night. alice wagner tonight starts right. now california has a lot on its plate, chris. but housing has they need to build more housing in upstate and given where they are in terms of environmental decline, the housing situation is complicated as well. thank you, my friend. thanks for being here tonight. tonight, we start with merrick garland. it s no surprise that republicans are not fans of the attorney general. ever since he arrived at the justice department, republicans have repeatedly accused garland of weaponizing the doj. and using it to go after president biden so-called political enemies. here s garland testimony before the judiciary committee in october of 2021. more republican senators had their say about garland s memo on protecting school board members, just to be clear that was a memo on protecting school board members. take a listen. a leave it at this, general garland, you weaponize the fbi in the department of justice, it s wrong, it s unprecedent
others not to limit themselves either. well i hope matthew knows we are all inspired, and lucky, i m one of those people who watched that acceptance video. i saw on instagram, i think i watched it 38 times, and i m so grateful to our affiliate in connecticut for sharing matthew s incredible story. and on that note, i wish you all a great great night. from our our colleagues at the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up, late i will see you at the end of tomorrow. tonight, we start with merrick garland. it s no surprise that republicans are not fans of the attorney general. ever since he arrived at the justice department, republicans have repeatedly accused garland of weaponizing the doj. and using it to go after president biden so-called political enemies. here s garland testimony before the judiciary committee in october of 2021. more republican senators had their say about garland s memo on protecting school board members, just to be clear that was a memo on protecting
garland s watch, the doj resembles the gestapo. this is a serious, serious breach of the rule of law. this is why garland needs to go. if you don t resign, he ought to be impeached. after that search, kevin mccarthy warned, i ve seen enough, attorney general garland preserve your documents. and clear your calendar. now speaker mccarthy got his wish this week in the house voted to establish a select subcommittee to investigate and i quote, the weaponization of the federal government. because in the view of the republicans, the department of justice cannot be trusted. merrick garland must resign, or he should be impeached. because he only goes after biden so-called political enemies. except today, merrick garland did something today that doesn t quite fit that narrative. the attorney general announced that he appointed robert hur, as a special counsel to
he s been out at the special counsel looking into his actions in around general sixth. and the mar-a-lago document drama. truth social, this is what trump had to say about jack smith. jack smith, for some reason is a trump hating thug whose wife is a serial and open trumpeter. his friends in a their family members have been worse. the man it s maybe worse in the behavior during the mueller investigation. is it me to be personal, it is immediately basis, it is admittedly just a new level of low in terms of former presidents and their narratives. i don t think this is working, politically. we saw that in 2020. we saw that 2022 midterms. he s exaggerating, he s lying, he said probably, it s nasty. and i think it is exhausting independents and republicans. i think the most important thing is to defeat donald trump politically. that is slowly happening. they should be careful. because unimportant investigation in terms of the gravity of what has been the ledge s january 6th. the new sub
trump s potentially criminal conduct. as david rohde writes the new piece of the new yorker. for biden, the new appointment poses more of a political threat, then illegal. one quote, it appears unlikely that president biden will be prosecuted. because it does not seem like he intentionally mishandled documents. but, if he hasn t. republicans will argue that trump should not be charged either. joining us now is the author himself. david rohde covers adjust apartment, and served as executive editor of the new yorker.com. david, thanks for being here. that the endgame here? not for merrick garland but one republican start the special counsel announcement. do you think they re like hairs are get trump out of jail free card? politically, yes. and it is a frustrating situation, clearly. trump had more documents. he and sawyer s lied about how many documents they had. they don t turn over for months. they defied subpoena. but you have a situation where it is very difficult, politically. i