justices elena kagan, sonia sotomayor, and stephen breyer, which did block the osha safety rule for employers requiring workers to be vaccinated or get regularly tested. r now in a separate ruling today, the court did leave in place thp vaccine requirement for people working in a health care setting. but if you don't work in a diin health care setting, if you're stacking i shelves or on the factory floor working in a big open-plan cubicle and your workplace doesn't want to protect you from a covid-rich environment, well, the supreme court just blocked the biden administration from helping you. the supreme court just blocked n the biden administration from being allowed to require that your workplace be made more safe. it's not necessarily an unexpected ruling given how right wing the supreme court is right now and how weird and scientifically uninformed the conservative justices questions were during the oral arguments, but now it is done. we will have more on that ahead tonight. we'll also have more ahead on what's happening around voting rights. conservative democrats kyrsten sinema and joe manchin nd reiterating they plan to effectively side with j republicans and block any g protections for voting rights si even as republicans roll back voting rights and attack them s all over the country.ig both of those conservative senators met with president biden in person tonight at the white house. we will have latest on that. we've also got interesting developments on this story where we're sort of now well stuck into, this strange and spreading story about thege previously unknown mysteriously coordinated effort to have republicans in multiple states forge election documents after the last election and present themselves as fake electors to the electoral college. this is a story we have been covering in recent days if you've been watching the show recently. it's still unspooling. we've got more new ahead on it tonight. so that's coming up as well. but here's where we need to start tonight.t as you have heard from the justice department this month, in the year since the january e h attack on the u.s. capitol by trump supporters, the justice department has arrested and charged more than 700 people. with charge -- with participating in that attack in some capacity. the vast majority of the 700-plus people who have been charged were chargedeo with low-level offenses like trespassing. but almost immediately after the attack on the capitol started people picking through footage of what happened that day realized that within the crowd of thousands of rioters, many of t whom seemed to be sort of th throwing themselves willy-nilly at police officers and e barricades and windows and doors, within that riotous but mostly uncoordinated crowd there were some attackers who appeared to be very highly organized. this is from an associated press report days after the attack. quote, as president donald d trump's supporters massed pr outside the capitol last week, a line of men wearing olive drab helmets and body armor trudged purposefully up the marble stairs in a single-file line, each man holding the jacket collar of the man ahead. thate format known as ranger fe is standard operating procedure for a combat team that is stacking up to breach a building. it's instantly recognizable to any u.s. soldier or marine serving in iraq or afghanistan. it was a chilling sign that many at the van guard of the mob that stormed the seat of american democracy either had military training or were trained by those who did. again, that was the "associated press" reporting just days after the attack. this is the footage, though, that made it come into very stark relief. this is what that looked like, the military-style stack formation. all right. there's a bunch of yahoos standing around yelling, but who are these guys? this organized group, one hand on each of them and the next one, wearing helmets, wearinge coordinated outfits of some , kind, purposefully trudging up the stairs like the ap said. within six weeks the fbi tracked down and arrested the people who formed that stack on january 6th. and those folks were not just charged with trespassing. they were not just charged even with breaking into the capitol. they were charged with a e slkh conspiracy, nine people charged with conspiring the obstruct of the certification of the presidential election that was c taking place inside the capitol. it was not just that they showed up to protest and things got out of hand or even that they planned to storm the capitol just to wreak havoc. the indictment alleged that these guys planned in advance to storm the capitol with the hanu express purpose of disrupting an official proceeding, the express purpose of disrupting the certification of the election. and in service of that conspiracy, according to prosecutors, these guys arranged for firearms and combat training. s they acquired weapons, lots of them. even discussed setting up a stockpile of weapons in a hotel just outside washington, d.c., so they could go retrieve weapons quickly for use on whatever it was theyon were planning to get themselves into inside the nation's capitol on january 6th. all of those guys previously indicted were part of our right-wing dress-up pseudo parliamentary organization called the oath keepers. this is how the federal indictment described the oath keepers. the oath keepers are a large but loosely organized collection of individuals, some of whom are associated with militias. the oath keepers explicitly ofe focus on recruiting current and former law enforcement, military, and first responder personnel. the oathd keepers are lead, th person says, by, quote, person one. and person one, person one, the leader of the oath keepers, he surfaced by name in lots of thee communications among those folks who