that's not an attack on bill barr. simply saying, that's the way he view the justice department behavior in the trump administration and he has a different set of values, imperatives specifically to the attorney general is not the president's lawyer but the people's lawyer. i didn't think it was anything contrary to the message of healing. the big message about the 25th amendment, i don't think it's appropriate here unless you think, and i don't have any basis, that the president is impaired. i think he's acting the way he's always acted and it's regrettable but the truth. i think it would require that so many of the republicans who have, expressed regret over what happened yesterday, really come together. it would need to be 100-0 vote to help this country, hundred-0 vote in the senate. >> dana: andy mccarthy, you follow the justice department, you know bill barr. and his statements yesterday and today, they were quite condemning president trump directly. what about that point that joe biden made in his speech? bill m

can you believe that was bill barr? bill barr said something like that? the man who totally misconstrued the mueller report so that it could look like the president and the folks around him did nothing, totally shaped it in favor of the president instead of what it actually said. that bill barr, who carried his water, can you believe he's saying that? and do you know those supporters could end up behind bars for ten years if they're charged under the president's executive order protecting american monuments like the capitol. >> you hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes you go to jail for ten years and everything stopped. you notice that? it stopped. it all stopped. it's like i brought an old law into existence when i saw them going around all over the country knocking down statues, monuments. and we signed, brought it in, updated it, signed it, ten years in prison. and you know, i signed a law that you take down any of our statues, any of our monuments, you go to jail for ten years. >> talk about the irony of all that poetic justice, right? the same ord

including his own former attorney general, bill barr, of course, a trump loyalist in the early days. and he is saying that the president orchestrated this mob and betrayed his office by his actions yesterday. >> all right, kaitlan collins, thanks so much. joining me now to discuss, john bolton, the former national

actually, according to bill barr, quote, precipitated the insurrection, jason. >> yeah. and bill barr was one of the people who did an investigation for donald trump and say hey, look, we didn't find any sort of election difficulties, any sort of cheating one way or another. he was not going to participate in the silly process afterwards. what i think is really interesting is again, when we look at the notion of this trial, every single person who is voting is also a witness, which is not what you would have in most trials, right? everyone is yeah, we were in the senate when this actually happened. if this were a "law & order" episode, there would be a special episode. they would bring in mike pence. did you highway, did security tell you that they were chanting "hang mike pence". the senators can try and dance around like bill barr and create word salad, but none of them can say it didn't happen. none can say they weren't afraid. all they can say is at some point they don't hold donald trump responsible. but unlike last year they can say well, it was a perfect phone cal

barr announced his resignation and that is when trump started prodding the new acting attorney general jeff rosen to file legal briefs to over turn the election and appoint special councils to vest the nonexistent voter fraud and wanted a special council to investigate dominion, the elections equipment company that falsely said changed votes. and he wouldn't do it. and jeffrey clark was secretly meeting with trump and that cascaded to days before that insurrection at the capitol when trump had to be convinced not to fire jeffrey rosen. he didn't. but this is all coming out now about this big plot that trump tried to replace him so he could

barr may be more about bill barr and lindsey graham may be more about lindsey graham. how do you explain a josh hawley. >> they made the decision that they were going to put their own 2024 ambitions over the country, over the constitution. and they are betting that somehow that can be trumpism without trump. and i think we're going to test that. and i think it's very interesting watching the shots being fired by tom cotton who has been very, very close to donald trump over this issue. so, again, it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few weeks because these guys have been very reluctant to get crosswise with their base. obviously, the situation in the house of representatives is very different than in the united states senate. but, look, this is a party that is moving very rapidly into the post-trump era. >> sarah, the dispatch today did their first editorial calling for the impeachment and removal of donald trump in these last 13 days. you got one republican on board, adam kinzinger at this point. look, we know that's not going to happen,

you have a theory why barr left. >> my belief is that bill barr was probably asked or in donald trump's case, he was asked to do something which was illegal and probably what donald trump is realizing now that he knows another three days he's going to be out of office, that all of the records and all the documents and all the recordings are going to be made available and public if, in fact, that the new attorney general and the new administration seeks to do so. that, of course, being a democratic administration, i think what he did is he probably tried to task bill barr to figure out how to even delete stuff from the server or start shredding documents. i think that's when bill barr said you're sending me down the michael cohen path, which is straight to prison, my friend. i'm not doing it. so i think bill barr had some, you know, he had some convictions there. >> let's talk about the folks who surround donald trump right now. as things are getting tougher, fewer people are around him. he's got giuliani, he's got the foam pillow guy. they're telling him to oppose marshall law and diffe

