You are live in the cnn newsroom. Im jim acosta in washington. Good evening. We are inching closer to i deadline in the governments case against former President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trumps lars now have about 22 hours to respond to a legal filing from special counsel jack smith. He requested a protective order after trump posted this on social media on friday. If you go after me, im coming after you. Smith wants the judge to limit trump and his legal team from publicly discussing sensitive evidence in the election interference case. Today on cnn we heard from one trump lawyer who says he will fight that protective order. The Defense Attorney also says trump did not tell Vice President mike pence at the time to throw out key electoral votes. He says the key distinction is that trump merely asked. Youre saying that asking is action. No, asking is aspirational. Asking is not action. Its core free speech. What President Trump did not do is direct Vi
the fbi director on defense. the lead starts right now. are you protecting the bidens? absolutely not. the fbi does not hold on. you won t answer the question. the fbi, christopher wray on the hill questioned by some of his harshest republican critic. calling for a culture shift at the fbi. and more promises for ukraine but president zelenskyy is not getting the thing he really wanted, entry into nato. why not? plus, taxpayer beware. it s not just uncle sam getting your data, the report out today on who else can see your most sensitive tax information. welcome to the lead i m jake tapper. we start with that explosive battle on capitol hill. republicans released a tsunami of accusations and attacks against the fbi and its trump-appointed director christopher wray accusing wray of weaponizing the bureau against conservatives, lambasting the bureau s participation in last year s search of trump s florida home. american speech is censored, parents are call t
is end. this morning in court filings, we learned the trump appointed attorney reached a plea agreement where he ll plead golt to two counts of failing to pay his taxes on time. he also faces a gun possession charge which is expected to be dismissed. his lawyer joins me for his first tv interview. this investigation was in the works for five years across two administrations. first brought by the doj under president trump in 2019 then continued with the same trump appointed prosecutor, david weiss, under president biden. according to reporting from nbc news, it was thorough across multiple federal agencies and field offices. it began broadly looking at money laundering and fair violations. neither of which were charged. the lengthy time period is part of what the gop is seizing on today. claiming the investigation was slow walked or compromised. and arguing this quote slap on to wrist as they call it shows that former president trump is being politically persecuted. you thin
biggest maybe truisms he s eve spoken thank you, my friend. and thanks to you at home fo being here it came as a shock, near the end of the january six committee s sixth hearing last summer when vice chair, liz cheney, dropped a bombshell. the prospect of witnes tampering in the investigation first, here is how on witness described phone call from people interested in that witnesses testimony. quote, what they said to me is as long as i continue to be team player that they know i m on the right team. i m doing the right thing, i m protecting who i need to protect. you know all continue to sta in good graces, in trump world as long as i continue to be a team player. while the news of potentia witness tampering by trump world was shocking, it wasn the last week hear about it. in december, the committee released transcripts o closed-door depositions with witnesses. through those depositions we found out that former whit house aide, mark meadows, an star january six com
lock her up, that s right. (crowd chanting, lock her up) [applause] (crowd chanting, lock her up) that s how it went throughout trump s 2016 campaign, her supporters answered any question of hillary clinton s name with a chant, loud, stadium chant. lock her up. and trump loved it. his kids clapped along to it at the republican national convention. his future national security adviser was part of the chorus, even though he was the one who would actually be convicted of a real crime just a few years later. lock her up, over her emails, lock her up, she misused to serve, lock her up because she is trump s opponent. trump pushed the fantasy of hillary clinton s criminality to such an extreme that he made this threat on the debate stage a month before the election. i will tell you what. i did not think i would say this. but i m going to say that. and i hate to say it but if i win i am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your sit