the january 6th hearing today. our continuing coverage along with our panel of parts, who i m going bring in in a moment. but what s going on today is another set of break-throughs in this set of hearings, include people naming names. we re learning which specific republican lawmakers were literally asking for last-minute pardons for their own conduct. the focus today is how the committee laid out this new evidence of donald trump s efforts to get people installed and promoted within the department of justice to carry out a coup. three doj officials testifying about what they did, including a tense oval office meeting with resignations with that coup plot moved forward. this was happening in the hairy days before january 6th and drew on testimony both live and in these video taped depositions like you see here. jeffrey clark, more on his liam problems in a moment, was the one that was going to be bodying up to take over the justice department for the explicit purpose of layin
investigations that will produce results in a matter of days. it s impossible. it s absurd. it s not going to happen, and it s going to fail. it s going to fail. if you take nothing else from today s hearing, take this the plan was to putinize the justice department of the united states. the plan came so close to completion that white house aides were acting like it was already reality. did plan only failed because these people appointed by trump, loyal to trump s other external policy plans, put everything on the line to stop them. and that goes to the potential criminal liability of ex president trump because those same people who were there in the room off the record, in secret, behind closed doors, who know him so well and also know the law so well, all say he was leading what they ve now described as an illegal plot.
facts. the idea that all this is coming out now 18 months later these folks deserve to be celebrated for their testimony today. what they did on january 6th, absolutely. but they were awol when it counted. i would put it slightly differently, but that s why we have more than one perspective at the table. they should be celebrated for their actions. after they took action, many of these people were awol when the country needed them. only they know the reasons. in my view, rarely have so many been so praised who were so tardy. it s the constant story of the trump presidency. the first in the meantime, the person that didn t speak up was john bolton. he saves trump s in his view, criminal s to so bad he went to bill barr he told them about him for his book. he didn t testify in the first impeachment, which was an
mr. donahue, representative perry called you the next day on december 27th. who told him to call you? my understanding is the president did at the outset of the call, congressman. perry told me he was calling at the behest of the president. you see the portrait emerging in what was an effective hearing today, dry at time, largely so because it was chronological, and built to the clash that was detailed at the end that would be saturday night nixon level massacre. so that was trump trying to do this thing. people trying to stop him, and then you have on the outside of that, other allies inside the legislative branch, republican congresspersons who apparently were so concerned about the way they helped trump that they were worried they could be indicted for it and thus began seeking pardons. and are you aware of any members of congress seeking
different level of intent. bill barr, for all the incriminating information he had against trump gave him kind of a defense to a criminal prosecution when he said he thought trump was detached from reality, which could mean that trump really believed the big lie. but everything we re learning from the hearings suggests the 60 judges, the white house counsel, the attorney general, the deputy acting attorney general they re all saying this didn t happen, and trump s saying, he s not saying i don t believe you. he s saying, i don t care. right. and he s coming up with more. i mean, the fact that the testimony today ends with one bill barr described it at what can-whack a-mole. they survived the doj decapitation plot, and the last thing we learn is there was one more ice truck. the ice truck really spoke to you today.