good morning to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world, it is friday, june 24th. i m john berman with brianna keilar. just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and republican congressmen. a sentence that rang across the halls of the capitol and this morning might very well be ringing into the courtroom. after a day of sworn testimony about how former president trump tried to weaponize the justice department to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, even some former trump administration officials and allies are acknowledging to cnn that the revelations were damaging. the most damaging yet. even bleak. so why, why so damaging? and what now? that is the focus this morning. testimony about a relentless almost daily effort to push officials to say things that were not true and do things that arguably were not legal. a scheme that seemed minutes from success to install a man named jeffrey clark, an environmental lawyer, an election lie prom
so take one example. even if donald trump truly believed he won, he can t pressure mike pence to violate his duties. that s understood in the d.c. circus as corruptly obstructing congressional proceedings. example number two, georgia, the fulton county district attorney, the law there is you can t threaten the secretary of state to find the votes even if you think in your heart of hearts you won. it s just not even a part of the argument that a defense could raise for that. we threatened him but i really thought i won, that s why i threatened him with criminal sanction and put his life in jeopardy, which he in his book says that s how he felt. you also have to look at the reasonableness of it. everybody and your mother is telling you you re wrong, this is a violation of the law, the acting attorney general says this would violate the constitution, he s been told by pat cipollone this would violate the law, told by donoghue this would violate the plan. if you ve been told the plan tha