invaded every single day. we want to audit ukraine. lieutenant colonel, there s so much to unpack there on why the republicans don t understand but geopolitical importance of safeguarding ukraine, and we will talk about this idea that putin is invading a democratic country and sovereignty, and what it would mean if ukraine or to fall. those are two very extreme voices. it does tell you about the future of american support for ukraine under the gop rule and the u.s. congress. could you talk a bit about this shift, and what council he would have, in private, to kevin mccarthy if you could? sure, so, let s start with the premise that they do understand the importance of supporting ukraine, but they don t care. they don t care about u.s. national security in this case, because they could score political points. that s a political point are not even necessarily the base. those political points are with trump. trump has a deep against ukraine. they are trying to curry favor
nature developing story. get this. attorney general merrick garland made a surprise announcement yesterday when he called for a news conference and appointed to special counsel to continue the justice department s criminal investigation of donald trump. jack smith, a longtime federal prosecutor who has been working at the hague in recent years, will takeover the probe of trump s role informant think that january six insurrection, at his possible mishandling of highly classified government documents. the attorney general says it comes less than 72 hours after trump announced his 2024 presidential run. it is the earliest that anyone has ever announced a campaign for president. and it s also the first time a special counsel has been appointed to investigate a presidential candidate. and bc s josh lederman has more. take a listen. this morning, to sprawling criminal investigations into former president trump are in the hands of an independent special counsel. career prosecutor jack smith
silver lining in trump s presidency is he has been active civic education in our government throughout on all our institutions. i have to agree with you. i have to ask you this follow-up question. there is a strong belief trump announced his candidacy as a way to evade prosecution. does this presidential run make it more complicated for the doj to pursue this investigation? do you actually think that was his thinking? he does want to evade prosecution? i think anybody wants to evade prosecution. but [laughter] that s fair. you know what i mean. absolutely. it s just another tactic? another arrow in his quiver, trying to basically change it so people are talking about his presidency and not the fact that he has potentially made real serious crimes? look, i think by announcing early, it helps them with the public messaging that this is a political prosecution, but just remember, this investigation started way before he started
with an essentially unlimited budget, the special counsel will oversee the probes into mr. trump s role in the january 6th attack on the capital and into classified documents he kept at mar-a-lago. the attorney general must still sign off before mr. trump could be indicted. in an exclusive interview from meet the press, the former president mike pence arguing americans want to move past the trump investigations. no one is above the law. but i would hope the justice department would give careful consideration before they take any additional steps. you just heard from josh let herman reporting. joining me now is andrew weizmann. a former fbi general counsel who previously served as a lead prosecutor in robert murrell there s a special counsel investigation. he s at the english senior fellow and where you lost school and the author of where law ends, inside the mueller investigation. thank you so much for joining me today. glad to be here. so, i want to ask you, on november 14th,
close before for four years, do you think there is a danger and donald trump being president again? always be proud of the record of the trump pence administration. and for four and a half years, president trump was not only my president, but he was my friends. obviously, it didn t and well. while the president and i parted amicably, i believe, as we look to the future, it will have better choices. i don t know about you, but i probably would not call out the party of my friends and it s angry mob after me. let s just say, if you were expecting mike pence s book tour to be a candid reckoning of life as donald trump number two, you are expecting a little too much. if you listen closely, you will hear some really choice nuggets of passive aggression, like an interview we just played from