a deadly chokehold by a stranger on a new york city subway car. why this incident spaurrked a homicide investigation and important conversations about mental illness and vigilantism. and then the fight gets under way to overturn an abortion ban in one state, a ban dating back to 1849. you heard that right. years before the civil war. decades before women could even vote. we re talking to the attorney general who filed the lawsuit. welcome to the lead. we begin in our politics lead. a major milestone in the prosecution of the pro trump rioters who stormed the capitol on january 6, 2021. and an effort to in an effort to forcibly keep trump in power after his resounding and legitimate election defeat. today four members of the far right proud boys militia group were found guilty by a jury of seditious conspiracy in their roles in the teek. these are of course the same extremists donald trump declined to condemn during a presidential debate in september 2020. what do you
today. and from everything i ve read of the testimony, it seems like these leaders thought that they were doing what donald trump wanted them to do. and they heard him say stand back and stand by. and they thought what her doing the capitol that day was in service of donald trump. will this verdict make it more likely that the justice department will charge trump for his role in the insurrection? i think it should, but i m not so sure that it will. first of all, these verdicts are a statement of. they are proof of concept. we ve seen that the doj is fully capable of charging seditious conspiracy and obtaining convictions. if you look at the way the prosecutors put the case together, they didn t have a particular communication where somebody said we re going to overtake the capitol by force and block the electoral count. instead what they did, they put together all the evidence, testimony and documents showing that there was talk of revolution insurrection and that they had a plan t
it is very, very difficult for the justice department to even get to the point where they want to bring that charge. it was a charge that first was born out of civil war and then in recent years until the january 6 insurrection, it essentially was very, very difficult to gain any convictions on. and so since then, the justice department has used all of the video, garland talked about thousands and thousands of hours of video, all the photos, text messages, other messages that they gathered between these members of the groups to be able to say these aren t just people that arrived at the capitol on january 6 and were violent there, were swept up in the crowd, but there were people who were in the leadership positions in both the oath keep ertz and proud boys who were collectively wanting to use politics to spur violence in this country.
all right. that is attorney general merrick garland. not taking any questions. speaking after four proud boys, four leaders, were convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier today for their roles in the january 6 insurrection for trying to stop what attorney general garland called a cornerstone of democracy. calling the verdict proof that the justice department will do everything in its power to defend american democracy. let s bring in every van perez and also elie honig. evan, you can tell that the attorney general feels as though he is doing what needs to be done. today s verdict at least getting four of the leaders of the proud boys convicted on this very rarely brought charge was a big deal for the department. it is something that the attorney general and others really weighed for weeks and weeks before they actually brought it. and you can see the fact that he
of behavior that was on full display. and so we ve watched this group has mutated like a virus. they are now doing more things locally. but i really think that this pierces their veil of vulnerability. now everybody knows like the oathkeepers before them, they are going to be their injustice has been exposed. so the goal of the insurrection was to stop the constitutional transfer of power. joe biden won overwhelmingly, legitimately, et cetera. why were the proud boys involved if they are a racist extremist organization? what was their interest just explain it for us in keeping donald trump president. there is certainly a convergence between the kind of white supremacist white wing groups who hate jews and other minorities and the kind of armed militia types who are looking to