i m ari melber in for nicolle and i ll anchor for the next three hours right now with a lot of news breaking out of new york as the d.a. alvin bragg moves forward with two witnesses who faced this grand jury today, robert costello a legal adviser to that key witness we all know about, michael cohen. he s testified today at the request of trump s legal team. under new york law a person who is expected to be indicted which in this case may or may not be donald trump but in an abundance of fairness, that individual can request a witness appear for them before this grand jury finishes its work. so that s part of what we re following on this big breaking news day. today cohen also on hand, this weekend he said he would be back today to address what costello says making him the rebuttal witness and this, today, is his third appearance before the grand jury. so, that alone makes all of this a major day and probe that is quite near deciding whether or not to indict donald trump. so,
some tries to cast doubt on the the explosive testimony of former white house aide cassidy hutchinson, he tweeted this, i know her, i don t think she s lying. and here is what he said when he announced his resignation. two things i think caught me as i was watching yesterday. number one, the president had always in the past had sort of thrown a hyperbolic ideas and say why don t we do x and everybody knew that was a bridge too far. you tell him no, mr. president, that is not how this works. and he thinks out loud. that is one ever his mannerisms. i think you saw a different group of advisers inside of the white house instead of saying mr. president, let s talk about that saying that is a great idea mr. president. you have folks like peter navarro and lin wood and rudy giuliani. and there was a large number of people, a large group of people yesterday who were willing to do this, if the president of the united states went on stage and said go march down the street and invade
to ask you, because you re not exactly the world s biggest liberal progressive hippie. no. that s not your thing so i m curious about what this reveals about the state of gop line conservatism when i don t know about you but in the old days, if you are yourself, donald trump is the person saying he expects indictment, that s not exactly a soros-backed conspiracy theory anymore, trump saying he s going to be indicted. everybody knows about his misdemeanor skirmishes with the law. it seems weird, walk us through the weird place that the gop is devolved to where that alone isn t enough for other people to go, yeah, he says he ll be indicted, of course, legally he s presumed innocence and respect the process but that s usually a bad thing in the same thing he wants the bidens to be under investigation in ukraine because it s bad and wanted hillary clinton s email probe to go on because it s bad.
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.