anything for better or worse, but for better, but it s breaking under view, the three rings under investigation, the rally, the electors and the big grift, the big scam. it s a stunning piece of reporting. huge piece of reporting,s you say, and when you start going up the line on the three diagrams and some like a venn diagram overlap cross. good seeing you, nicole. i ll get down to my office and watch yours. okay. welcome to the beat, everyone. breaking news on the doj criminal january 6th probe. the justice department investigation into the january 6th insurrection and coup is substantially escalating. this is a story nicole and i just discussed crossing within just the last hour courtesy of the new york times. the justice department count for subpoenas has drastically increased that we know of. this may have been going on privately or secretly, but the times has opened up the story, and you see the names. two top trump advisers, including boris epstein an
witnesses will actually have to give information or testify. legal experts say civil suits could accomplish that. so i wonder if the committee will eventually turn to civil litigation in order to get actual information and not just send this very strong signal. what s your theory? i think they could and they could do it down the road, but i think the criminal thing is really important. particularly here unlike for example, even bannon or someone like that because clark was a justice department official. right. and there s something really important about having the justice department examine this contempt thing. he was one of their own and he betrayed them and betrayed them profoundly. so i think if you re trying to think about what is the right and appropriate response, the right response comes from his former department. the department of justice and i have no doubt what the justice department is going to do here. tim, i want to just read a little from the committee s repor
friend and former advisor to testify and bannon is saying no, i m afraid to go and tell the truth under oath and so congress has now done what or this committee in congress has done what any reasonable committee would do, which is to say you got to show up, otherwise we ll vote for criminal contempt and you know have are you republicans willing to twist themselves into knots to say no to that and permanently undermine our checks and balances, our ability to get at the truth, our ability to check a president who, you know, is wayward in the like by saying oh, don t vote for this contempt thing. i mean, they are so delusional, these republicans in congress they think this is somehow a defensive liberty, which is just, you know, to use the liberal term, poppycock. i ll give you the last word, david. donald trump was always an andrew johnson figure to me and had the same contempt for the
committee did but the members have to make their decision. what lois lerner tried to do is come before the committee, make these factual statements that were exculpating herself from any wrong-doing, and then hiding behind the fifth amendment so she didn t have to answer any questions and that s not the way it works. when i was a prosecutor, the defendant had to make the decision. if they got on the witness stan, i got a track at a crack at them. so was too cute by half ask the committee did the right thing. why now? it s been almost a year since she pled the fifth. were you guys working on a deal with her? an immunity deal? involving people who once worked with her? for her? above her? i have noy. seems like out of the blue you decide, there s this contempt thing must have been doing something in the interim. i think there was. some of that is chairman of the committee s prerogative. we have been trying to get information, and the irs
the votes are coming on thursday. comply with the subpoena or you ll be on wrong side of history. well, the white house says that congressman issa and his committee should stand down because the white house tried to make a deal and because the president is going back to ronald reagan have asserted executive privilege as well with a spokesman for president obama saying this was a good faith effort to resolve this while still protecting the institutional prerogatives of thexecutive branch often championed by these same republicans criticizing us right now. unfortunately, republicans have opted for political theater rather than conducting political oversight. tomorrow will be a big day in d.c. two votes to hold the attorney general in contempt of congress and one huge supreme court ruling on the president s health care law. back to you in new york. thank you very much. let s talk a little bit about this. how many times have we heard that democrats have said, well, look, this contemp