had settled the charges by way of a plea agreement. he s gone to trial. he s told a story that this judge very well may not believe, and this judge is the sentencer in this case. so when it comes down to sentencing, if he s found guilty on any of these counts, the judge is going to say you wasted the court s resources with a bunch of lies, you ve wasted the prosecution s resources with a bunch of lies, and you deserve to be punished. so that possibility of probation is out the window. sarah azari, i appreciate your expertise. thank you for being with us. good to be with you. all eyes are on speaker nancy pelosi facing growing pressure from the progressive democrats in her caucus to punish congresswoman lauren boebert for bigoted and racist remarks. why the speaker is hesitating next.
whether or not potter is guilty of these first and second-degree manslaughter charges. ana? thank you. we re also keeping a close eye on another high-profile case. closing arguments are under way in the jussie smollett trial. the former empire actor took the stand in his own defense yesterday to rebut allegations that he staged a hoax hate crime and lied about it to police in 2019. smollett has pleaded not guilty to six counts of disorderly conduct on suspicion of making false reports to police. cnn s omar jimenez is in chicago for us. what stands out from today s closing arguments, and how soon could we have a verdict? reporter: well, ana, the defense is in their closing arguments right now after the prosecution went for close to two hours. for both sides, this is their chance to tie together all the evidence and testimony we ve seen in this trial for those jurors. now the prosecution laid out key pieces of evidence they say
i think he hurt himself. i don t think he helped himself. again, like the explanation is not just any explanation, it s got to be a credible story, a believable story. but at the same time, there s no way to argue what the defense is arguing without him having testified. i think the hope was he s an actor, he s trained, he s going to testify in a compelling manner. let s give it a shot. help us understand the charges a little tle better. six counts of disorderly conduct on suspicion of making false reports to police. that s what he s facing. he s pleaded not guilty to all the charges. help us understand those and what is the potential likelihood he could face jail time if convicted? right. so remember this was a case of 16 counts that the initial da mysteriously dismissed, and then the special prosecutor was assigned, he s a former federal prosecutor, to try to this case on six counts. each of these counts carries one to three years in jail. the likelihood of probation has always b
like alternate slates of electors. there was a legitimately chosen slate of electors. so no, there s no putting this genie back in the bottle, and he s not going to be able to dodge culpability by refusing to cooperate. now we have the documents there s a saying people lie, documents don t. the committee does say it s moving forward with contempt proceedings against mark meadows, which you support, you say. but i mean, this still effectively delays the committee s search for answers, doesn t it? just look at steve bannon. his case isn t until july of next year when his trial will be for contempt. as you point out, his case is pretty straightforward here. the principal importance of criminal contempt is to demonstrate that there are serious consequences if you don t cooperate. and remember, ana, there are hundreds of individuals who are
that was to be provided on the hill. and among others a january ath, 2021, email, about having the national guard on standby. so first, i want to get your reaction to these stunning details about what meadows has already given this committee. yeah. it s quite remarkable. and also a complete turnaround now to say he s not going to cooperate after he has handed over these kind of documents. it makes you wonder who was going through these documents as they were going to hand them over to the committee. but in any case, let s look at this anin context. this november 7th, don t forget the election was november 3rd, november 7th was the day that the networks all said joe biden was going to be the next freely and fairly elect the president of the united states. so on november 7th, mark meadows was already having some kind of email conversation about what a direct and collateral attack, as it was called, after the election, and on november 5th, he was having communications