critics. >> actions we have taken thus far will not be our last. >> "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the january 6th insurrection. and tonight, on the eve of that violent day, there is still one major lingering question from donald trump's attempted coup. well, there are many, but this is the one i keep coming back to. we know now, it's quite established, after a year of reporting, that the former president and a small group of allies were deadly serious about overthrowing the results of a free and fair election. and we know that most of their schemes were both at once dangerous and absurd. there's still one remaining question, which is how close were they to succeeding? and this has been the subject of quite some debate. and contrary to some folks out there, sknr and i read a lot along these lines that the whole thing was preposterous, doomed to fail from the beginning. after the ridiculous lawsuits and attacking tactics against local officials. donald trump and his allies settled on a brazen strategy that focused on one person, and here's the thing, it could have worked. what they wanted, what they settled on was for vice president mike pence to essentially throw out the electors in key states over entirely fabricated bogus claims of fraud and irregularities. had he done that, it cannot be overstated how dangerous and unprecedented that would have been. anyone who says they know for sure what would have happened next is wrong. it almost certainly would have precipitated a full-blown constitutional crisis, because there would be no real blueprint at that point. there's no precedent. it's never happened. now, maybe the senate would have come together across party lines to try to rectify the situation, but that is not guaranteed, especially with this senate. it might have probably would have ended up in the supreme court, and maybe the court would have issued a kind of definitive ruling that ended the whole thing, like they did in bush v. gore, but of course, there's no telling which candidate the 6-3 court would have supported. it's also entirely possible the court would have said, look, this is not jushticiable because it's fundamentally a political question and we're staying out of it. we would be back to square one. all of which is a long way to say it would be a catastrophic mess with no clear path forward or easy answers. ultimately, mike pence did not throw out the electors, and this nightmare scenario did not play out. but the pressure campaign on pence to play along with this scheme was enormous. started with donald trump himself, who would tell everyone that would listen it all depended on pence. this is from his january 4th rally in georgia. >> i hope mike pence comes through for us, i have to tell you. i hope that our great vice president, our great vice president comes through for us. he's a great guy. of course, if he doesn't come through, i won't like him quite as much. no, mike is a great guy. >> got a great relationship, mike, it would be terrible if something happened to it. the day after those comments, pence reportedly told trump he did not have power to block the election. trump just pretended pence was on his side anyway. that same night after trump reportedly said i'm not doing this, trump orders the white house to release a statement reading in part, quote, the vice president and i are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act. think about the pressure that puts on mike pence who has just told him i can't do it. pence also had pressure from trump's allies in the coup attempt like rudy giuliani and coup architect john eastman, and from the president's chief of staff, mark meadows, who would forward coup plans to pence's office. as well as from unlikely sources like the president's economic adviser, peter navarro, who we know now was directed by trump, at least by navarro, personally to brief republicans in congress on the plan. he even came up with a cute name for the coup plot, the green bay sweep. on the day of the insurrection, trump called out pence multiple times in his speech at the ellipse saying if he does not act, quote t will be a sad day for the country. and then after pence doesn't do it. after he doesn't do it, mob entering the capitol, he goes on to tweet that pence did not have the courage to protect the country and the constitution. i mean, it's hard to pin down if the crowd was chanting hang mike pence at exactly the same moment as that tweet, but they're pretty contemporaneous. all of this is to say nothing of the angry mob at the capitol who were shouting hang mike pence, hoping to use violence and death against the vice president. with hindsight, we know pence refused to cooperate, but in the moments leading up to january 6th one year ago at this moment on the evening of january 5th, it was a real question whether or not he would throw out the results of a democratic election to help a coup. and it was a question for a number of reasons. first, because it's worth remembering who mike pence is. this is a man who understood his assignment from the day he was added to the ticket to be the most sycophantic of trump's sick ofanlts. itself a difficult challenge, to always be the last yes man in the room. in fact, pence's image was widely seen as trump's toady. there was a reasonable amount of concern he would simply refuse to decline a direct order from his boss like that. secondly, as we mentioned, there was no telling what would happen next. presumably, pence wanted to stay vice president. here's an opportunity that might very well have allowed him to. we know from some great reporting that pence wanted to get to yes, or at least he was going around looking for a yes. bob woodward and robert costa report in their