Summary
The January 6 Committee has completed its summer hearings. Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon was found guilty this afternoon on two charges of criminal contempt of Congress. The January 6th committee delivered its closing arguments to the country and nearly 18 million people tuned in. The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell joins Hayes to discuss how the January 6th hearings test Donald Trump`s political power.
Transcript
NICK AKERMAN, ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: You don`t have them on tape, you`ve got witnesses, and at the end of the day, Merrick Garland is stuck with this choice. And I`ve got a conflict because he`s running against my boss.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Absolutely.
AKERMAN: So, he may differ.
REID: Yes. You never know.
AKERMAN: And now prosecute -- and let Georgia take the case.
REID: All right, well, I got to go because there`s a whole another show supposed to come on. Happy Birthday, Georgia Clinton. It`s George Clinton`s birthday. Nick Ackerman, thank you very much. That`s tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts literally right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN.
TRUMP: But this election is now over. Congress has certified the results. I don`t want to say the election is over
HAYES: The January 6 Committee`s most damning hearing yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of very personal calls over the radio. There were calls to say goodbye to family members, so on so forth.
HAYES: Tonight, Congressman Jamie Raskin on what we learned last night and what comes next. Then --
STEVE BANNON, TRUMP ADVISER: I`ll tell you this. It`s not going to happen like you think it`s going to happen. All I can say is strap in.
HAYES: Steve Bannon is found guilty of contempt of Congress. Plus, new research suggesting the January 6 hearings may be sinking in with Trump supporters. New details on the criminal investigation of the Secret Service. Former Senator Al Franken on Josh Hawley`s sprint to safety. George Conway on the DOJ, Steve Bannon, and more when this extended special edition of ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Happy Friday! I hope you`re relaxing somewhere as you settle in to watch us tonight. The January 6 Committee has completed its summer hearings. And the material the committee presented was split into roughly two categories last night. There was new information like Donald Trump, for instance, who never met a camera he didn`t like, shooing away the White House photographer on the sixth so he could be in private, undocumented doing God knows what in the White House dining room, calling senators apparently and Rudy Giuliani to help facilitate the coup, watching fallout from his insurrection live on Fox News.
We also learned, and this was very new and incredibly striking, that a White House security official heard Secret Service agents telling their families goodbye because they thought they were about to be murdered by the armed violent mob that the President of the United States had sicked on them. But in some ways, many of the most effective moments from last night`s hearing didn`t contain new information, new revelations, things we didn`t know before.
Rather, the committee was simply returning all of us to the mindset of January 6 and the days immediately after when there really was, at least for a brief moment, pretty close to true unanimity that what had happened, that the storming of the Capitol, the violent attempt to block the peaceful transfer of power and overturn American democracy was horrible, was disgrace, and that Donald Trump was the one who made it happen and could have stopped it, but chose not to.
That is the plain and simple truth, which at least for a little while, really was evident to just about everyone. I mean, not everyone, it`s a big country, but just about everyone. Everyone on Capitol Hill, almost everyone in Republican politics. Republican leader -- Republicans from leadership down to regular members, Trump`s own family, Fox News hosts all agreed on this just basic, obvious, irrefutable, indefensible, unavoidable truth. It was an attack on our country and it was horrible. And the committee did an excellent job of reminding everyone of that simple brute fact last night.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The President, as we all saw, fire this crowd up. They`ve all tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 or more, have gone down to the Capitol or elsewhere in the city, and they`re very upset.
REP. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-WI): Mr. President, you have got to stop this. You are the only person who can call this off. Call it off. The election is over. Call it off.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The violence, destruction, and chaos we saw earlier was unacceptable, undemocratic, and un-American. It was the saddest day I`ve ever had is serving as a member of this institution.
The president bears responsibility for Wednesday`s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.
REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): Madam speaker, today, the People`s House was attacked, which is an attack on the Republic itself. There is no excuse for it. A woman died and people need to go to jail. And the President should never have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be.