were indicted last february. the guys who were in that stack formation heading up to the capitol. person one, the leader of the oath keepers is a guy named stewart rhodes. and, yes, that's him with the eye patch. you will be shocked to learn it had something to do with the unsafe handling of firearms. yeah. a little accident with a gun. that's what happened to the eye. but ever since the 2020 presidential election, 17 oath keepers were arrested and charged for attacking the capitol in veras capacities. as some of those oath keepers pled guilty and signed cooperation deals with federal prosecutors, throughout all of t this time, the oath keepers' lead were the eye patch, stewart rhodes, has been unavoidable for compensate. he has been loudly telling any reporter who gets anywhere near him that yes the election was o absolutely stolen from donald trump, and, yes, he absolutely encouraged oath keepers to be in d.c. on january 6th. and, yes, he was there at the capitol that day communicating with his floor oath keepers but always taking pains to say that he did not break the law because he is way too smart to have done anything illegal. today stewart rhodes was arrested after lunchtime in texas. that's his mug shot. another oath keeper guy was arrested in phoenix around the same time. and they along with nine other oath keepers who had already been arrested and charged in the capitol attack in various capacities, the 11 of them today were all indicted on the very serious charge of seditious conspiracy.anarerxa'sthstpa now, seditious conspiracy is a charge that derives from the concept of sedition. it's a charge that the prosecutorsrg have been openly mulling since the beginning of the investigation. you might remember when the justice department used to do briefings for the public and press and in the immediate aftermath of the attack they talked not infrequently at the briefings about seditious conspiracy as a potential charge.ncpa they did that right away.ra but now it is, of course, more than a year after the attack. this is the first time they've actually used it in the indictment unsealed today.he and seditious conspiracy basically means a conspiracy to commit sedition, a conspiracy against the government. specifically the way it's s written in the statute, it's a conspiracy to stop the government from carrying out its laws by force. here's how the indictment describes it. they call it the plot to oppose by force the 2020 lawful transfer of presidential power. quote, beginning in november 2020, rhodes, defendant stewart rhodes, began disseminating messages on incriminated applications, encouraging conspirators to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power. on november 5th two days after the presidential election mr. rhodes urged followers to refuse to accept the election results and states, quote, we weren't getting through this without a civil war. too late for that. prepare your mind, body, spirit. on november -- two days later on november 7th, 2020, the day president trump was projected to have lost the presidential election, mr. rhodes wrote to fellow oath keepers quote we must now do what the people of s serbia did when milosevic stole their election. he refused to accept it and marched en masse on the nation's capitol. mr. rhodes appears to be in those comment reese fehring to the storming of the serbian parliament in 2000. rhodes shared with his followers a video and step-by-step destruction guide to overthrowing the government he received from a serbian activist. that step-by-step guide included storming the parliament in our country. we don't call it the parliament. we call it the capitol because it houses our congress. but same idea. the indictment continues, quote, on december 11th, 2020, rhodes sent a message to oath keepers stating if president biden were to assume the presidency, quote, it wille be a bloody and desperate fight. we are going to have a fight. that can't be avoided. on december 25th, merry christmas, mr. rhodes wrote, quote, i think congress will at screw him, meaning screw president trump over. t the only chance we/he has is if we scare the [ bleep ] out of them and convince them it will torch and use pitch forks if they don't do the right thing. but i don't think they will listen. on december 31st, happy new year, an arizona quick reaction force team messaged mr. rhodes on signal that people were coming to washington, d.c., and that, o quote, everyone coming s their own technical idea and knows how to use it, adding a winky face emoji. mr. rhodes responded awesome. the arizona oath keeper said the group would have rifles and manpower. on january 6th itself mr. ce stewart rhodes and fellow oath s keepers did go to washington many apparently stationed with what they called quick reaction forces, just outside the district whereio they stockpile weapons presumably ready to be able to access them on short notice and come blazing in. and these -- you know, these stocks of oath keepers began heading toward the capitol and up the capitol steps, become a sort of point of the spear for actually breaking into the seat of the nation's government. according to today's indictment there was not one but two stacks of oath keepers who breached the capitol different places. apparently one part of one of those stacks was specifically looking to try to find speaker nancy pelosi.om--ksadhevetoh ffe the indictment says, quote, just before 1:30 p.m. in response to a claim by an oath keeper a affiliate that antifa breached the capitol. mr. rhodes said, nope, i'm right here. these are patriots. rhodes wrote, pence is doing nothing. all i see trump doing is complaining.te i see no intent by him to do anything. the patriots are taking it into their own hands. they've had enough. at approximately 1:30 p.m. coating oath