they have a different focus than a prosecutorial cross-memo would have and they are doing the right thing by putting it all out there. there s deference to doj here, and they have given them a good lead and a little bit of encouragement. is that how you re reading it, norm? well, they were very disciplined. they thought like prosecutors so the referrals themselves, the core of the referrals, trump and eastman, the client and his lead outside coup counsel, this was an attempted coup, not with soldiers but with lawyers. they focus on that. they hit other lawyers very hard, jeffrey clark, ken cheseborough. clark within government and cheseborough outside of government. mark meadows the former chief of staff gets tough treatment, giuliani, but that s the short list, and then to focus at the ones at the top, i thought it was very effective. we have more ahead to talk about here. we also have some breaking news.
that if donald trump does not face federal charges, attorney general merrick garland will never again be able to say this. no person is above the law in this country. nothing stops us. should i say that again? no person is above the law in this country. i can t say it any more clearly than that. and joining us now is neal katyal, former acting solicitor general. neil, i had the pressure of introducing this cross memo to attorney general eric holden during the commercial break. he wasn t aware of it being released today. he hadn t seen. it he flipped it open, started flipping through the hundred 69 pages and said wow, this really is a memo, this is really at. it follows for exactly the format and style and presentation that will be, at some point, presented to the attorney general. exactly, lawrence.
classified. but he s also saying they re protected by executive privilege at the same time. he s talking about both sides of his mouth so doesn t make not much sense. there s another important thing about this cross memo today. it s 169 pages long, but it s only on one aspect of donald trump s criminal behavior. there s nothing in here about january six, nothing about 2020 election fraud, in georgia or things like that, nothing about his financial crimes. so i kind of think at some point soon we re going to need to get steve kornacki out here with his big board and keep track of all the legal problems donald trump is facing. we will do our best. neal katyal, thank you very much for joining us tonight. coming up, speaker nancy pelosi is handing over the democratic leadership of the house of representatives to a new generation. the youngest member of that new generation, who is in the house chamber today will join us next. next now s the time to learn more about an aarp
and joining us now is neal katyal, former acting solicitor general. neil, i had the pressure of introducing this cross memo to attorney general eric holden during the commercial break. he wasn t aware of it being released today. he hadn t seen. it he flipped it open, started flipping through the hundred 69 pages and said wow, this really is a memo, this is really at. it follows for exactly the format and style and presentation that will be, at some point, presented to the attorney general. exactly, lawrence. i don t think it s just the format. i think it s the substance. i have read the thing, and if i had some of this comprehensive report in just a few year words, i would say that shows donald trump to be a criminal and not a very clever one at that. they have done an incredible job in this cross memo of showing that the publicly known evidence alone strongly supports an indictment. as you were saying, it shows
criminal contempt, six, false statements to federal prosecutors. the cross memo concludes, based on this extensive analysis we determined there is strong precedent for the parliament of justice to charge trump. there are many felony cases that the department of justice pursued based on conduct that was significantly less agree just then the president set of facts in the trump case. aggravating factors in trump s case include, the length of time of his retention of government documents, the volume of government documents, the highly sensitive nature of the documents, the number of warnings he received, his obstructive conduct, and his involving other individuals in his scheme. in short, we conclude, that if trump or not charged, it would be a major deviation from how defendants are typically treated. the memo, in effect, concludes