[20:05:04]
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): There`s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet earth.
A mob was assaulting the capital in his name. these criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags and screaming their loyalty to him. It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. He was the only one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Even Mitch McConnell, a man who has the moral apprehension of a sea slug could see what was happening. In addition to the public evidence of the outside reaction to the insurrection, the Committee also provided internal reaction. And this -- again, this was new. We didn`t have this before, but it basically jive with what we knew. But it was remarkable to see it all laid out.
Trump White House Counsel, for instance, Pat Cipollone, saying there was essentially universal consensus inside the building in the White House among Trump staffers and officials the violent insurrection was a bad idea for basically everyone except one person, Donald Trump himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I believe more needed to be done, OK. I believed that a public statement needed to be made.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): When you talk about others on the staff thinking more should be done, or thinking that the President needed to tell people to go home, who would you put in that category?
CIPOLLONE: Well, I would put Pat Philbin, Eric Herschmann, overall, Mark Meadows, Ivanka, once Jared got there, Jared, General Kellogg -- I`m probably missing some but those are -- Kayleigh, I think, was there but I don`t -- Dan Scavino.
CHENEY: And who on the staff did not want people to leave the Capitol?
CIPOLLONE: On the staff?
CHENEY: In the White House about --
CIPOLLONE: I don`t -- I can`t think of anybody, you know, on that day who didn`t want people to get out of the Capitol once that, you know, particularly once the violence started. No. I mean --
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): What about the president?
CHENEY: Yes.
CIPOLLONE: She said the staff, so I answered.
CHENEY: No, I said in the White House.
CIPOLLONE: Oh, I`m sorry. I apologize. I thought you said, who else on the staff. I don`t -- I can`t reveal communications, but obviously I think, you know, -- yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: A trailed-off sentence worth 1000 words, right? Obviously, you know what, yes, we do know, Pat Cipollone. That internal disgust with Trump was also on display with the flood of resignations after the sixth starting with the two witnesses last night, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger. And including Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, the wife of Mitch McConnell, among others.
The public at large was also fed up with Trump. You can see it there on your screen, his lowest approval rating ever as he walked out the door, 29 percent was immediately after January 6, as the whole country was processing the violence and terror that day. It really felt like a much overdue reckoning on for years of a disastrous and dangerous presidency.
[20:10:24]
But then, well, something happened. Time, part of it, a combination of right-wing media returning home closing ranks around Trump, the metastasization of the big lie, and addiction among the right-wing base to conspiracy theories and resentment. For much of the folks that make up the Republican Party`s foot soldiers slowly led people to just kind of forget or to whitewash or the memory hole or to pretend to forget.
But in that immediate aftermath of the insurrection, as everyone saw that happening playing out on their TV screens knowing the president wasn`t doing anything to stop it, was in fact sending a tweet to target Mike Pence, everyone watching that, in the aftermath, they knew and felt the same way. What happened -- what has happened was wrong, that Donald Trump was to blame. And I got to say I thought last night was a masterful attempt to just reclaim that simple consensus.
Congressman Jamie Raskin is Democrat of Maryland. He sits on the January 6 Committee. He served as the lead impeachment manager in the second impeachment of Donald Trump. It`s great to have you, Congressman. First, what do you think of that, this idea that there was a consensus tenuous as it was about the evil that was unleashed that day that has since been obscured and the committee attempting to reclaim it?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, that was clearly an important part of our objective for last night. And for the hearings, generally, there was a vast moral and political consensus that what he had done was abominable and unacceptable, intolerable, and we wanted to revive that sense that people had, because there`s been so much propaganda, disinformation, and conspiracy theory since.
It was important for the country to see McConnell in his own words saying last night, that Donald Trump was singularly, ethically, practically responsible for everything that happened, which of course, it`s true. If Donald Trump had decided not to lie about the election and to accept it, literally none of this would have happened. There was nobody else out there talking about getting together on January 6 and storming the Capitol and overturning the result and stopping the steel and so on. It all came from him.