keepers affiliates posted messages about police officers deploying pepper spray and questioned what the rioters hoped would happen if they got in the capitol. person with rhodes responded at the time we are acting like the founding fathers, can't stand down. stewart and i concur. mr. rhodes followed hey the founding generation stormed the governor's mansion in massachusetts and tarred and feathered his tax collectors and seized and dumped tea in the isi erest likan water didn't fire on them, but they street fought. that's where we are now. next comes our lexington. it's coming. just one more thing i want to share with you from today's diameter because it continues beyond january 6th. there is a section of the wesg. y b titled coconspirators continue plots after, quote, throughout the evening of january 6th, 2021, the co-conspirators discussed the need to continue fighting to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power. in the weeks after january 6th rhodes purchased a large volume of firearms and related equipment. the indictment then lists thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars worth of sights and bipods and mounts and baugsen a gun grips, ammunitione gun cases, hollisters, and gun maintenance equipment all purchased by mr. rhodes at that time. you see the dates there. january 10, january 11, january 12, january 13, january 14-19. adding up all the purchases listed in theal indictment that rhodes made of firearms and related equipment over the short burst of time, he spent something like $40,000 right around january 6th just on weaponry. quote, on inauguration day, january 20th, 2021, one oath keeper in menld another after this if nothing happens it's war, civil war, 2.0. around this time, quote, mr. rhodes messaged others to organize local militias to oppose president biden's administration. for the oath keepers january 6th was not the end point. it was apparently the beginningl of a new phase of their fight against the government.sie as of today, 11 of them are facing seditious conspiracy charges, which is a serious felonys count brought by u.s. federal prosecutors in washington, d.c. joining us now is university of chicago historian kathleen ba lou. she is the author of bringing the war home, the white house power movement on parliamentary america on the verse of the januaryhe 6th attack. you may recall her op-ed saying we still lack adequate understanding of onewe of the imminent o dangers, the threat militias to american democracy. she has spent a long time studying both the white power movement and militia movement in this country.sh professor belew, thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> so we've had more than 700 people charged for doing various alleged crimes related to january 6th. this is a different type of crime that has been charged against the sort of different kind of defendant. what do you think that the public should understand is different and important about these right-wing paramilitary groups like the oath keepers that were the subject of this indictment today? >> so i think when we think about january 6th it really represents the collision of three different groups of people. one is the trump base which contains with it sort of a range of -- that goes from people simply attending a demonstratioe as they thought to people who came there either with the intent to do something more than that or swept up in the moment. then we have qanon, which i thinke is very new and very different in tactical organization. and finally we have what i think is the smallest group, but a very important group, which is the militant right. militia's white power groups and other groups that are highly organized, that come from a coherent ideology and decades ia not generations of training and who bring with them paramilitary training with tactics, weapons, explosives, and more. and what we see in these charges is the beginning of a reckoning with that part of january 6th. i think the full reckoning has many parts to do with it. complicity of people trump's administration decisions about h when to send in the national guard. o all of these have to do with political response. this set of charges has to do with the on-the-ground violent actors who, according to the indictment, came to this action with an enormous amount of planning with the intention of an attack on democracy. >> was there anything -- i mean, there was some of the things about the behavior of the oath keepers and their planning re around these events that we had seen in other indictments, right? there is a lot of other members of the organization facing previous indictments, including serious indictments involving conspiracy cartridges and otherf things. but i wonder if there was anything in the new indictments unsealed today that was surprising to you. i'll tell you read going as a nonexpert observer of these things, i was surprised by the extent and kpens of the arsenal, the actually arsenal of weapons that they both assembled on the day of january 6th but also around the time of january 6th and leading up to the inauguration.th that was -- that leapt out as something that was new detail i didn't understand before. but as a more expert observer, what surprised you if anything? >> i think that's right.