legal argument on the dec declassification and process argument, legit. let s have that discussion. but the actual documents, right, they re classified for this thing called a reason, right? let s say there was a nuclear codes. trump says well, like, i declassified them. so there s no problem with me taking them and keeping them on my desk at mar-a-lago. even if that were legally true, there s a huge judgment problem involved where he s taking stuff that s classified for a really important reason, and saying i can show it off to my friends when they visit me in mar-a-lago because it s fun, as if the actual secrets don t matter. and can i just note somewhere hillary clinton s head is exploding. one of the reasons that donald trump is president is because republicans successfully made the argument that hillary clinton, as secretary of state, was cavalier and did not take seriously enough the classification process for her home email server.
y, z. this is really a process argument and it s really kevin mccarthy trying to pursue his highest ambition. at a point folks are going to get tired. the chaos caucus, and i hate to admit this, is winning right now. they re holding their breath waiting for everybody else to turn blue. the challenge is they understand leverage, the power of five. now, they have 19 or 20, so they have more than they need. that s all they can do. they have no problem taking this thing to the brink. they live for this. at some point the adults in the house republican conference are going to have to stand up, as david said, and they ll have to have a conversation with kevin mccarthy. how long do we want this blood-letting to go on that s damaging the institution, the congress, the country and the party? i think they have to have that conversation. when do they have it? they do have leverage right now, as long as these votes are going on they have leverage. they ve won all the battles that 245 they re g
divisive. without accountability insurrections are just practice. john, political question here because folks will pars whether the january 6th committee had a political impact before the doj make its decision. amy walter made the point yesterday that, well, if you look at the midterm elections you can argue that the january 6th committee s findings as well as other things that have been revealed by reporters and other revelations and so on already had something of a political impact in the election deniers did not fare well in the midterms. is that a fair connection? i think that is a fair connection. remember the election deniers did not do well in swing states which is of course where they matter the most. many so-called red states, conservative states, they won, but presumably won t be trying to overturn elections if their team wins. that s the problem of this. what was compelling about the testimony we heard is that it s coming from republicans. it s coming from within the tru
of the tuesday elections. not even about terry mcauliffe, but is there any evidence that they weaken joe biden at a vulnerable point in his presidency because they did not get to this point before today? everything that we are talking about legislatively has been a democrat-only affair. house democrats in particular are keenly aware that inaction is not helpful. now, they will make differing arguments about which bill might have been more helpful, if any, to any specific race. but i asked speaker pelosi exactly this question yesterday. she said look doing something is always better than nothing. they have been stuck in a process argument. they are staring at each other in conference rooms in the
this as eli said, think of it as a hot potato. it s hot because you say, look, we have done everything we can in the congress. we literally are referring this as a public crime. then they say we re going to look at this very closely but there are a lot of reasons they don t love that kind of case. counsel here just gave us one, which sometimes that kind of case you lose, because as i emphasized briefly in the lead, max, it s not a separate crime. it s not like you stole something and you defied the subpoena. you re just on what could be technically called the process argument. but max, doesn t process matter if people start getting away with defying congress, especially in an insurrection investigation, doesn t that undermine the oversight they need to do to protect democracy? of course it does, ari, but i agree with the analysis you just heard that i am not so confident that the rule of law will actually prevail here, even though the right and wrong of