appear voluntarily and answer a whole variety of questions. he did not contradict the testimony of other witnesses, and i think we did learn a few things, which we will be rolling out in hearings to come. during pivotal moments, cipollone was in the know and very much in the room, including the oval office on january 3rd shooting down trump s plan to replace the acting attorney general with an election denying doj lawyer. and two sources say he was with trump during the riot itself watching it unfold on television. with me now is former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york elie honig who is also a cnn senior legal analyst. elie, let s be honest here. neither of us were in the room for all eight hours, which would have been great for news, but less good for actual having a life. that said, we have gotten bits and pieces from our reporting from our team at cnn about what pat cipollone was asked about when he may have said. what s your biggest takeaway
opened his mouth, i saw the doors of the crematorium open. and what michael goldman told me is he managed to put aside those powerful emotions and do his job and make sure that justice was administered fairly and in an appropriate way, even to this vile nazi mass murderer. as someone who s obviously done a ton of research on this, spoken to people directly involved, what do these new tapes add to what we already knew about adolf eichmann? these new tapes are absolutely remarkable, phil, and i have to tell you, my heart skipped a beat when i read about them because they completely vindicate gabriel bach and michael goldman on this important point. there was this phrase that became popular around the time of this trial. the banality of evil, it was popularized by a famous american writer named hannah oren. adolf eichmann was this machine that did what any normal average
march. little did he know he would go onto play a pivotal role as an investigator in the trial of adolph eichmanm. translator: i was in my investigation room and when he entered the room i saw a poor, frightened person shaking. and in comparison to eichmann in this ss uniform, i couldn t believe it it was the same person standing in front of me responsible for the death of my parents. but when he opened his mouth i cannot forget this. when he opened his mouth i saw the doors of the crematorium open. reporter: after months of the prosecution presenting its case eichmann finally took the stand in his own defense. under cross-examination despite being confronted with documents that showed his direct involvement eichmann repeatedly
would go on to play a pivotal role as an investigator in the trial of adolf eichmann. [ speaking foreign language ] translator: i was in my investigation room, and when he entered the room, i saw a poor, frightened person shaking. and in comparison to eichmann in his ss uniform, i couldn t believe it, it was the same person standing in front of me, responsible for the death of my parents. when he opened his mouth, i cannot forget this, when he opened his mouth i saw the doors of the crematorium open. reporter: goldman gilad and investigative team, many of them holocaust survivors themselves, interrogated eichmann over the course of several months. they went through thousands upon thousands of documents, piecing together the horrific events and building a volume of evidence that they hoped could prove eichmann s role beyond a shadow of a doubt.
and in comparison to eichmann in his ss uniform, this ubermoench, i couldn t believe that it was the person responsible for the death of my parents. but when he opened his mouth, i cannot forget this. when he opened his mouth, i saw the doors of the crematorium open. after months of the prosecution presenting its case, eichmann finally took the stand in his own defense. under cross-examination, despite being confronted with documents that showed his direct involvement, eichmann repeatedly claimed he was just following orders. i am not beating about the bush. i was also one of those receiving orders and not giving orders. he lied through and through. he was acting, he was acting all the time. september 1939, the accused