HAYES: The most harrowing moment last night, and it`s going to stick with me for a long time, is a White House security official describing essentially kind of radio traffic among secret service folks, some of the Secret Service radio traffic we hear, you played, as they`re kind of realizing that the mob has gotten closer to them, and faster than they had realized, that they have a closing window to get the Vice President and themselves to safety, and that things are very, very close to going catastrophically bad. Well, what was your reaction when you first encounter that evidence?
RASKIN: Well, all of the members could relate to that, Chris, because, you know, as I record in the book I wrote about this, members were calling their husbands and wives and kids and parents to say goodbye. That was exactly what was going on the floor of the House. People didn`t know. It was a desperate situation. And no one knew where this would go.
The first thought a lot of people had was that somebody would show up with an AR 15 because we had all assumed if anybody ever tried to rush into the Capitol, that they would have been shot, but now suddenly, you had hundreds and hundreds of people coming in. And, you know, there had been fears and also reports that there were armed people out in the crowd. And so, you know, in the age of, well, since Columbine, I suppose, but with all of the mass shootings that take place and that we`ve lived through, people really thought that someone was going to show up with a weapon of that kind of destruction.
HAYES: There are two individuals whose identities you`ve chosen to obscure. One was the whistleblower from Twitter, and the other was the White House official last night who was privy to these internal communications of the Secret Service. Why was that person`s identity obscure?
RASKIN: Well, all of those arrangements were worked out with the individual witnesses if they were -- if they had specific fears of retaliation and what might take place to them either professionally or physically because of their -- because of their testimony. And in both cases, it was very well justified. And the testimony, we found it to be important in both cases. And, you know, there will be a lot to pursue in both of those cases.
The remarkable thing is that there are still witnesses coming forward and we still continue to learn more about the plot, even as all of the essential elements of Trump`s attempt to dismantle the results of the 2020 election and overturn the constitutional order are well known by now to everybody. So, we have to continue the investigation, but then also begin to wrap it up by figuring out well, what are the legislative recommendations we can concur on that will allow us to fortify American democracy against coups, insurrections, and political violence going into the future.
[20:15:54]
HAYES: To your point about learning new information, let`s talk about the Secret Service, because that seems at the frontier of the investigation at this point, I have to say. What we got last night, both the intensity of those Secret Service communications, the testimony of that White House individual, my first thought was, wow, we would learn a lot if we could read the text messages of the Secret Service security details of the President of the United States and the vice president of the United States on that day because what I think your committee more than anyone who has ever looked into this has demonstrated is that that was the sort of -- that`s where the auto coup, the sort of self-coup by the by the president against constitutional governance.
That`s where the tip of the spear was, was the men with guns that protect him that he wanted to take with him at the head of the mob as the other men with guns who protect his vice president were fleeing the same mob. What are we going to learn from the Secret Service? Are they being cooperative? What is the status of that part of this investigation?
RASKIN: Well, that -- I think that is the biggest remaining mystery. We don`t know exactly what we`re going to learn. We don`t know what the political dynamics were within the Secret Service. We don`t know how hundreds, perhaps thousands of texts disappeared for January 5 and January 6. We -- you know, we don`t know the full details of the pre-planned migration of the telephones. All of that remains to be seen. And the committee, you know, is determined to find it out.
But you`re absolutely right that in a situation of a coup or an insurrection or some forcible halt to the transfer of power, there would have to be a physical, if not a violent confrontation among people serving different leaders in that context. And so, it raises profound questions about the chain of command about who different forces need to be loyal to, and what happens when officers are given an order that is contrary to the Constitution and the rule of law. What do they do? And how do we make sure they do the right thing?
HAYES: Final question -- final question for you. Steve Bannon who defied the committee with his sort of characteristic two-shirted defiance, told you guys to go take a long walk off a short pier when you subpoenaed him. He was referred for prosecution. He was indicted, prosecuted, and today convicted for both counts. What`s the lesson here?