book, peril, pence asked former vice president dan quayle for advice, and according to the reporting in their book, pence poked and prodded quayle for a way in which he could go along with the president's plan, but quayle was unequivocal. quote, mike, you have no flexibility on this. none, zero. forget it, put it away. quayle reportedly told him. pence also reached out to legal scholar michael luding, who is a big deal in the conservative legal world. he was a federal judge for a while. and he similarly told pence the coup plot was unconstitutional and a nonstarter, as did pence's own chief of staff, marc short, who came to the obvious conclusion, one man could not unilaterally overturn an election, disenfranchising 88 million plus voters. and to be clear here, quayle, luding, short, pence, i think they all have terrible, even odious politics, with a lot of terrible policies, pence especially deserves enduring infamy for politely overseeing one of the most destructive presidencies of my lifetime and egging it on and apologizing for it and vouching for it, but in this one instance, i think these men, pence chief among them, deserve credit for doing the right thing. there was enormous pressure to cast this country in a constitutional crisis, and they refused. i thought back to the book by tim o'brien, the things they carry. in his book about the vietnam war, o'brien writes about peer pressure and shame in the context of war on the battlefield. he writes, quote, men killed and died because they were embarrassed not to. it was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams or glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. and that phrase has stuck with me over the decades since i first read it, the blush of dishonor, because that mentality can translate over to many other of life's experiences. a desire to not disappointment your peers or your team, to not appear cowardly or unwilling to fight. that can motivate people to do things they otherwise would not. it is worth considering what you yourself would do in pence's situation. when the eyes of the entire country are watching and waiting for you to make a decision that you know deep down is wrong, i mean, historically unprecedently wrong, could rend the country in two, and it includes the man you served for the past four years, the man who happens to be the most powerful figure on the face of the earth, known for his demands of complete loyalty and refusal to accept so-called traitors who holds your political future in your hands. that's not even including what the decision would mean for your family, what kind of danger could put them in. indeed, trump came out swinging against pence immediately. and pence's approval rating among republicans dropped significantly. following the events of the 6th, and they never recovered. again, there is so much to criticize mike pence for. we have done it on the show, but one year later, i think he deserves credit for having in this moment the courage to do the right thing. and we also know now pence even refused to flee the capitol as the rioters were calling for his execution, because as his former chief of staff marc short tells it, he did not want to be seen as handing a victory to angry mob. >> a couple different times they asked to evacuate the capitol, but the vice president -- >> he didn't want to go. >> he said i'm not leaving. the reason he said he's not leaving is because he said he did not want our adversaries across the globe to see a 15-car motorcade fleeing the capitol. that also was very proud to be with the vice president because he exerted enormous leadership under enormous pressure. and i think he, again, despite efforts to have him evacuate, he said i don't want that visual for the world to see. >> so yes, pence did the right thing. most important takeaway here is the entire venture in the end rested on one guy making the right call. that is how close we came. this idea the coup attempt did not come that close or the plan was doomed to failure from the start are preposterous, it's flat wrong. pence just as easily could have agreed to play along and literally no one knows what happens then. rick cosen is a professor of political science at uc irvine and the author of an upcoming book, cheap speech, and an expert in election law who has been thinking and writing about these issues for a long time, and he joins me now. professor, first, i guess as someone who is far more steeped in the law here, i wonder if you feel the same way, that if pence buckles to trump and declares that certain slates of electors are ruled out of order or he says from the view of the chair there's competing slates of electors that the road map past that point is unclear. is that your feeling too? >> chris, i have to say, just listening to your opening, my heart is racing because it's reminding me of what things were like a year ago. i think you're absolutely right that we don't know. it's uncharted territory. i think one of the mistakes that i made and i think others made was assuming that more people would follow the rule of law, that of course mike pence wouldn't see that he had unilateral authority to throw out electoral college votes or to delay the certification of electors, but what we learned when we saw all of those republican members of congress who voted to sustain objections to the vote counts in arizona and pennsylvania is that the law doesn't matter if people are lawless. and it really did take people of integrity in order to keep us from plunging into a constitutional and political crisis. >> right, because if you're out past the kind of frontiers of the law, but you're doing it ostensibly under the color of law, this is what i think is so dangerous and a little misunderstood about this