For official acts as a public official. they had it all documented. they had records. they had receipts. they had notes. they had witnesses who had been involved in the corruption scheme who were set to testify at trial. they had this guy. they had him. and he knew they had him. and he had just gone ballistic against this justice department investigation that had targeted him. he said the only reason they were coming after him was that he was a political target. that the people behind this investigation only wanted him out as a political official. they were corrupt and unprofessional and malicious and outrageous. he said he was going to go after these terrible people in the justice department who were witch hunting him. he was going to destroy them. he was going to tear the whole system down. he singled out individual officials in the u.s. justice department and went after them one by one. i say this to you.
That part of the investigation is apparently still live. nbc was first to report that among the people recently subpoenaed to appear before that grand jury in washington, d.c. is trump adviser steve bannon. so the classified documents thing has produced an indictment. the other side of the investigation, the january 6th part of it remains on jack smith s plate. now we have just had a stack of convictions and some really stiff sentences handed down for people who were involved in the january 6th attack. stewart rhodes is the leader of the pro-trump paramilitary group the oathkeepers recently sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for his role in january 6th. if you think trump world is going crazy about the prospect of trump being tried on the espionage charges related to his handling of classified material the prospect of him coming up for sedition charges for helping an attack on the government would be something else. stewart rhodes just this weekend has done an int
At trial. they had this guy. they had him. and he knew they had him. and he had just gone ballistic against this justice department investigation that had targeted him. he said the only reason they were coming after him was that he was a political target. that the people behind this investigation only wanted him out as a political official. they were corrupt and unprofessional and malicious and outrageous. he said he was going to go after these terrible people in the justice department who were witch hunting him. he was going to destroy them. he was going to tear the whole system down. he singled out individual officials in the u.s. justice department and went after them one by one. i say this to you. that conduct of high individuals in the department of justice, particularly the conduct of the chief of the criminal investigation division of that
Whether you think that was justice or not, that is the real history of how the u.s. department of justice contended with these issues the last time they were confronted with something like this. i mean, here was a man who they here was a man who fully expected himself to be the next president of the united states. the u.s. justice department also expected that he might be about to become the next president of the united states. but the justice department also had evidence he had committed dozens of felonies. he went nuts about the fact they were investigating him. he threatened them nine ways to sunday. he tried to shut down that investigation. he tried to bully them. he said he was going to come after them and turn the tables on them. but they did not back down. they confronted him with the evidence in court. and what happened? he pled. he pled to avoid jail. and they let him because he also agreed to leave public office. we have only ever done something like this once before as a c
Yes, it does. something that might seem unprecedented like we ve never faced something like this before in the news, turns out more often than not does have an antecedent in history. it is about something that is very much like january 6th that happened before. i will have more to say later on this hour. if first dropped today and we are super excited about it. all still to come. rachel maddow presents deja news. all right. so here is what it said when they finally showed what they had to the public. this was from the u.s. justice department at the time. quote, the following statement is respectfully submitted to the court by the government at the arraignment of the defendant. it constitutes a detailed recitation of the facts and evidence developed by the investigation to date. the presentation of this statement in court today was a