RASKIN: The lesson is, please tell your children out there in America, if you get a subpoena to go before Congress, if you get a subpoena to go to the court, go. You have a legal responsibility to go. If you think you`ve got an executive privilege for somebody else to invoke even if the President has rejected it, as Biden did in this case, and you think there`s such thing as a former president`s executive privilege even though you weren`t working for that former President at that time because you`ve been fired three years before, even if you think you`ve got a great privilege, you must show up in court or before Congress, and you must invoke that privilege to specific questions.
So, you answer the questions where the privilege doesn`t apply. You invoke the privilege where you think it does apply. That`s what your responsibility is. But nobody has the right to blow it off and just make fun of Congress or make fun of the courts unless you want to face going to jail.
HAYES: Yes. In fact, I`ve learned this from my wife as a constitutional scholar I think as you know that there actually is no podcaster privilege in the United States Constitution. That`s also an important takeaway here. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you.
RASKIN: Well, there might be former podcaster privilege.
HAYES: Yes. Thank you very much for your time.
Still ahead, our favorite two-shirted podcaster Steve Bannon guilty on all counts. How the jury reached a verdict and what jail time Bannon could face for criminal contempt of Congress next.
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[20:20:00]
HAYES: After less than three hours of deliberations, the jury submitted their verdict this afternoon in the case against Trump advisor Steve Bannon, guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena and turn over documents and provide testimony to the January 6 Committee. Bannon can face up to two years in prison depending on what the judge decides at his sentencing which will take place on October 21.
Now, here`s the thing. None of this is surprising. I mean this week, the prosecution arguing "the defendants chose allegiance to Donald Trump over clients with the law which they plainly did. Bannon`s team offered no real defense to that during the trial because they couldn`t. In fact, on Wednesday, after the Department of Justice rested, Bannon`s lawyers actually declined the opportunity to present evidence or witnesses to defend their client.
And with this guilty verdict this time around, there is no Trump to pardon Bannon, though he is expected to file an appeal. Here`s what he had to say right after the jury reached its verdict.
[20:25:27]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: We may have lost the battle here today, but we`re not going to lose this war. But listen, in the closing argument, the prosecutor missed one very important phrase, right? I stand with Trump and the Constitution, and I will never back off that ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joshua Green is national correspondent at Bloomberg BusinessWeek, author of Devil`s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. And he joins me now. This strikes me as a guy who really thinks he could talk his way out of every situation, who puts on a real air of performed toughness. But I think he`s really looking at jail time now.
JOSHUA GREEN, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK: Yes, I mean, it`s, it`s kind of remarkable. It`s a huge come down for Bannon. You know, he started this process last October when he was hit with a subpoena vowing to go medieval on his enemies. That was his quote. He said he would make it a misdemeanor from hell for the Biden administration.
But you know, he wound up not even taking the stand in his own defense today and wound up with two guilty charges. So, I think it shows the bubble that he`s been living in for the past six months where, you know, all the misinformation, all the kinds of things he`s been propagating, I think he sort of drank his own Kool-Aid in the end and didn`t understand or didn`t want to face the fact that, you know, using the court of law and that sort of thing isn`t going to fly. And the judge made that clear and the jury made that clear today.
HAYES: He also -- I mean, you know, last night, they played some sound of him talking to a crowd that was uncovered by Mother Jones of telling that Trump is going to declare a victory, and that if he`s actually losing and declares victory, it`s going to be a wild ride or something like that.
There`s evidence the President talked to Bannon on the phone right before Bannon went on said it`s not going to happen the way you think it`s going to happen. Strap in. I mean, to get back to the original reason he`s subpoenaed, he`s clearly a witness and an important one to the plotting of an attempt to end American democracy.