moment is, you know, yes, it wasn't the tanks rolled through the streets and the opposition was locked away. what it was was the thinnest possible predicate of some lawful action undertaken by a small group of people with wildly lawless aspirations that they were trying to go ahead and do, and there's no guide if you get far enough in that product. >> that's right. and this is why i'm so worried about 2024, because, you know, we depended on brian kemp, dan quayle, mike pence, brad raffensperger. these are the republicans who saved our democracy, and those people for the most part are not going to be in place in 2024. if you have people who are not willing to abide by the rule of law, i mean, what is that going to look like? what if kevin mccarthy is speaker of the house? and bogus competing slates of electors come in? you know, it really -- how much can law be a deterrent if you're willing to just use the veneer of law to accomplish political ends, the kind of bloodless coup. >> i want to read michael luding, who is a very revered figure in conservative legal circles and was a federal judge and left that job for the private sector. said this to abc news, had the supreme court refused to decide these issues as i think might have been likely, the country and our democracy would have spiraled into a chaos and neither would have soon recovered. literally jeopardizing our national security. legitimacy of our democracy would forever be thrown into doubt. i think the question now is, now that, you know, now that you have this situation in which the fence has been tested for its weaknesses, again, on these sort of technical matters, right? what you do to re-enforce them. you just said the state sending competing slates of electors, the idea of legislators getting in and saying arizona is going to send its electors for donald trump no matter what the voters say. there's so much more room for mischief than they even got to last time around. >> right. so what i think we're talking about now is making both legal change and political change. certainly, we need to fix the electoral count act, that arcane 1887 law that governs the mechanics of how we have congress count and certify those electric college votes. if law is not going to be really a full deterrent, we need political action. we need a coalition of people, democrats, republicans, independents, who believe in the rule of law. who take just at the very basic bottom principle that the winner of the election should be the person who got the most votes. and you know, we have to form a coalition around that and work to strengthen civil society so that if there are attempts to try to steal an election in the future, we're girded against that. because law alone is not going to save us. >> well, and i think the other lesson which is i think adjacent to that is, and maybe this is an overly psychological explanation for the facts that we have, but that these kind of -- these peer effects matter, the people you talk to matter. when you go and consult them, their integrity and their just sort of sense of the rule of law end up being very important, which is that dan quayle and michael ludding say are you out of your mind? you can't do that. >> right, and there were many trump appointed federal judges who said the same thing, and state judges, republican judges. but you know, when you replace brad raffensperger with jody hies, then what? are we going to accept the results of an election when the person running the election is someone who embraces the big lie that the election was stolen? i mean, what's this going to do to legitimacy if trump actually wins the election if he runs again? >> this is -- that last question is a really underconsidered one, too, because it's a two-way door. like, this legitimacy genie is out of the bottle. very hard to stuff back in. and i worry about it in both directions, actually. that's a very good point and worth meditating on. thank you very much. >> thanks. on the eve of the anniversary of one of the worst attacks on american democracy, capitol police officers who faced down the violent mob on the 6th are again demanding full accountability. harry dunn and akolino gonel say only when the truth is made public and the people responsible for the atrocity of january 6th are held to account can true healing begin. next, our interview with officer harry dunn on life a year later and the work that still needs to be done. woman: i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months after just two doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or coughs or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ woman: talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. who's on it with jardiance? woman: talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. we're 25 million prescriptions strong. we're managing type 2 diabetes... ...and heart risk. we're working up a sweat before coffee. and saying, 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[ joe ] my teeth were a mess. i had a lot of pain. as far as my physical health, my body was telling me you got to do something. and so i came to clearchoice. your mouth is the gateway to your body. joe's treatment plan was replacing the teeth with dental implants from clearchoice. 