before the 6th. pence pushing back every time. was it your impression that the vice president had directly conveyed his position on these issues to the president, not just to the world through a dear colleague letter, but directly to president trump? many times. and he had been consistent in conveying his position to the president? very consistent. and then the new memos show ing pence s legal and political advisers spending weeks whether pence could block or delay the electoral vote count. their conclusion doing that would break multiple laws. the author of that second memo, former counsel to the vice president, greg jacob, will testify today. so will federal judge jay michael ludig, who rejected a theory by trump adviser john sman that pence could unilaterally reject lectors. and if he tried any way, the new york times reports that emails from eastman predicted a heated fight in the supreme court. much more on that, and the connection to justice thomas wife
further inflamed the rioters as they were raging through the capitol hunting down the vice president and shouting, hang mike pence. in a preview video released this week, you saw liz cheney referencing a federal judge s ruling back in march that the former president probably violated federal statutes throughout that pressure campaign. a campaign conceived, in part, by lawyer john eastman, a character you will meet today. a big player inside that circle of election deniers working around the clock to try to keep donald trump in power. this hour, we will expand that inner circle with a look at ginni thomas, the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas. bennie thompson saying that it is time for the committee to hear from thomas, quote, soon. this is a change in the committee s position and it comes after new bombshell reporting from the washington post on the emails between thomas and john eastman about overturning the election. we are going to talk about the new foc
here. from all of our colleagues across the networks of msnbc news, thank you for staying up late and i will see all of you at the end of tomorrow. tomorrow now it is a top of the hour. we are looking at live images of the cannon caucus room at the u.s. capitol. members of the january six investigation are about to enter the room and take their seats. in terms of what we are expecting, here betty thompson is expected to gavel the hearing in the session. as i was mentioning we expect opening statements both from chairman thompson, and from the republican vice chair liz cheney. we also know that there are two live witnesses, who are slated to testify tonight. capitol hill police officer who was injured, and the attack. also documentary filmmaker, who captured footage on january 6th that we will be seeing for the first time tonight. he is and that it with the pro trump paramilitary group, the proud boys that was a subject of a seditious conspiracy, federal felony indictment earl
tonight, the january 6th hearings. good evening. thank you so much for being here with us tonight. we know that you have a lot of options for where to watch and how to watch tonight s hearing. it makes us all the more grateful that you have chosen to be here with us on msnbc. i m rachel maddo with joy reid. tonight is a big night for us. a big night for american democracy. we have had a few other instances in our modern history of big, public hearings. all the networks scuttling their schedules to air the proceedings live, but none of us have ever covered something quite like this before. the january 6th investigation is about the first time in american history that the transfer of power between presidents was not peaceful. tonight in the ornate cannon caucus room inside the u.s. capitol the january 6 ths investigators said they would give them a skralg amount. the investigators plan to show video footage from the attack that s never been seen by the public before, including
why the committee didn t want to at least politely ask ginni thomas to answer some questions. the washington post reported recently that liz cheney particularly had reservations or opposition to trying to bring in ginni thomas. john eastman clerked for justice thomas, one of liz cheney s top staffers, a conservative lawyer, also at one point clerked for clarence thomas. the conservative legal community in washington, d.c. is small. many of these people have known each other a long time. the community of clarence thomas clerks is also small and speaking broadly, not talking about any individual, not specifically talking about john wood or john eastman but about the community of clarence thomas clerks, this is a tight knit group of people. the fact that the dam is broken