- indi it does show a higher degree of militarization and weaponization than we have seen in the lower level indictments. i think partly that's because typically building a big case a of -- a seditious conspiracy case often rests on sort of the prosecutorial efforts and the fruits of the other lower stakes prosecutions leading up to that moment. so i think the best historical cognate is the fort smith sedition trial in 1937-'38. where 14 white activists were charged on seditious conspiracy. we see a high level of paramilitary organization, intergroup and interpersonal communication over a sustained period about the plan and a high level of armament. and in that trial it ended up escalating beyond what we see in this charging document to have things like those activists had gnat online sort of the typicala semiautomatic rifles which are very -- all around in the movement from the beginning to now, but that move nnlt rment in '87-'88 had things like antitank weapons, rockets, homemade land mines, and a bunch of training tactics, including urban warfare. there was a clear picture of imminent threats to surrounding populations and to the nation ao large. >> and, of course, the bottom line in the fort smith, arkansas trial isfo that it failed as a prosecution, that the defendants were acquitted, which theyd celebrated in their inimitable way. i know a little bit about other mass sedition trials over u.s. history. difficult to prove. and even people who have done wl really bad things obviously in coordination with incredible weaponry for the worst possible reasons and kept records of it, they do seem to get off in these kinds of trials. these are really hard trials to win. i wondered if that was part of your reaction to hearing the about the indictment, keeping in mind the history of how many sedition trials in the past haven't succeeded in getting convictions. bin eactct of >> it's an incredibly high-stakes gambit for a number of reasons you mentioned.nc also because over and over again what we see with major prosecutions of white power anda militant groups. when there is a failure, people are acquitted and movement packages acquittal as a victory e r organizes we see big upticks in violence on the other side. you can draw a direct line from the fort smith to the oklahoma city bombing in 1995. the other thing -- i'm speaking now as a historian, not a legal scholar. but the way the burden of proof works in seditious conspiracy trials makes it tremendously difficult to translate white power esideology and militant right-wing government idoly into this particular form.an so, for instance, in fort smith, people were interested in how could a plot like this possibly succeed in right if it's a seditious conspiracy do they have a chance of in fact ee overthrowing the government if you are sitting on the side of an ordinary person, a wreck ideology on mainstream political view, it seems very wild to think that a small group of people could pose a threat to the most militarized superstate in world history. but if you are this group of white power activists they had a plan for self-styled terrorism, guerilla warfare, disrupting infrastructure, sabotage and assassination. and they took a long view of gradual destabilization leading to race war that they believed could work. so this question of ability to carry out a plan came into play in ways that just were not translated very well, for instance in jury instruction. >> all right. although the psychological barrier of being able to imagine a coup effort working suddenly got a lot easier for everybody in the country, including you go presumably every member of some future jury a year ago this month. it's fascinating stuff in the history here. the history here is rich and dark and fascinating. and doesn't point in any one direction in a simple way. professor kathleen belou at the university of chicago. the author of this book. it's really great that you were able to be with us tonight. i'm glad you were able to be here. thank you. esur'stuhindint grbe wnk you.in a s at much more ahead tonight. stay with us. much more ahead tonight. stay with us i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is 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the duly elected and qualified electors from their states, which they emphatically were not. well, since we've been reporting on this this week, we have learned that one of the people who apparently signed one of these forged documents asserting he was an elector appears now to be a republican united states senate candidate in arizona, a man named james lamon. he wants to run against mark kelly. he appears to have signed this forged document asserting he was a dually elected elector from the state of arizona when he was not. we have reached out to mr. lamon for comment but haven't heard back from him about his apparently role in this forged document scandal. we also have tracked down some footage of the proverbial crime being committed, footage of the republicans who took part in these schemes in various states, footage of the meetings and signing the forged documents. for example, the footage of the meeting where georgia republicans filled out their forged elector document in december 2020. again,s in georgia. we also found some footage of fake electors signing the documents in the great state of nevada. >> all right. donald j. donald trump of the state of florida having received six electoral votes is declared the winner of the electoral votes for the state of nevada. we will now do the certification of the votes of the electors from nevada for president. certificate reads that we the undersigned, being duly elected and qualified electors to president and vermont for the united states of america from the state of nevada hereby certify the following. we convened and organized at the state capitol in carson city, nevada, on the 14th day of december to you. we proceeded to vote by ballot first for president and then for vice president. name of the persons voted for is donald j. trump of the state of florida he received six votes want and we will sign database we will sign this certificate that will go to the senate and also to the archivist of the united states. >> donald j. trump of the state of florida having received six electoral votes is declared of the winner of the electoral