GREEN: Yes, absolutely. And so the idea that he would be allowed to skate or they wouldn`t have to face any accountability for spurning the subpoena just sort of defies reason. I mean, I think part of what`s behind this -- you know, the last couple of weeks, I`ve talked to a lot of people around Bannon, allies of his, and really nobody understands what he thinks he`s doing besides using this as a platform for his own aggrandizement and to kind of boost listenership for his podcast.
But one of the -- one of the refrains I heard was that, you know, really until today, Bannon never faced accountability for his actions. If you remember, two years ago, he got criminal charges for his alleged involvement in a scheme to build a privately funded border wall, but at the last minute, he finagle the pardon from Trump.
I think he`s just gone so far in life kind of talking his way out of situations and not really having to face a body like this that has real powers to hold him accountable that he just didn`t think through what it was he was doing. And I think we see the consequences of that with a verdict today.
HAYES: I also think he`s not out of the woods legally yet because I think that any genuine investigation by the Department of Justice into the -- what is the coup plot -- and I don`t know if it will happen or not but would seem probable, is going to route through Steve Bannon at some part who really does seem -- and you`ve reported on him, you know, one of the key figures in the cluster of people that were actively plotting and fomenting this sort of attempt on ending the peaceful transition of power.
GREEN: Oh, absolutely. And this wasn`t something he was, you know, plotting in a dark basement. I mean, as he was doing this --
HAYES: No.
GREEN: -- he was talking -- you know, talking to reporters, talking to me, talking about this on his podcast. You know, he wasn`t hiding his light under a bushel here. You know, you have clips from his podcast on January 5 saying all hell is going to break loose tomorrow. And we know he met in the Willard Hotel with some other people involved, even on the phone with Trump. He really was you know, the nexus of a lot of what went on January 6.
And I think that`s one reason why it was so important for the government to take him to trial and to get this guilty verdict to send the message that you cannot spurn a criminal spin. And he can just spurn it, he went out in flaunting it, you know, part of the difficulty his lawyers had in mounting a defense. The only thing they really thought they could -- they could say, the judge allowed him to, was that, well, you know, he thought he was negotiating about when the deadline was. But Bannon went on social media and said I will not comply with their subpoena in all caps when it came out. It was clear what he was doing.
[20:30:08]
HAYES: Well, I do hope the guy can manage to get two jumpsuits in prison.
Joshua Green, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
GREEN: Thank you.
HAYES: Still ahead, the evidence of Donald Trump`s role on January 6th has been laid out in clear detail by the January 6th committee. So, what`s the attorney general going to do about it? That`s next.
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[20:35:01]
REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): This is not as it may appear, a story of inaction in a time of crisis. But instead, it was the final action of Donald Trump`s own plan to assert the will of the American people and remain in power.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): The forces Donald Trump ignited that day have not gone away. The militant intolerant ideologies, the militias, the alienation, and the disaffection, the weird fantasies and disinformation. They`re all still out there, ready to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Last night, the January 6th committee delivered its closing arguments to the country and nearly 18 million people tuned in.
The arguments are also heard were also directed at one person particular, Attorney General Merrick Garland, who must now decide what actions his Department of Justice will or won`t take against the people who sought to overturn American democracy.
We know the DOJ isn`t paying attention to these hearings, how could they not. They have repeatedly requested materials from the January 6th committee. They`ve been frustrated, the committee has not moved quickly enough.
New York Times has also reported that some of the evidence and testimony in these hearings has "jolted top Justice Department officials into discussing the topic of Donald Trump more directly".
Last night`s hearing was the last presentation we will get from the committee until September. They have laid out what evidence they have for the time being.
Now, the question is, what does the Department of Justice do?
I`m joined now by Ian Bassin former associate White House Counsel who just co-authored a piece arguing that Merrick Garland`s job in winning a Trump indictment is not to heal the nation.
And Danya Perry, former deputy chief of the Criminal Division for the Southern District of New York, co-author of The Brookings report, Trump on trial: A guide to the January 6 hearings and the question of criminality.
Ian, let me start with you because I thought your piece in The New York Review of Books was really good. It argues a point about how Garland and others at DOJ should be approaching the question. And I think there`s sort of roughly two ways, right?