those are the things bill barr has not said as yet that the president is, in fact, the conspirator of the crime that occurred on january 6th. >> seems like you might have a few questions for him as a witness, no? >> well, let's see what he comes out with in the next couple of days, and, listen, this -- the strategy on what we're going to do and how the trial will be conducted is being discussed right now by all of the managers. i've been blessed and honored to be named as one of them. we are all working as a cohesive group. it's been a phenomenal team and we'll see what happens. >> your fellow impeachment manager ted lu told wolf blitzer he expects the article of impeachment will be delivered this week. i wonder if you can get more specific for us. >> no, i'd be less specific than that even. i think that the speaker will bring the impeachment articles when she and leadership, the senate have made an agreement to receive them. as impeachment managers it's our job to be preparing for the trial. that's the work i'm going to be doing during that time. that's what we're all focused on righ

and then attorney general bill barr bringing up whether or not he could and should pardon himself. it's something he's been interested in, obsessed with, sources say, since the moment he took office and brought it up again in recent weeks. i'm told, though, it's unclear in terms of timing of that, whether it was after the, what we saw the insurrection on january 6th at the capitol building. that, of course, brianna, brought renewed scrutiny on the president, and his role in potentially inciting the violence that we saw. as you know, the d.c. u.s. attorney said nothing is off the table in terms of investigating, and if it means they have to scrutinize government officials they will do so. all happening. we're told bill barr abelieves the self-pardon saying that a president should not be able to pardon himself. both believe in that stance. also we note the president's self-pardon power is untested. even those among the top officials disagreed with the president on this matter. i do not believe he should, but the president still could move ahead and pardon himself, almost certainly me

jim, i also mentioned off the top about this warning from pat cipollone and bill barr to this president. >> yeah. >> what exactly did they say to him? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, we're hearing from our sources and our colleagues pam drown and jamie gangel have been working on this story. brooke, i should note that pat cipollone, former white house counsel and former attorney general bill barr warning president trump he should not pardon himself. this is something we've been reporting on over the last several weeks that the president is very tempted to pardon himself to try to prevent preemptively some kind of prosecution after he leaves office. obviously we don't expect any prosecution to come towards the president before he leaves office. i suppose anything is possible given that donald trump is in the white house, but right now he is being told he should be very careful of that. we should note the acting u.s. attorney here in washington, d.c. was doing an interview with npr over the weekend and did not rule out the possibility that elected officials could be drawn into the investigatio

with help from people like bill barr, but to do that because he is saw as a threat. for the same reason he tried to burn down the media and portrayed as an enemy of the people. >> host: i think about some of the things you read about in both of these books, moments when the president did not face consequences, moments when leaders who could have made a difference didn't step into the fray, what is our hope for returning to normalcy in the next presidency or the presidency after that? if justice is so easily undermined, if the independent objectivity has so many forces working against it, if donald trump who wasn't exactly the most organized tactician could accomplish this, what hope do we have going forward? >> we have hope because we've done it in the past, never more clearly than after watergate, which i wrote about in the book, when the department of justice had become a tool of nixon's partisan attack on many parts of our democracy. we are reliving that history in a way, a different very demagogic leader who has poisoned the minds of millions of american with his

president trump vowed a peaceful transfer of power. >>> former attorney general bill barr