votes for the state of notified nevada. declared by whom? declared by you? what are you talking about? donald trump did not win nevada. he did not win any electoral votes from nevada. but these folks proclaimed that he did. and, you know, it's one thing -- it's your blessed right to say something like if you want to on a soapbox on a street corner or to ruin your relatives' otherwise nice turkey dinner by insisting you want to tell them these crazy theories at the thanksgiving dinner. it's fine. but it's something else to put it in writing in a document purposely made to look like official state government document for that document to assert that it is an official state government document and for you to then send it to the national archives of the united states and the united states senate in the hopes that they think this thing you forged might be real. that's different. but that is what these guys did. and it does appear to have been a coordinated effort, and we do not yet know by whom. republicans in multiple states have asserted the trump campaign asked them do something like this. white house chief of staff mark meadows in his production to the january 6th investigation appears to have been in communication with someone or someones about this type of a scheme. but who actually got this to happen and distributed the obvious document template by which all of these states created these similar forgeries, we don't know. we just know that they did it in nevada, georgia, arizona, wisconsin, michigan. in michigan we also have footage from the day they tried to do it. in the case of michigan, the footage we have is of republicans trying to get into the side door of the michigan state capitol, telling the state police captain that they're the real electors and they needed to be let in to cast the electoral college votes for michigan, and the michigan state police officer there politely told them to buzz off and closed the doors. police knew to do that because the real -- the real electors were at that moment inside actually doing this thing for real. so these folks were clearly imposters. well, now, thanks to this developing story, thanks to renewed attention to this matter now that it appears that someone coordinated these mass forgery efforts in these states, thanks in particular to reporter craig mauger at "the detroit news" who did great reporting this week in michigan, now we know more of what happened after that moment i just showed you. we know more of what happened after the state troopers blocked the republican electors from getting into the minivan state capitol that day. we know they even though they couldn't get into the capitol we know they created one of these forged documents, that matches the one we have seen from four other states. in the forged document, they asserted that were the real official electors, which they absolutely were not. they asserted further that as of duly appointed electors of the state of michigan, they had convened in the michigan state capitol, which they did not. we could see that, thanks to that upright and polite state police captain who told them no. we know further that michigan republicans who signed the forged document claiming to be electors from that state, they actually did send it to the national archives as if it was a real don't. we know that because on january 8th last year, two days after the attack on the capitol, the national archives in washington sent a copy of that forged document back to michigan, sent it to the state government in michigan, quote, for your awareness. quote, for your awareness we received today unofficial certificates from the republican electors who were not appointed by the governor. i have attached a scan of what we received for your information. because this did not come from the michigan secretary of state's office, we will not be adding the documents to the electoral college website. again, that's the national archives this time last year letting michigan's real elected officials know that this forgery had been senten in purporting to be michigan's electoral votes, and the archives made clear it was not. but they wanted michigan officials to know that this had happened, for your awareness. michigan state officials including the secretary of state jocelyn benson and some of her staff reportedly met with the january 6th investigation late last year. according to a great public records dive by "the detroit news," that meeting between secretary of state benson and her staff on and the january 6th investigators followed aft by benson's office sending the january 6th investigation some kind of documentation about the republican's forgery effort in michigan. benson's office reportedly provided on december 3rd information about both the forgery effort and the reaction of the national archives to receiving it. they provided that information to capitol hill, to the january 6th investigators. so you piece all that together and what we know is the january 6th investigation is on this part of the plot. and there remains this interesting question whether the republicans who did this in these five states, whether they are potentially on the hook for having violated the law, right? i mean, it's not illegal to have crazy ideas. it's kind of illegal to forge election-related documents, right? was it illegal in any of these states to forge these kinds of election-related documents and to try to pass them off as real? asked to comment on that this week by "the detroit news," a spokesperson for the attorney general's office in michigan told "the detroit news" basically stay tuned, quote, that matter is part of an investigation into election-related matters. we are not currently in a position to share specifics as the review remains ongoing. an ongoing investigation, do you