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like i said in my op-ed, the calendar says a year ago. everybody keeps referring to january 6th tomorrow as the anniversary of what happened. there hasn't really been an end of january 6th, so tomorrow just seems like just another day. i don't believe that you can have true healing regarding any kind of incident until there's full accountability about what happened. and there hasn't been accountability fully yet. there have been a couple of sentences that have happened, but two aspects of accountability in the way i see it. you cannot heal until there's accountability. so we're still suffering, i'm still suffering, but i'm doing a lot better than i was on january 7th. >> do you feel -- i mean, i guess you said it never ended. do you feel the presence of it in that building still? does it loom there in that structure where this happened? >> i mean, if you're asking if i'm having like flashbacks or, you know, violent memories and stuff like that, no, not really. but you're constantly reminded about what you went through that day. i mean, you walk through that building, and you're reminded of this situation or even just watching the news, you see a news clip or new subpoenas, new text messages released. you can't really escape january 6th, even if you try to. fortunately, i'm not trying to, because i am doing whatever i can do to see that accountability is served and is had because i believe that will bring about true healing. >> what does accountability mean for you? >> understanding the full picture about what happened. you know, it's easy to interpret my thoughts as i'm talking about specifically just the former president. him, anybody that's included that contributed to the downfalls of that day, the planners, not just the people who carried out the attack on us, but the people who planned it. the people who had anything to do with egging it on, encouraging it, covering it up. anybody who had anything to do with the failures of that day, that dark day in our country's history. they need to be held accountable. i don't -- it's not my job to talk about sentences and all that stuff, but paint a public picture about what happened and just lay all the facts out and let's go from there, because there's so much stuff that we do not know. just think about the things we don't know now. think about what we didn't know last january 6th. excuse me, january 7th. think about what we'll know on january 7th, 2023. there's so much stuff that needs to come out. and that's why i'm pushing for the facts to come out. wherever they lead. >> in terms of that, one of the things, and this is from my position reporting on this and observing it at a remove and not you having gone through it, is there seemed at least after the crowd was cleared, and in the well that night, and in the days after, a consensus, pretty broad consensus that this was horrific, it was unprecedented, it was un-american. that it must never be allowed to happen again. and we have watched over the past year because of certain political actors undoing that consensus. i wonder what it's like for you to watch that consensus being undone over the course of the year from what it was a year ago to now. >> i just -- the truth is on my side. i can't describe -- the facts are indisputable about what happened that day. the actual rioters recorded it and posted it theirselves. they were proud of what they did. there's no way that anybody can say anything otherwise. if they do, like, everybody says white washing. it's flat out lying, period. it is what it is. like, the truth is on my side. now, as far as the people that are white washing it, it gets me frustrated even thinking about it right now. that's why it's very important for all of the facts to come out so accountability and justice can be served. >> i want to play for you, obviously, there's different entities doing fact finding. the select committee is one, the department of justice is another. they have overseen the prosecution of 700 plus individuals who were actually in that capitol. and today, the attorney general, merrick garland, gave a speech about that. i want to play you a little bit of what he said and get your reaction to it. here's what he had to say. >> those who assaulted officers or damaged the capitol face greater charges. those who conspired with others to obstruct the vote count also face greater charges. those who did not undertake such conduct have been charged with lesser offenses. particularly if they accepted their responsibility early and cooperated with the investigation. >> what's your reaction? >> i mean, it's encouraging. in this society that we live in, everybody wants instant justice. it happened yesterday, it needs to be resolved today. unfortunately, that's not how investigations go. i'm not any part of the justice department. i'm a police officer. and i'm just going to do my job, and i'm glad that the justice department is doing theirs, and like i said, i just urge them to do their job while i continue to do mine. >> all right. officer harry dunn, i really appreciate you making time tonight. be well. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. have a good day. >> you too. next, he was a reporter in the gallery as the violent mob tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. tonight, he's got a gripping new report about how shockingly little has changed one year later and why the real tragedy of the date is that it's still not over. matt fuller of the daily beast joins me next. just two pills for all day pain relief. aleve it, and see what's possible. and also try alevex topical pain relief. my daughter has type 2 diabetes and lately i've seen this change in her. once-weekly trulicity is proven to help lower a1c. it lowers blood sugar from the first dose. and you could lose up to ten pounds. trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. it's not approved for use in children. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. side effects include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. we hit the bike trails every weekend shinges doesn't care. i grow all my own vegetables shingles doesn't care. we've still got the best moves you've ever seen good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but, no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age increasing your risk for getting shingles. so, what can protect you? 