katie, i want to talk about the focus and the tacts of department of justice, mark garland sitting with lester holt this week and being public in declaring what the doj is up to in the investigation without offering specific details. is he answering some of the criticism that perhaps dodge is moving too slowly here. i think this merrick garland is quietly answering critics say it is not a matter of speed, it is meticulous and making no mistakes and having a bulletproof case and in our reporting we found that every combination of acting attorney general, going back to january 6 was cognizant of how skillfully trump and his supporters were able to attack the department, especially in the russia investigation for minor errors sloppy mistakes and then more egregious errors around the carter page fisa. and it was important on january 6 before the investigation began to give donald trump no room to
be able to do that. keep in mind, jeff rosen, his deputy richard done agou, they were top of mind and by the time garland gets there this worry is baked into the investigation and garland believes rightfully so. everything that they are doing now as secretive as it is, as little as we know, will some day meat public between oversight and possible special counsel and looking into fbi agents and prosecutors have done. right now this is a closed door investigation to us. but it will be some day very, very public. and ari, the attorney general said to lester this week, yes, the january 6 committee hearings have been enlightening to us at the department of justice, brought new information that we re looking into and you look at this list, steve mnuchin,
20 transcripts of witness testimony but no word on which interviews will be provided. federal prosecutors have been trying to access the committee transcripts since april. but lawmakers have until now resisted. and new reporting from the new york times that attorney general merrick garland wants to make sure that trump supporters do not have any basis to claim the investigation into january 6 was driven by animosity toward the former president. people close to garland telling thetimes, he never focused on trump from the start, unlike how investigators focused on him during the investigation into the trump campaign connections to russia and hillary clinton during her email probe. joining us now one of the reporters behind that story, just department reporter for the new york time, katie benner and with us the host of the beat, ari melber, he s hosting a special report tonight called inside trump s election plot.
spoke about investigation news hillary clinton and most people agree that was the wrong thing to do. jim comey who spoke about investigation news donald trump because he wanted to have a special counsel convened so this is what they re trying to avoid and i think a lot of the regulation a lot of the caution was about the clinton investigation too. keep in mind it was a couple of low level fbi agents that opened that up with no higher level approval. it is hard to imagine that hillary clinton would have been investigated if this had to be run up the chain and properly vetted with top fbi and doj officials. in erm its of the investigation itself, as long as it takes is the answer. there are people who are worried what will happen when trump runs or becomes a candidate. it doesn t change the investigation except that merrick garland and lisa monaco would have to sign off on the steps into trump. it doesn t mean that they can t investigate trump or indict
reporter: yeah. i think the attorney general s speech was interesting. it mentioned watergate. department officials say that was deliberate and a message of sorts to signal that the justice department or merrick garland wasn t afraid of going after the former president when they now have a criminal investigation. you know, the justice department doesn t talk about ongoing investigations. neither we nor the committee know where is the justice department is going with this. i do think that was significant he mentioned that and it was significant that the justice department is prepared to pursue prosecutions against anyone at any level. that, i m told, is deliberate and may signaling where the justice department is going next. hugo, thank you for your reporting. you have remarkable reporting that comes out every day on the