tonight that swimmer sharing her story in an nbc news exclusive. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening an unsent letter described as a murder-suicide pact by a former trump white house lawyer stood at the core of testimony in today s january 6 committee hearing. three former top justice department officials describing former president trump s efforts to enlist help from the department to perpetuate his unsupported claims of election fraud, including pressure on the doj to send an official letter to georgia election officials. that letter falsely stating the justice department had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election. when doj leaders refused to sign it, the president reportedly telling them just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me today s hearing focusing on the actions of former assistant attorney general jeffrey clark who witnesses say stood ready to do mr. trump s bidding. let
of big news, joe, on capitol hill. what a significant day. and i will tell you, i was away from the tv for a good part of the day, and started getting breaking news alerts about the hearings, started following some i had to come back, rewatch the entire hearing all over again. it really, yesterday, about as compelling of any hearing we ve seen on capitol hill since the days of watergate. i was young when the watergate hearings were on. i was upset because we had only had four channels then, and i wanted to see the flintstones and mr. ed, but my parents were sitting front, watching watergate. like everybody. and it was so compelling. and you see those clips, and it s history and you don t think you re ever going to see anything like that again. like a movie. but actually, willie, we did see something and we keep seeing, every one of these january 6th hearings. you re looking at history, you understand it, because, again, it drives home the point that maybe we ve
election. once again in the spotlight, no one other than wisconsin s senator ron johnson. after the committee revealed on tuesday that one of his top staffers messaged an aide to vice president mike pence about johnson passing fake slates of trump electors for wisconsin and michigan to vice president mike pence by hand on january 6th. a pence aide promptly shut it down texting the johnson staffer this, quote. do not give that to him, end quote, but that attempted handoff still begs many questions like what did ron johnson know about the scheme to set up false electors which is under criminal investigation by the justice department. here s johnson on capitol hill dodging questions from reporters. how much did you know about what your chief of staff was doing with the alternate slates of electors? no, you re not. i can see your phone. i can see your screen. did you know what your chief of staff was doing? does your chief of staff still work for you, sir? can you expla
house oversight committee on gun violence. there have been nearly 250 mass shootings happening nationwide so far this year and the hearing takes place just weeks after the mass shooting in buffalo, new york and uvalde, texas. a fourth grader who covered herself in blood and played dead to survive the massacre is also scheduled to attend the hearing. caroline maloney from new york is here. what can we expect to hear during the hearings? this can be an opportunity to listen to people who know more about gun violence than anybody, because they ve experienced it. a mother lost her son doing his job in buffalo. an 11-year-old girl saw her teachers and fellow students murdered. it would be a parent who was just celebrating making the honor role. hours later a pediatrician lost five of his patients in one day. we hope their heart wrenching stories will open the minds and hearts of the members of congress to vote for the protecting our kids act, which would move forward some form o
do it for us tonight. now, it is time for the last word, with a great lawrence o donnell. good evening, lawrence. good evening to you, rachel. you have set the stage for this week s hearing, the january 6th hearing, which surely are the most important hearings since watergate. and i know you have mentioned your experience with the watergate hearings, and i m not sure how much you actually remember of those [laughs] of those hearings, or exactly you know, which diaper you were wearing at the time. i was six weeks old. maybe, i remember. i don t know. [laughs] so, i remember of it i was a student at the time. and watching it from that distance of a student, where i thought, i know everything. it never felt, it was no horse race component to it. i do not remember any discussion of what s gonna happen, because of these hearings. all i remember was the excitement of what are we going to learn tomorrow. what are we gonna learn, if you watch this thing today? what s gonna