deal of what happened on january six, 2021. thanks for starters, to television cameras and our own eyes, then a detailed impeachment prosecution of donald trump, and then, finally, an exhaustive congressional investigation by the house january six committee. however, this new indictment by jack smith details even more incriminating information that the public did not see. i want to walk you through what we knew was happening in public, versus what we know now what s happening behind closed doors on january 6th. at the time, we knew that the stop the steal rally was happening in washington, d.c.. blocks away from the capital building. donald trump was billed as the keynote speaker. the rally began at 11 again. we now know that in the morning, as crowds of trump supporters gathered for the rally, the indictment says quote, an agent of the defendant, that s trump,
electoral votes. we know that pence, with the legal advice from former judge michael luttig, refused to block the certification of the votes. the indictment described coconspirator three as quote, and attorney who s unfounded claims of election fraud, the defendant privately acknowledged to others, sounded crazy. nevertheless, the defendant embraced him publicly and five coconspirator three s disinformation. this is believed to be the former federal prosecutor, sydney powell. pebble publicly pushed baseless claims that trump voting machines had been hacked to rig the election for joe biden. she also filed several lawsuits claiming election fraud. then, there s coconspirator number four. described in the indictment as quote, a justice department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the defendant, attempted to use the justice department to open sham election crime investigations and influenced fake legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud. this is very lik
people in order to quash riots. the indictment even lays out how trump was prepared to oust the acting attorney general and install this man, jeffrey clark, who was willing and ready to carry out trump s bidding and use the office and the powers of the attorney general to advance the fake electors scheme. some coups that have actually succeeded elsewhere in the world were not this well planned. or sophisticated. donald trump and his coconspirators were one small step away from actually stealing the election and undermining democracy. while donald trump s scheme ultimately failed back in january 2021, he remains unapologetic, unrepentant, and he continues to undermine democracy. over the past two and a half years, he has proven he has prepared to do it all again, if given the chance. last december, he even went as far as to call for quote, the determination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the constitution. even those found in the
quote, told the minority leader that the crowd at the capitol was more upset about the election than the minority leader was, end quote. it wasn t, however, until 4:17 pm that trump told the angry mob of his own supporters to go home. in a video message posted to twitter, though he continued to push the false claim that the election was stolen. we didn t know what we now know, is that 60, and before the certification of the electoral vote, president trump attempted to reach two unnamed senators through white house aides, and between 6:59 and 7:18 pm, coconspirator one, whom we now know to be rudy giuliani, placed calls to five senators and one house representative. we also now know that at 701 pm, while giuliani was making those calls, the white house counsel called trump to ask him to withdraw any objections and allow the certification of the election. trump refused. between eight of six pm and
constitution. words out of the mouth of the man who was the president of the united states, who is now the front runner for the republican nomination for the presidency of the united states. he has since been on a campaign of retribution, regularly claiming at his campaign rallies the federal government has been weaponized against him, claiming quote, they want to take away my freedom because i will never let them take away your freedom. they want to silence me because i will never let them silence you. and in the end, they re not after, me there after you, and i m just standing in their way. end quote. or, in more blunt terms, if you go after me, i m coming after you. joining me now is jennifer reuben. she is an opinion writer for the washington post, and msnbc political analyst, the host of the podcast, jen reuben screen room, and author of resistance, how women save democracy from donald trump with us as well. ruth ben-ghiat, a professor of history and wagyu, author of lucid, a news