One is approach this like a normal criminal case. If you have the factual predicate, you open an investigation, if you can -- if you think a crime is committed, that you can get a conviction, you do it.
The other is, this is a unicorn. This is a first in American history, you got to think of all the democratic and institutional equities at play. And you kind of come down on the first -- on the former, why?
IAN BASSIN, FORMER ASSOCIATE WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Because what the piece explains is that the attorney general`s job is both narrower and frankly, simpler than a lot of people have argued. It`s to determine if there`s sufficient evidence to convict Trump of federal crimes. And if the traditional principles of federal prosecutorial discretion point in favor of indictment, which in this case they do, then he has to indict.
And the reason for that, and Erica Newland, who co-authored this piece with me who was a law clerk to then Judge Merrick Garland. The reason for that is because Garland`s jurisdiction is limited by the founders design.
The founders understood that there may be moments in the life of the nation when extending an olive branch to as Alexander Hamilton put it, rebels or insurrectionists would be necessary to heal the nation, to mend the nation.
But the founders said the only person, the only office that should have the power to do that is the presidency for the party in power, because it required a position that could weigh all of the complicated factors that would go into making such a decision.
And if Merrick Garland were to decide to abstain, because of these sort of special unicorn case considerations, he would essentially be usurping from the president, a power that the founders vested solely in the president, and that courts have said the president cannot delegate to anybody else.
HAYES: I just -- I thought that -- I had not thought of it that way. I found it an incredibly persuasive argument. It`s not his job to figure out like, what mercy will save the nation from you know?
And you know, the Whiskey Rebellion, I think a bunch of the folks, that one of the first insurrections taken up against U.S. government that Washington gets back on his horse and rides into town to put down, a bunch of them got pardons if I`m not mistaken for their role as a sort of, you know, we need to heal the nation kind of decision.
But it`s a decision made after the normal processes and on the question of the normal processes, Danya, I think there`s a sort of interesting dynamic where like, the committee is clearly frustrated.
I mean, they clearly think DOJ is not doing enough. I mean, here`s Luria today on "MORNING JOE" on MSNBC giving her comments, her thoughts on the Department of Justice, take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LURIA: I sure as hell hope that Merrick Garland has an open criminal investigation into Donald Trump. I mean, with what we`ve laid out there, no one needs to wait for some formality from our committee to have that ball in motion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Danya, clearly Merrick Garland is also in his own way I think kind of frustrated, like you guys get to put on your show, you don`t have an adversarial system, you don`t have the rules of federal criminal procedure, evidentiary thresholds. And we have to do the real thing here, which is not screw this up.
[20:40:07]
What do you think is happening in Department of Justice? Do you think on the facts alone there is enough right now for what Luria said? The factual predicate to open a criminal investigation.
DANYA PERRY, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF THE CRIMINAL DIVISION FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: There`s overwhelming factual predication to open an investigation. I also found Ian`s piece very interesting. And I learned a lot about sort of the long view -- long historical view for the A.G.`s role here.
But it`s also been codified in a way, it`s been memorialized what his role is and what DOJ is role is in the Department of Justice manual, and that says very simply that a prosecutor should pursue charges if there is in the prosecution`s view probably sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction.
There is more than that in this case. And that manual also explicitly prevents the prosecutors from looking at such considerations as the popularity or unpopularity political or otherwise, of a -- of a potential target of an investigation.
So, I think there are many reasons why Merrick Garland, of course, is looking at this, as he himself has said very seriously, but really should follow the rules that apply in every single prosecution in this country. And do what the facts very clearly counsel here, which is, do this investigation, do it thoroughly, but get it done because time is in fact running short.
HAYES: Well, that`s the question, timing too, Ian. I mean, one of the things Garland says is look, we don`t do these in public. And that`s true.
