with john berman. breaking overnight, an extraordinary moment in the insurrection probe. former white house chief of staff mark meadows held in criminal contempt of congress from defying a subpoena. 222-208, two republicans, adam kinzinger and liz cheney joining democrats there. it will be up to the department of justice to decide to pursue criminal charges. house speaker p er nancy pelos adding, we will find the truth of that dark day. the vote came after meadows shared thousands of documents and texts with the committee, but declined to testify claiming courts need to decide whether the claims of executive privilege are valid. the committee released even more of his revealing text messages sent and received as the violence unfolded on january 6th. here are a few others from republican members. quote, it is really bad up here on the hill. another one,s the president needs to stop this asap. another one, fix this now. harry dunn defended the capitol january 6th. he wa
we are holding him accountable for lying, cheating and a lack of contrition and for flouting the rules that all of us must play by, because there cannot be different rules for different people in this country, and former presidents are no exception. this decision is a massive victory for every american who believes in that simple, but fundamental pillar of our democracy, that the rule of law applies to all of us equally, fairly and justly. thank you. we ve been listening to new york attorney general leticia james giving brief and sweeping remarks about the nature of her victory, this massive $400 million plus fine against donald trump, the biggest civil fine he s ever had to pay on record. this is a major, major day of news in a week that s had a lot of news on this front. i m ari melber. the beat with ari melber gins now. we are tracking remarks from the defendant here donald trump, who is expected to speak on this. whatever you think of the way he speaks or what he says
i ll let everyone that s a wrap. i ll see you again tomorrow, one pm eastern. row, one pm eastern. welcome to the big weekend, i m all right number. let s get right into the headlines. i want to remind you how they got here and where we are going. this trial, the combination of many runs off to face for defendant rump. donald trump once again in a courtroom, with the fate of his business empire now on trial. i declined answer the question. but 2019 statement of financial condition contained false and misleading information and statements. is that correct? same answer. we haven t done a dam thing wrong i will not be bullied, i would not be harassed, this case will go on. she was right. the case went on and while there were many different tactics to try to obfuscate or delay, as our guest bill crystal just mentioned, she would win those rounds. as for them as rolling years in some of, it was quite exhausted. judgment, i want to show you this, you can see her
tax officials for more than a decade. now the new york attorney general wants the business dissolved. trump is also running out of options into the ongoing investigation of classified documents seized from his mar-a-lago estate. they ruled the doj can resume looking over those classified records. it no longer needs to submit items to the special master, rejecting arguments from trump s legal team. two of the judges on the panel were appoint bid trump. let s begin with kaitlyn polantz following the story. kaitlyn, it s a big win for the doj. what does this mean specific lip for their on going investigation of those classified documents, how they were held, why they were held and any criminal consequences? jim and poppy, the justice department now gets to do exactly what they wanted to be doing all along which is reviewing those 100 or so records taken out of mar-a-lago that have classified markings on them, and the federal appeals court that ruled last night, the major thi
that john eastman continued his hunt for widespread voter fraud even after president biden was inaugurated. hours after president biden s inauguration, mr. eastman emailed rudy giuliani, donald j. trump s personal lawyer propose that they challenge in georgia for two senate seats that were won by democrats. according to the times eastman hoped that by trying to overturn another election and finding fraud in that race he would find proof that the 2020 election was stolen, but as we all know, was there no fraud. the election wasn t stolen and the big lie is still just that, a lie. the times also reports that eastman charged the trump campaign $270,000 and no surprise, given trump s long history of not paying his bills, it looks like trump never paid him. by the time mr. biden became president mr. eastman tried to be paid directly although two people with knowledge of the campaign s finances said he never was. john eastman has been under a lot of scrutiny from the justice depart