did i embellish my resume yes, i did and i m sorry. and it shouldn t be done but i m still the same guy i m not a fraud. i m not a cartoon character. i m not some mythical creature that was invented. republican congressman elect george santos admits much of the life story that helpedget him elected was fiction. but there s a very good reason kevin mccarthy will do nothing about it also tonight, what to expect when donald trump s tax returns are finally released we already know that some years he paid nothing in federal taxes. and if you missed it over the holidays, we ll dig into the january 6th committee report plus, christmas cruelty governor greg abbott dumps hundreds of migrants into the bitter cold of washington, d.c. on christmas eve, as the supreme court keeps title 42 in place. good evening, everyone. i m jonathan capehart in for joy reid and we begin the reidout with the bewildering tale of george santos. the incoming republican congressman from long isla
joining me now, charles coleman, civil rights attorney, msnbc legal analyst, and host of the charles coleman podcast. and tim o brien, senior executive editor at bloomberg opinion and an msnbc political analyst. thank you both very much for coming to the reidout. tim, i think it s interesting that we have now, we saw reporting in real time, but now we have it in the report, of blanket pardon trump wanted a blanket pardon for people who were involved in january 6th. you are an attorney. you know that, you hear that, it s an official government report what do you think that does over at doj well, people don t seek pardons unless they think they have committed a crime and if the president of the united states is seeking a pardon for several to a multitude of people in his own administration, it suggests he was worried he committed a crime or the people around him may have committed a crime or the
people around him may be able to testify against him in a court of law it s also interesting that his own attorneys advised him not to do this because i think it suggests guilt i don t think it should surprise anybody that trump sought to do that i don t think it should surprise anybody that people in his own administration were looking for a pardon as the clock was ticking out on his tenure in the white house. but of course, the american public should worry about it because as the january 6th report showed, the january 6th event wasn t a single day event. it was premeditated. there was planning for it that began months before that date. there were activities that continued after that date. and it was a criminal conspiracy and i think the act of seeking a pardon is just another indication of possible guilt and charles, i would love to get your view on that. also, in the transcripts, we have transcripts from a bunch of
signified and indicates there was a clear intention to try to find a loophole, try to find an avenue, a crack, a window, something that was going to allow donald trump to hold on to power, which he was not lawfully entitled to. charles, let me get you on one more thing that was trump s state of mind, and as i read before, robert gabriel, a trump aide, texted to someone else, potus i m sure is loving this. what does his state of mind, how does that play in say what doj could be considering in its own investigations into january 6th and trump s role well, looking at it as a former prosecutor, what i will say is anything you can do to bring in the notion of state of mind, you re going to, to bolster the question of intent in this case, if donald trump were to ever be tried, prosecuted, and litigated ipcourt, one of the key elements that s going to be necessary for the government to prove is establishing the actual intent