And I think honestly, the nation learned how dangerous it is when they do things in public during 2016 when James Comey, you know, put on the James Comey show about an FBI investigation into one of the candidates, you know, to enormous consequence.
What do you think about timeline and the sort of public-facing nature, if any, that there should be from DOJ? And Danya, I`ll ask the same question after Ian?
BASSIN: Well, I think Ben Wittes has a good piece in Lawfare this week, explaining that actually, the timeline here looks relatively standard for a case of this complexity and reminds us that in 1974, when the first big three of Nixon`s aides were put on trial, it`s almost two years after the break in. And ultimately, the decision about what to do with Nixon in terms of his legal fate came two years later as well.
And as we were preparing the piece for The New York Review of Books, we look deeply into the Watergate special prosecutors considerations then. And not only did the founders take the view that the attorney general`s job was limited, and it wasn`t his job to decide about grace. But that was the view of the Watergate special prosecutor as well.
In this situation, if their facts are sufficient to indict, then the attorney general has only one option, and that`s to indict.
HAYES: What do you think Danya?
PERRY: I think that, you know, the timeline. I take Ian`s point, I think that probably is exactly right in the -- in the normal course, but as you know, embedded in your earlier question, this case is a unicorn in some ways, and cannot -- the DOJ cannot proceed in the way as it normally does, which is it bottom up approach, pick off the low hanging fruit, cooperate up, take its time.
There is a timeline here. There is some urgency here because of the upcoming elections and because of DOJ guidelines, which also do not allow for prosecutions and overt investigations in -- when there is a pending campaign or election.
HAYES: All right, Ian Bassin and Danya Perry that was really illuminating. Thank you both. Enjoy your weekend.
Coming up, the political effect of the January 6th hearings, is the evidence actually getting to Trump voters resonating with them? Some say (PH) it is, that`s next.
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[20:48:49]
HAYES: OK, so there`s a big question, right? Heading into the fall, we`re going to see more hearings, apparently from the January 6th Committee before the midterms, about just what -- what`s the effect politically, right? Not the most important part of these hearings but an important part. What might it be if showcasing Republican after Republican reaffirming that what Donald Trump did was unacceptable?
It`s something I talked about with late-night host Stephen Colbert there after yesterday`s hearing.
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STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST OF THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT: What do you think that the aggregate impact of this will be, all this information presented in a clear way, and in a calm way will have politically? And I don`t mean necessarily the horse race, I mean, on the Republican Party and their fealty to Donald Trump?
HAYES: On the latter question I think that they have done -- I mean, I am not the target audience here. So, I don`t want to sort of --
COLBERT: Projects clear that they target on.
HAYES: Yes, and they do. I think -- here`s what I think, I think his political power in the Republican Party is actually waning a little bit, doesn`t mean he`s not the front runner, he is. Doesn`t mean that he is not the most likely person to be the nominee, he is definitely the most likely person to be the nominee.
And in fact, if you asked me to bet against him or the field, I`d probably take him over the field.
But the baggage here, they have done a very good job of draping this baggage around his neck. And even if you`re a guy who thinks Donald Trump was great, and you hate the libs and hate Democratic Party and you want to win, you`ve got to have in your head right now of like, man, he`s got a lot of baggage.
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So, we want someone with that much baggage. And I think that does create a bit of a crack and a bigger bit of an opening.
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HAYES: Someone who`s actually been tracking all this is Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, host of The Focus Group podcast, and she joins me now.
Sarah, you`ve been doing these Focus Groups throughout the hearings. Who are the folks in the Focus Group, and what have you been hearing as these hearings have progressed?
SARAH LONGWELL, PUBLISHER, THE BULWARK: So, they are all 2020 Trump voters, so they are people who have supported Donald Trump.
And what`s been so interesting, we`ve done nine Focus Groups of Trump voters since these hearings began. And in four of them, zero of the Republicans in the groups wanted to see Trump run again in 2024.
And that is a sort of stunning turnaround from what we were hearing prior to the January 6th hearings, where you would usually get about half the group that would want to see Donald Trump running again in 2024.
