not, special counsel jack smith looking at trump s law and seizing voting machines were discussed, we talked with trump s national security adviser how close we came to constitutional recognize crisis in ukraine around bakhmut and in ukraine around bakhmut and florida pledge of allegiance no matter who it ends up being. we dig deep near the december 2020 overoffice meeting. now there are two reasons for that, first we have the perspective tonight of someone who knows the cast of characters in the meeting and worked with many of them over the years and secondly it s worth a look because of how unprecedented that meeting was in the oval office in terms of what was on the table. the former president tweeting, quote. that tweet which would be seen as exhibit a for allegedly inciting the mob that day, looks like the action he chose instead of another idea discussed during the meeting such as seizing voting machines and invoking martial law. former campaign manager bill told tuary
tonight, there s late word that the intelligence community has resumed its damage assessment of classified documents seized from mar-a-lago, after getting the green light from a new appeals court ruling. stand by for more on that. but right now, i want to get to cnn s exclusive new reporting, our senior crime and justice reporter, katelyn polantz is joining us right now. so what are you learning about this secret court battle that s being waged right now by the trump team? it is, indeed, a secret court ba battle, a closed proceeding. we only know about it because three lawyers related to january 6th were coming out of court yesterday, we caught them on camera, and what this is about, what we ve been able to conform, evan perez and zack cohen and i, this is about witnesses and whether or not witnesses can be blocked by donald trump from testifying or turning over documents to the federal grand jury that is investigating bringing possible cases against people potentially arou
his attempt to overturn the election. someone who knew what he was doing. according to congresswoman liz cheney, he had every reason to know that what he was doing was wrong. the argument seems to be the president trump was manipulated by others outside the administration. that he was persuaded to ignore his closest advisors and that he was incapable of telling right from wrong. this, of course, is nonsense. president trump is a 76-year- old man. he is not an impressionable child. the first time the public were shown testimony from pat cipollone, who spoke to the panel friday. going to start by asking you if you agree with all of the individuals that there is no evidence of no election fraud sufficient to change the outcome ? yes, i believe that. did you believe that the president should concede once you made determination based on the. did you form the believe that the president should see the election loss of a certain point after the election. well, yeah. i w
understand about january 6th and the conspiracy, the plan to carry out a coup. the hearing centered around the explosive testimony of a single witness, 25-year-old cassidy hutchinson. she s a trump white house aide who did what so many of her colleagues and her bosses, including her direct boss, chief of staff mark meadow have so far refused to do. she told the truth. she cooperated with the panel having sat for four taped interviews before today s testimony. this afternoon in public she made it clear that the brutal unsparing violence that took place at the united states capitol was not just something unexpected, something that got out of hand, as many in the republican party would want you to believe. it was part of a planned, premeditated coup attempt. hutchinson testified that the white house was fully aware that january 6th could turn violent before that day. they let it happen anyway. chief of staff mark meadows was told on the morning of the 6th that the attendees for
that releasing their full reasons for searching mar-a-lago would cause, and i quote, significant and irreparable damage. the justice department now urging a judge not to unseal the affidavit that justified the fbi search over the mar-a-lago home. a document, according to the d.o.j., that serves as a road map to the ongoing investigation including who federal investigators are talking to. saying that it includes, and i want to quote this one, highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government. that is, witnesses, not witness, witnesses, plural. according to the former chief of the justice department s counter intelligence section who oversaw the investigation of hillary clinton s handling of classified documents, that plural, witnesses, means multiple people told tell doj there was still classified information at mar-a-lago. multiple people. i m going to speak to david in a moment. the justice department also is arguing that redacti