reportedly discussing among themselves about using their own constitutional power to stop the president. what those who talked already have said to the committee and what others might say, we just don t know, but what they could say given the positions they held and what they were privy to is formidable. they include secretary of state mike pompeo, who we first reported last night is expected to sit down with the house select committee, perhaps as soon as this week. also former treasury secretary steven mnuchin, who we learned today has already been interviewed by the committee. negotiations are underway with the former director of national intelligence, john ratcliffe, for a sitdown with him. and finally there s former acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney, who we spoke with earlier this week on the program. he was spotted on his way out, after speaking with the committee today. mulvaney, as you know, was serving as envoy to northern ireland when the attack happene
excessive climate change. good afternoon, i m jim sciutto in for erin burnett, and outfront tonight, preparing for battle. cnn has learned that investigators want to force former trump officials to testify in court, and will use the court to do so. they want to know the actions of former president trump around january 6th, and this is the clearest sign yet that they are zeroing in on trump s actions as he tried to cling to power. this development is coming as the january 6th select committee is speaking to former acting chief of staff mick mulvaney, and former secretary state steve mnuchin, and a key witness, mnuchin had conversations with trump cabinet members hours after the cabinet, and he had a conversation about trying to remove trump by evoking the 25th amendment, and a number of people that he spoke to included secretary of state pompeo, and tonight, pompeo also appears closer to sitting down with the committee. we have had discussions with them about potential a
invoking the 25th amount to remove the former president from office. t one of the people mnuchin talked to was then secretary of state mike pompeo. cnn s own report sg that the select committee is especially interested now in learning more about such cabinet level conversations. this is coming in the wake, of course, of testimony of cassidy hutchinson, the top former top aide to the former chief of staff mark meadows. from what i understood at the time and from what the reports were coming in, there is a large concern of the 25th amendment potentially being invoked. and there were concerns about what would happen in the senate if it was, if the 25th was invoked. cassidy hutchinson, as you know, is now cooperating with the justice department criminal probe as well. and late today, the lawyer for a former department of justice former department of justice staffer said his client is also
cooperating. so, it s potentially significant because he worked with jeffrey clark, this guy, who the former president wanted to make acting attorney general to help carry out his election scheme. and clark, according to the reporting, seemed willing. prosecutors are preparing for a court battle to force former white house officials to testify about what the former president said and did on and around january 6th. first, select committee member and california democratic congresswoman zoe lofgren joins us. congresswoman, i know you can t get into specifics. in term of these latest witnesses, can you say the focus on conversations among trump administration officials about possible invoking the 25th amendment, was that the focus? well, as we ve said pubic wly in our hearings, the 25th amendment was a focus of the committee. it s not the only focus. it s pretty clear from the
it. and i think that s what the committee has been trying to uncover, and it looks like t department of justice is trying to do the same thing. congresswoman lofgren, i appreciate your time as always. thank you. thank you. perspective from chief washington correspondent jonathan carl, who wrote about much of this in his book betrayal: the final act of the trump show. so, there are a lot of details in your book about conversations about invoking the 25th amendment. how serious were they? where did they start? who talked to whom? to me, the most amazing revelation was the conversations included the two most senior people in trump s cabinet at the time, treasury secretary mnuchin and secretary of state mike pompeo. these are not only the two senior people left in the cabinet, they were two trump total loyalists. and they, i learned, had a conversation sometime late in the evening on january 6th, where they talked about the 25th