again. could it appear political? what do you think the politics of this says at this moment? the whole thing is political and not in a bad sense. this is what this is all about
chairing committees involved in regulation of things, involved in supposedly, quote unquote, supporting democracy in the court of it? i think that s the most important part of this. it s just ignore the american public. this isn t over because we re about to hand over congress. congress is about to be taken over by people that are actively involved in this. i think that s an incredibly important point to make. and the reason for that really kind of what we already know but also what we are finding out. carol, i want to shift to you, with your to talk about text messages. talking points memo s hunter walker has obtained over 2000 text messages trump s ex chief of staff turned over to the committee. that includes techs between meadows and arizona congressman andy biggs where the pair scheme to put pressure on hours on officials to challenge the election results. despite both seemingly