say? really. count me intrigued. both the attorney general of the great state of michigan, dana nestle, and the secretary of the great state of michigan, jocelyn bessson, are going to join us live here next. stay with us. bessson, are going live here next stay with us new year, new start. and now comcast business is making it easy to get going with the ready. set. save. sale. get started with fast and reliable internet and voice for $64.99 a month with a 2-year price guarantee. it's easy... with flexible installation and backing from an expert team, 24/7. and for even more value, ask how to get up to a $500 prepaid card. get a great deal for your business with the ready. set. save. sale today. comcast business. powering possibilities. or if you are taking part in the process, anybody else not permitted. >> we are all electors. >> you are electors. >> the electors are here and checked in. >> not all the electors are inside. >> capitol is closed. all 16 electors authorized by the governor's staff, the electoral college is checked in and here. >> but the gop electors -- >> i understand. >> we're electors. we're electors. we're electors. these guys saying we're electors. they were not the electors. not the real ones. they were michigan republicans who tried to crash the electoral college vote ceremony in michigan to try to cast michigan's electoral votes for trump instead of biden even though trump lost the senate. now as we've been reporting this week, 16 michigan republicans went on to sign names to fake elector documents claiming that trump was the rightful winner of michigan's electoral votes, therefore they were the rightful electors and should be counted as such. they sent the documents to the national archives, the united states senate to be counted as part of trump's electoral tally. this is the same weird republican forgery scheme that was apparently being run in at least five states in what appears to have been a coordinated effort. it is now starting to catch the attention apparently of multiple investigations that are looking into the effort to overturn the election and the attack on january 6th. the person in charge of michigan's elections is secretary of state jocelyn benson. she and her staff reportedly have spoken to the january 6th investigation in congress, including to provide information about the forged elector documents in her state. we know that from a public records request filed by "the detroit news." but we also know this. according to a spokesperson for the attorney general's office in michigan, this matter, the fake electors' assertion, forged documents from michigan republicans, this is according to a spokeswoman from michigan attorney general dana nessel, this is part of an ongoing investigation in the state of michigan. joining us now are both jocelyn benson and dana nessel, michigan attorney general. secretary benson, attorney general nessel, thank you for being here. it's a coup to have either one of you, fwou have you both is a real pleasure. thank you. >> thanks for having us. >> well, madam attorney general, let me start with you. we have had questions since we started to realize the scope of this scheme as to whether or not this -- it implicates criminal acts, whether or not it's legal to forge an election-related yourself to be an public official or not. is this a matter for criminal investigation? >> yeah, absolutely it is. and i will tell you that we've been evaluating charges for nearly a year now based on the activities. as soon as we became aware of that. i will say under state law i think clearly you have forgery of a public record, which is a 14-year offense, and election law forgery, which is a five-year offense. but what we have decided to do with the investigation in light of the fact that, of course, we have seen, as you pointed out, multiple times now, various different false slate of electors from seven different states, in what seems to be a coordinated effort between the republican parties in various different states, we think this is a matter that is best investigated and potentially prosecuted by the feds and as such just today we referred this matter to the western district, the u.s. attorney's office, for them to evaluate it, and we hope that main justice -- the department of justice will become involved and use the information they already have to better understand exactly what happened that day so that federal charges can be evaluated. >> so your office, attorney general's office in michigan, has referred this matter for potential prosecution to the federal prosecutors office in michigan as of today. >> as of today we've been evaluating what we were going to do with it, and we had thought that it was very possible that we could bring charges. and we still might. and we still might. and, of course, there is no double jeopardy if you bring both state and federal charges for the same offenses, but obviously this is part of a much bigger conspiracy, and our hope is that the federal thoughts and the department of justice and united states attorney general merrick garland will take this in coordination with all the other information they've received and make an evaluation as to what charges these individuals might face. i mean, i can think of many, forgery of a public record for the purposes of defrauding the united states or conspiracy to commit an offense to did he fraud the united states. and there are so many others. but that will be up to the feds to decide. >> secretary benson, let me ask you about some of what we know and some of which i don't -- i don't know if you can talk about. "the detroit news" in its infinite wisdom used public records requests to find out some of the dock men authentication that has traveled between your office, other michigan state offices, and the january 6th