entity, the fact that it s not related to his news gathering activity is also important. most trump allies have refused to engage with the committee. ones at this level, like mark meadows or steve bannon. assuming that hannity refuses, and we don t know what he s going to do. i should be clearer with that. most people that the committee has asked to speak to have cooperated, but some top-level people have not. if hannity doesn t cooperate, is there a strong case for criminal contempt of congress? executive privilege doesn t apply but at the same time, he is a member of the press. and even if the committee is saying, hey, we re not trying to get involved with your press gathering, your news-gathering operation, that comes very close if not going over a line in terms of a journalist talking to people in the white house. so on one hand, jake, what
considering leaving if the pressure was continuously applied to mike pence. this is like an investigator s dream to see these texts, to have a witness like this made clear to you. you get this information that hannity is a member of the media. these are fact issues. they have nothing to do with his news gathering activity. this is fair game. because, al, you might have folks around the president who were saying, you know, we didn t know. we couldn t foresee this was going to happen. clearly, they could, right? sean hannity, who knows what his viewers are thinking, is telling mark meadows, hey, i m worried. what is he worried about? clearly, he s worried about violence. . that s right. and perhaps it s an indication that even in that close circle of people who are pushing and spreading lies about the election that they are realizing that things are going too far and they re jeopardizing
and what does that mean for news organizations here in the united states? i mean, i guess i should say around the world because as you and i both know, ted we ve talked about this there are so many regimes around the world that have adopted trump s name calling, calling news organizations fake news and using things like the enemy of the people to defame journalists and so on. it s very, very troubling and very dangerous. it em boldens leaders around the world to abuse the press, to clamp down on the press. the republican party most republicans in office in running for office, part of their brand is to denigrate and dely jit mize the press. the harmful thing is that makes it so that citizens don t believe what some of the best reporters and journalists in the world are telling them based on their news gathering activity. but they re believing the disinformation, the lies about the 2020 election, the lies about covid.
somehow communicating to him they might leave or quit if the pressure on mike pence was continuing. so he s involved before anything happens then on the immediate eve of the events, he indicates he s greatly concerned about it. so he is absolutely a fact witness right in the cross hairs of this committee. they have to do whatever is necessary to secure his testimony. i m sure it will be a fight. but they are complete i agree with jeff s comments entirely. this is far outside his news gathering activity as the justice department typically refers to it. let s face it. we know what his journalism was in the aftermath of these events. it doesn t seem consistent with any of the things he was saying to these folks ahead of time. i think he s worthy of talking to. all right, thank you all very much. and stay with us. we of course will bring you ag garland s remarks as soon as they begin. and join jake tapper and
unless the journalist himself or herself is suspected of criminal activity. you don t go after journalists for just being journalists. so in order to get warrants in the first instance, they had to put this stuff in there that said, now, rosen was a potential co-conspirator. the person or institution he less than truthful with was , yeah, exactly. if you don t believe that james should have ever been prosecuted for news gathering activity, then you shouldn t go to a judge and hand him an application for a warrant that in effect says, he had probable cause to believe that this individual was engaged in, yes, criminal activity. gregg: it look like holder is lying to the judge or he was lying to congress. let me move forward. there are increasing calls for holder to be fired or resign and not just from the right, but the