days before republicans assume the majority in the house and likely dissolve the january 6th committee, members released a new batch of testimony involving efforts of those closest to the former president and their attempts to overturn the election. i m pamela brown in for anderson tonight. and included in the new transcripts is testimony by donald trump jr. and remarks about what he believed was a, quote, sophisticated legal rationale to overturn the election, as in overturn the will of the people. one nearly identical to what his fathers allies would soon attempt. and there is also some rather unflattering testimony involving first lady melania trump s opinion of trump jr. and others in her husband s inner circle. also tonight, new details of a purported conversation involving senator lindsey graham who said he would become a champion of these baseless election fraud claims if the president s allies could, quote, just give me five dead voters. it is a lot to unpack. let s s
good morning to viewers here in the u.s. and all around the world, it is monday, july 4th, and the independence day celebrations kicking off early in some cities. this is video from milwaukee s waterfront where thousands gathered to catch a spectacular fireworks show, just beautiful there. the mood was not so festive at america s airports, though, flights canceled, passengers stranded. if you are flying holiday weekend chances are you are not having a happy 4th and feeling anything but independent because you were at the mercy of overwhelmed airlines. more than 1,500 flights were canceled from friday through sunday and saturday was the worst, 653 flights were axed. the airlines are also blaming the weather, thunderstorms in the northeast delaying thousands of flights and adding to the chaos the highest travel demand we ve seen since the start of the pandemic and, of course, rampant staffing shortages. let s take you now to one of the busiest airports in the world, atlanta s
his interview with the committee that he thought this was a copy and paste job. he was not the one who wrote it. and that s what his attorney had told cnn originally when we reported on the mark meadows text. you re also learning about senator lindsey graham s offer to support then president trumps election fraud claims. we know the south carolina senator, a republican has been a close ally of the former president. this really gives us an indication of how much he wanted to be out there supporting donald trump as he was trying to challenge the election. this is from a transcript with an interview with christina bobb who is a member of trump s legal time at the time. she is recounting a conversation she had with the senator. and the senator says just give me five dead votes. give me, you know, an example of illegals voting. just give me a very small snapshot that i can take and champion. and this of course interesting because you didn t need five dead votes to overturn the election.
dead voters. it is a lot to unpack. let s start with sara murray, who has been digging through these transcripts all week for us. sara, what more can you tell us about the new details from donald trump jr. s testimony to the committee? pam, this is interesting because we have of course previously reported on the mark meadows text, the former trump white house chief of staff who was so important to this investigation. and donald trump s testimony really digs into those. we previously reported that donald trump jr. had sent a text to mark meadows essentially laying out a way to keep donald trump in power, keep him in the white house. it was very similar to the strategy that his allies actually put forward, as you said. so the committee is asking donald trump jr. essentially why did you send this text. this is what he says. he says perhaps in reading it, it was the most sophisticated and detailed again about things i don t necessarily know too much about. but it sounded plausible. and i
the evidence we ve uncovered. the justice department doesn t have to wait for the committee to make a criminal referral and there could be more than one criminal referral. joining us now to talk about this and other things cnn s senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor ellie honing and cnn political commentator and columnist for new york magazine errol louis. what did you find significant about what liz cheney is saying there? when we talk about criminal referrals i think it s important people understand. legally they have zero significance, the justice department does not need a criminal referral in order to do anything and a criminal referral from congress does not compel doj to do anything. what i think is really most important here is the evidence. the evidence is the thing and i think the criminal referral is the testimony we saw last week from cassidy hutchinson, the testimony from brad raffensperger and all the other witnesses, the mark meadows text. all this evi