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showing us your badge. just get out of here. and that was sort of one of those first moments, oh, the cops seem to think something is up here. you know, and then like just the slow drum beat of things going wrong, where we're getting alerts that the capitol has been breached, and then we're getting alerts that there's protesters in the rotunda, and please pull up the escape hoods under your seat, and tear gas has been deployed in the rotunda. by the way, your seats are bullet proof if we have to start having a shoot out in the chamber. it was a steady escalation of events. and i think that, you know, lost on that day was it was sort of the goofy coverage of the qanon shaman and people sort of marching through the halls, but this was a true security threat. i think that's been made clear in the last year, how serious this was, and i think the other part of this, this insurrection was the lawmakers themselves giving a voice to trump and his voter fraud election claims and then actually voting to overturn an election. as you have laid out in this show today. you know, this is an ongoing threat, and it's only getting more serious. >> what do you mean by nothing has changed? >> i mean, look, it's the same lawmakers who were there. we haven't had any real accountability for those votes or that day. yes, we have arrested over 700 people, but the threat remains that we could have another january 6th anytime. i think the security at the capitol is better than maybe ever before, but the idea that lawmakers, you know, say things didn't go the republicans' way in 2024, it's very conceivable, again, as you laid out today, that we have another situation where they just vote to overturn the election, and i think that people are now starting to understand how close we came already to that reality, and look, you know, trump is going to run again. i have very little doubt about that. i have no doubt that he will ask whoever he chooses to be his vice president, what would you do in this scenario? and i don't think he would choose someone who is going to say i would act like mike pence did. these are real threats to democracy. and republicans haven't learned their lesson in any way. they are very much committed to this course of action, and even more so today than they were a year ago, i think. >> well, and part of the reason for that too, show the favorability ratings. this is really the key, the favorability ratings among republicans and donald trump compared to mcconnell and pence, if you look over the past year, they sided with him. and you know, he sort of drove a wedge, and it ended up with a bigger chunk on his side. you know, his favorability, net favorability is extremely high, and mcconnell's is under water, even with republicans. pence is, you know, much lower than his. which brings us to kevin mccarthy, who knows this, and who nbc news just reported won't be attending the events tomorrow, january 6th, just the commemoration that was planned. and i gotta interpret that as a tacit in some ways not tacit, explicit symbol to trump, like, i'm down with you, dude. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, kevin mccarthy, he made his one small stand on the night of january 6th. and ever since then, has bent over backwards in service to trump. he's made that his sort of his cause. and he's tied his entire political being to donald trump at this point. so he understands he can't piss off trump. he's going to play this as closely to donald trump as possible. and that, you know, part of that is not, you know, i don't want to say celebrate january 6th, but recognizing the threat it was and recognizing the trauma and damage it did to capitol hill as a community. >> all right. matt fuller, as always, thanks a lot, man. >> appreciate it. earlier today, attorney general merrick garland gave an update on the investigations into january 6th that seems to address critics who say doj isn't doing enough. what he said about those charges yet to come after this. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. among my patients, i often see them have teeth sensitivity as well as gum issues. does it worry me? 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ingestion, upset stomach... ♪ ♪ diarrheaaaa.♪ try pepto bismol with a powerful coating action. for fast and soothing relief. pepto bismol for fast relief when you need it most. today in an address marking the anniversary of the capitol, attorney general merrick garland attempted to answer some of his critics who are upset over the lack of charges for the organizers of the attempted coup. as garland pointed out, there have been hundreds of charges filed against the loyal foot soldiers, those who formed the mob on january 6th, and the investigative committee on the january 6th attack is now contemplating public hearings. glenn kirchner is a former federal prosecutor when joins me now. glenn, as someone who has spent a lot of time in the office that has been overseeing these cases, your reaction to the garland speech today? >> so i think merrick garland's speech was even a little bit more forward leaning than i had expected. i was hoping we weren't just going to hear more about how the department of justice will follow the facts and follow the law wherever it leads. that's nothing more than saying the prosecutors will breathe in followed by breathing out. what he said that i thought was actually pretty important was that the department of justice is determined to hold all january 6th perpetrators accountable, his