politician just giving a fiery speech on the mall, is now a case involving direct testimony of, apparently, the president s engagement in what seems to be a premeditated plan to disrupt the electoral count and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. it s a much more powerful case now, and that makes it much harder for attorney general garland to decline to prosecute. i have to say also, in your piece, you also made a very compelling case for even if charges were brought, success in any criminal case against trump would be slim to none. and again, but after, you know, the hutchinson moment, if you will, do you feel differently about that as well? well, i m afraid i don t. the politics of this haven t changed enough yet. i mean, your poll that you mentioned at the top 31% of people still think trump should not be charged.
and they expected to see all these calls they have been hearing about between donald trump and mike pence, donald trump and certain lawmakers, as he is calling them to try to encourage them to persist with overturning the election, while the mob was storming the capitol. and what they got was a whole bunch of missing hours, where there were no records of these calls that they had witnessed testimony of, actually haven t happened. and so, this raises all sorts of questions, and it opens up a tremendous roadblock for the committee s effort, as they try to piece together the definitive account of what happened that day. one leading theory is that donald trump was conducting a lot of business, either on his personal cell phone, on his eighth phone. we have some reporting that shows people were sort of passing phones back and forth, using each other s phones. so we don t exactly know who
i think that are investigating. they would have lawyers. talks would occur, leaks would occur. then bewould hear what s going on. there are ways to do this. only presenting the testimony of, firefighter example, fbi agents to at this stage inform the grand jury of what they re learning before they begin subpoenas civilian witnesses such that it s bound to leak. so i believe it s ongoing. we just don t know about it yet. i will remember what you said here today if something should occur in the future because i think a lot of people are looking at all the details coming out, and they re like, you know, throwing up their hands because it appears that these folks have gotten away
interesting that she pointed out in terms of house democrats, she thought they should have gone through the courts, although notably did not say whether she thought that there would be value in the testimony of, say, a mick mulvaney, a john bolton in the senate. but made it clear she thought house democrats should have gone about this a little differently. well, i think the house democrats did everything they could in view of what s going on with the trump administration. they have gone to court to compel a lot of evidence being produced by the trump administration, and they ve been fought every step of the way. a number of the cases are going to be decided by the united states supreme court next year. but this is trial is going to take place in the senate as a fair trial. it is presided over by the chief justice of the united states. this is a trial. it s not a political game. the oath of loyalty is to the united states of america, not to donald trump. these senators, democrats and
senator mcconnell. and i m repeating this. he said at the top of the program, we play that tape, he said, quote, i m coordinating with the white house counsel. there will be no difference between the president s position and our position as how to handle this. i m just telling you, i was through this. and the reality is that there will be senators who will get up, and they will have a different point of view of maybe what the white house s point of view. and i don t think you re going to see something exactly the way the administration wants it. i think you re going to have people weigh in. again, i don t think it s going to be far away from the administration. don t get me wrong. i don t think they re going run and do something that is completely out of line, but i think you re going to see some nuances and a little different than maybe what s coming out of the white house directly. richard, it s also interesting that she pointed out in terms of house democrats, she thought they s