And now, you`re getting, you know, either zero or one or two people. And the reasons that you just mentioned in that clip are exactly the reasons why, they are not sure that he can win, they talked about baggage a lot. They are just, you know -- they are very keen on beating Joe Biden and seeing Republicans gain control. And so, they kind of do this armchair political analysis where they say, I don`t know, I just think too many people hate him. And he`s got so much baggage.
And so, you know, I think that that what you said there about waning is true.
But let me be clear about something, they don`t dislike Donald Trump, and they will absolutely vote for Donald Trump if he is the nominee, they still like him. It`s a pure political calculation that they`re making.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, that`s very clear. And I think -- and also that I don`t think there`s much more Lumbridge (PH) about the fact that like, he tried to get his vice president killed.
I mean, I`m not seeing anyone like caring that much about that as a first order ethical question. But this -- on this political thing, I mean, the way that I think about it is in 2020, this question of electability really loomed enormously large over Democratic primary voters.
And you saw a discussion all the time visa the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, particularly those two, you know, would they be electable compared to Joe Biden?
And I think, ultimately, really helped Joe Biden secure the nomination, that calculation, how much do you think Republicans are thinking in that vote? And how much can you imagine that come into play if there is in fact a contested primary, which it looks like there will be?
LONGWELL: Yes, well, this is like a very key point, because it`s not that these Republican voters are watching the January 6th hearings and think, oh, I`m now persuaded that I don`t like Donald Trump, right?
It`s the -- it`s the ambient noise of all of it, the accumulation, that sort of diminishing their sense that he can potentially win. But the other major factor is that there were a bunch of other candidates that they like, they`re very enthusiastic about Ron DeSantis. They see him -- they say it all the time, he`s like Trump, he`s a fighter, but without the baggage.
They really like Kristi Noem. They think that there are a lot of Republican stars who are better suited to beat Joe Biden. And they really want to win, that`s coming through just loud and clear in these groups.
HAYES: So, I guess my deeper question, I think this is going to be kind of a frustrating answer is like, they`re not getting -- like, they`re not like, wow, that was a really bad thing that happened and it was bad for American democracy.
I mean, the degree to which the committee has really tried to be like, hey, guys, listen to fellow Republicans. Listen to that Republican, that Republican, this other Republican, here are trusted messengers.
My sense is like, that`s basically for not with these folks. But what have you found?
LONGWELL: It is for not. I mean, they have done an amazing job, but here`s the thing, they`re not watching the hearings and they are living in their own ecosystems.
And this is where it does get complicated because it is breaking through in the sense that the committee has done such a good job that these Republican actors, the Trump actors have sort of had to go into that media ecosystem to defend themselves and so, it breaks through and but the way that these guys talk about in the Focus Groups is just like they talked about impeachment. It`s a dog and pony show. It`s a witch hunt. They`re just out to get Trump.
And the other thing that they do is like a very healthy case of what about ism? Black lives matter? What about that? Why are they blaming us? And so, that`s sort of how they seem to rationalize it.
HAYES: That all checks out. Sarah Longwell, I`ve learned a lot from your writing on these Focus Groups. So, I hope you keep it up. Thank you very much.
LONGWELL: Thanks for having me.
HAYES: Much more, still ahead with this special supersize summer Friday two hour edition of ALL IN, including the willful naivete the White House witnesses. Do they really not know anything about the character of the man they work for until his attempted coup?
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Plus.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hold! Hold, they`ve enter the building. Hold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Harden that door up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we`re moving, we need to move now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Copy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we lose any more time, we may have -- we may lose the ability to leave, so we`re going to leave, we need to do it now.
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HAYES: New details on the very real danger Trump put his vice president and the vice president`s security detail in on January 6th.
And new video of Republican Senator Josh Hawley that day as he ran from the mob he had saluted on his way into the Capitol. That`s all coming up after this quick break. Don`t go anywhere.
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