political operators no matter how strongly they insist otherwise. right now the conservatives hold a 63 majority in large part because three of those six were hand picked by trump to sit on that court. and while anything can happen, the future remains unwritten, i think we can probably gauge how most of the courts conservatives feel about defending donald trump and his political future. in fact, one of those conservative justices, clarence thomas, and george h. w. bush nominee, has such close personal ties to trump s attempted coup, there are calls for him to recuse himself from this case entirely. justice thomas s wife, ginni thomas, was an active participant in the big lie that led to the insurrection. she was so caught up in the attempt to overturn the election that she was texting with president trump s then chief of staff rk meadows in the weeks leading up to the january six, passing along bizarre qanon conspiracy theories like the following, quote, biden crime family and
the tune of $30 million before donald trump was elected in 2016. that money translated into muscle to turn out voters in numbers that really did matter. i think that the nra as a single-issue group is extremely potent as a political force out there. they have these members, millions of members, they can mobilize who are passionately motivated on this issue. to really understand just how far lapierre shifted the conversation about guns in this community, in 1995 he called the federal agents involved in the waco and ruby ridge incident, quote, jack-booted government thugs. after then president george h.w. bush resigned from the nra in protest, lapierre came on cnn to apologize. well, larry, if you say something and you offend people and you didn t mean to, what you do is you apologize. we never meant that letter to broad-brush all of federal law enforcement.
well, i actually think the bigger story with the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit and their argument next week is whether or not they re going to step up and actually declare that the special prosecutor, jack smith, has been acting would want authority this whole time because there s a very powerful amicus brief submitted by the former attorney general for ronald reagan, ed meese, that specifically says that jack smith is acting without authority because he wasn t appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate which, for example, the attorney general has to be. among other things. and what s really interesting and sort of newsworthy here is that the 3-judge panel which would appear it s one level to be sympathetic to the democrats because it s two joe biden appointees and a george h.w. bush appointee, what s interesting is they specifically told the lawyers they want to hear argument on the amicus briefs with which questions whether or not jack smith has the authori
president biden will mark the third anniversary of the deadly january 6th riot with a speech at historic valley forge in pennsylvania. he is expected to underscore the threat to democracy he sees posed by donald trump which promises to be a central argument of biden 401(k) re-election bid. his campaign is sharpening that message ahead of the gop caucuses and primaries. there is something dangerous happening to america. there is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. all of us are being asked right now, what will we do to maintain our democracy? history s watching. the world is watching. most important, our children and grandchildren will hold us responsible. it is a big day that feels like a general election day to some degree. scott jennings, former special assistant to president george h.w. bush and david axlerod,
the d.a. s office with a filing with the court, saying removing the meadows case from georgia would be per verse as this arises from interference of state operations, and seeks to vindicate our next guest signed on to the brief, former deputy attorney general under george h.w. bush, donald aier, who is with us. boil it down for us non-lawyers, why does this matter, whether it s state or federal court, and why do you think he should be tried in state court? well, the norm at process is a federal case is tried in federal court or handled in federal court. a state case goes forward in a state court. this is a special provision that s been around for almost a couple hundred years now that allows the purpose is to protect the functioning of the