words, at any level. and then he added, whether they were at the capitol or not, or otherwise criminally responsible. that frankly is what i had been waiting to hear, because that conjures up notions of, you know, lawyers like jeffrey clark who were authoring arguably seditious letters to state election officials, giving them a blueprint to undermine joe biden's win and lawyers like john eastman, you know, issuing, drafting these memos, basically how to coup for fun and profit. it also conjures up the people who were part of the war council, enjoying the cushy environs of the willard hotel while they were plotting democracy's demise. and of course people in the oval office. so i was really pleased to hear attorney general garland reinforce that they're going to be focusing on and holding accountable people at any level whether present at the capitol or not. so much more than donald trump's fool soldiers, the powerful not just the powerless. >> that was my read, it was about what i thought except for those few moments when he said that, which obviously that is a very closely watched speech in terms of what they put out. i wanted to get your reaction, zoe, because you are a small group of reporters who really have been on this beat at the ground level in terms of how the department of justice has gone about these cases of the people that have been arrested, what you're takeaway from the speech was. >> you know, i agree with glenn that it did seem to send a stronger message than we've seen from the justice department about the potential reach of the investigation. i do think at the same time it was meant to temper expectations. he tried to walk through the steps of a normal investigation. the overarching message seemed to be, if you want norms restored to the justice department, you need to sit back and wait, and it starts small and builds from there. so far we haven't seen any indication that they're going after some of the bold faced names or bigger fish that glenn was talking about. so we haven't seen any kind of publicly recognized investigatory steps that indicates they're really looking at pursuing charges against those types of people. so, you know, we know what's on the calendar in the cases. we know that we can expect to see a lot more plea deals in more of the small misdemeanor level cases. it will be i think more of the same for some time. and, you know, the big question is really looking ahead to more felon plea deals for people who committed more serious crimes like assaulting police, obstruction, conspiracy. we have trials on the calendar for the first time in 2022. so there are some major steps coming up in the prosecution effort. i think, you know, midway to some of the much bigger potential steps that garland, the attorney general, alluded to but aren't quite there yet. >> yeah, the quote was, we build investigations by laying a foundation, we resolve more straightforward cases first because they provide the evidentiary foundation for more complex cases. glenn, let me ask you about the other criticism that's come in. and this has come from actually a number of federal judges, is the severity of punishment being requested by the government in some of these cases. this was a politico article. of the 70 plus people who have been sentenced, fewer than half have received prison time for their actions. among those defendants who are being incarcerated, their stints in prison are somewhat brief. the median prison sentence to date is 45 days. we should note, i think the department of justice, as garland said, is making a distinction, a justified one, that people who essentially trespassed and didn't do anything other than enter unlawfully, and those who planned or assaulted people. but i wonder what you think of the sort of effort so far at the ground level. >> so, you know, these are my friends and my former colleagues at the u.s. attorney's office at the district of columbia where i worked for decades. so i know the people working this case. i know how much time, energy, and effort they're pouring into it. i think merrick garland did the best he could do in explaining why there are so many seemingly light sentences. because these don't feel like picketing and protesting cases. but the fact of the matter is, in my experience, no matter what prosecutorial decisions you make, somebody's always going to criticize it as being too harsh, too light, not exactly right. the reality is, when you have 700, 750, 800 defendants, that strains the system. it strains the department of justice. it strains the courts. and so the prosecutors have to look at every case in isolation, not as part of some big angry mob, and say, what does this person deserve, does this person deserve to go to prison, does this person deserve probation? these are really difficult calls to make. but when merrick garland said you should expect to see lower sentences early on, the sentences will rachet up as we tackle the more serious cases, and his quote was, this is purposeful. they're building from the ground up, which it is way we make these cases. >> and to zoe's point, we'll see that trial and we'll be looking ahead to that, we'll have you back on to talk about that as we get closer. zoe tillman, glenn kirchner, thank you both. that's "all in" this wednesday night. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris, much appreciated. thanks to all of you for joining fours this shower. senate majority leader chuck schumer is our guest live in just a moment, very much looking forward to speaking with him since once again and as usual now, he is the man at the center of the question of what can or cannot be done in washington, what the biden administration can or cannot get passed. we'll be speaking with senator schu