investigation in congress. that's how we know that some of this information has been given by your staff by your office to the january 6th investigation. and they -- they appear to be looking at this in multiple states. can you tell us any more about that? an about your offices involvement, you receiving this information and indeed passing it on? >> well, yeah, and first i'll just emphasize this is precisely why the work of the january 6th committee is so critical because there is dozens of ways like the one we are talking about in which the president and many of his supporters attempted to interfere with the integrity of our elections and thwart the will of the people. and so with this investigation we've been able to connect the dots in participating and cooperating with the committee's investigation identify this coordinated component of something that really up until then just came to us. we received notification from the national archives as you pointed out. saying that this alternate false slate of electors had been submitted. we, of course, lived through what you showed earlier because both the attorney general and i were in the state capitol when the false slate of electors, we'll say, showed up outside. and amidst all of that there were a lot of security concerns and threats percolating as well. it was a very tense moment for all of us. and so in the midst of all that we were seeing this as yet another way in which the former president tried to impose his will over the will of the voters. and, you know, outside the law in a really unprecedented way and, again, turned it over to the attorney general's office, to attorney general nessel's office for further investigation at that point. and also, you know, we let the national archives know we had received it. but of course that it was not an accurate reflection of the electors awarded in our state. >> just to play dumb here a little bit for a second, i think i know the answer to this, secretary benson, but tell me if it's true. is this the sort of thing that's happened before in the state of michigan? is this something you've ever seen in your role as chief administrator in elections in the state? is this something that just looks weird to us from a national perspective but actually people try this kind of thing all the time? >> no. and for good reason. it would be up to really 2020 we've seen disrespect from our voters, which was up ended in the chaos and confusion that we saw in the 2020 process. this is uncharted territory. both of us have been asked this a lot since it's come out, what was legal, what was illegal, and this was all unprecedented. it underscores why it's so important for us to not just ensure truth continues to emerge as to just how far folks were willing to go to overturn a free and fair election just because they didn't like the resultses because we not only need to see justice and accountability in this matter for those who broke the law, but we need to work to put protections in place to ensure we do not see a repeat of these nefarious tactics in future elections. >> and attorney general nessel, let me ask you as a legal matter, you've already referenced this in relation to the idea that this might be best prosecuted as a federal matter because it happened in multiple states. who did this? this was a paint-by-numbers, fill-in-if the-blank template that all of these republicans used in at least five different states do this. if we can figure out who distributed the template, who put them up to this, who told them how to do it? does that change anything about the potentially criminal nature or the seriousness of this? >> i think it does. and i think that you're talking about a conspiracy, really, to overthrow the united states government. at the end of the day, that's what we're talking about. so why i think it's so important to refer this to the federal authorities is because for a lot of these individuals -- the irony, of course, is that many of those people that you saw outside the state capitol on december 14 they showed footage of, they're the loudest who complained of election fraud, and hear they have committed ostensibly the biggest case of election fraud ever in our state's history. but, you know, i think it's important that once those individuals see that they could possibly be facing prison time, i do think we're going the see some people flip, and we'll get some further information as to who orchestrated this in the first place. who told these people do this in exactly this fashion, and i think it may go all the way to the top. >> dana nessel is the attorney general of the great state of michigan. jocelyn benson is the secretary of state of the great state of michigan. both of you, i'm very grateful for your time. i'm particularly grateful to have you both here together. thank you so much. we really appreciate it. you've really advanced our understanding of it tonight. >> our pleasure, rachel. thanks for covering it. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. stay with us on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? 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"way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. ♪♪ senate majority leader chuck schumer sets a date for voting rights legislation, but with two democrats doubling down on their defense of the filibuster, the question is are the measures already doomed to fail? plus, a major development in the sprawling investigation of the january 6th attack. the justice department hands down the most serious charges yet to members of the oath keepers. the question is, how will seditious conspiracy play out in court? and new overnight. tennis star novak djokovic has had his visa revoked for a second time by australian

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