. >> i like bill barr. he changed. he didn't want to be considered my personal attorney. >> didn't want to be my personal attorney. you don't have to be the lawyer to understand the attorney general is the people's attorney. not the president's attorney. that is the point that president-elect joe biden appears to be making with the selection of this man. merrick garland as his pick for tone jo attorney general. >> he said today and before, it is not my justice department. it's the people's justice department. he promised that the person he chose to lead the department would have the quote independent capacity to decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn't. >> now, garland can lead the department of justice as attorney general because he is not a supreme court justice. president obama nominated him to the high court in 2016. mitch mcconnell refused to consider his nomination. climbing it was too close to the election. i'm joined by deval patrick. governor, good to see you. thank you for being with us. this is a remarkabl

he was so bad that bill barr didn't want to remain. bill barr walked out with some legacy intact. it was a bridge too far, but he left his deputy in the department out to dry. there was an insurrection inside the justice department, and i wondering what the state of mind is of the folks that were sort of abandoned by barr in the final days, a coup plotted again thence acting attorney general rosen. it's always some unsuspecting bespectacled guy, and what was the damage down by that act at doj? >> you never want an attorney general who can get the president to listen to you to leave, but i do believe that bill barr's goal there was, i'm not going to have a shouting match with the president through christmas and january about a fraudulent election when none my u.s. attorneys see any fraud. the fraud that might have existed is so de minimis, i'm not going to get into that, i'm going to take my leave. but i also believe that he believed these were the place holders, that maybe they couldn't stand up to donald trump, but they would at least be loyal to his view on the issue of fraud an

there were also hundreds of affidavits from people and even bill barr, the attorney general who, yes, he's criticised president trump now, but he did say that there was wrongdoing in this election. on 2 december, he said there was no fraud that changed the outcome of the race. 60 lawsuits, we can go back into this all day. 60 lawsuits were put in place and all knocked down. mr trump is now facing potential impeachment and also perhaps worse for him, potential disbarment from office. that means that he couldn't run again in 202a. look, this is the swamp taking control. the burning of the reichstag was a pretext for hitler to consolidate power and democracy. when we get to those comparisons, we take a bit of a step back. if you talk about the swamp, about scapegoats, there is another way to look at scapegoating. it is simply a different word — accountability. look, there's accountability that should be appreciated from what the left has done as well. for four years, five years, president trump and his supporters were treated like scum. james, they pushed a russian collusion lie on the

i mean, what a historic abdication of responsibility by the attorney general bill barr. i mean, this guy doesn't deserve to carry a copy of the constitution around for the rest of his life. that is not the way to behave in the face of an unprecedented threat. and the president, if you're the attorney general and the president is trying to do these machinations, you stop them. you don't just leave and leave it to your deputy to try and clean up your mess. >> hmm. neal katyal, thank you as always for your insights. i want to remind everyone, you can go to msnbc.com/openingarguments for this and other highlights of neal's legal analysis, so relevant right now. we also want to show you what we're seeing here in congress as the impeachment article against trump is prepared to be delivered to the senate here within moments. they will make that walk on capitol hill. and we have a former impeachment manager and current member of pelosi's leadership team, congressman jeff rilz, right after this break. right after this break ♪♪ this is what community looks like. ♪♪ caring

the former attorney general, bill barr, we heard from him as well today. he is just weeks removed from his position. he said in a statement, quote, orchestrating a mob to pressure congress is inexcusable. the president's conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and supporters. we have not heard directly from president trump today, connell there was that 3:00 a.m. in the morning statement to his aide, dan scovino. there was a medal of honor ceremony at the white house not on camera. connell? connell: doesn't have the social media options i alluded to you. we're still waiting to hear from twitter and jack dorsey in terms of what might happen there we certainly heard from mark zuckerberg and facebook today. reporter: there was a twitter ban on the president yesterday. he hasn't had anything posted on twitter since. but you're right, we heard from mark zuckerberg who said that the president will not be able to use his accounts on facebook and on instagram, at least for the next two weeks. then indefinitely after that. this was the explanation from mark z

what we're talking about now is not the left, we're talking mike pence, bill barr, we're talking about the republican governor of arizona, the republican governor of georgia — these are all conservatives now on a different side from mr trump. and that's ok, i'm all for a freedom of speech and difference of opinions. but when you want to shut people up and frankly, the supreme court is partly to blame for what happened. the supreme court has a majority of republican—appointed justices. hurray, hurray. crosstalk. james, they didn't want to hear the evidence. martin luther king said riots is the voice of the unheard. they should have heard the evidence, they should have heard the evidence. here's the thing. they chose to rule the way they did. when there's a rule of law, and you know this, when there's a rule of law, it means you accept what the courts are saying. you accept what nine unarmed lawyers tell you. that is the definition of the rule of law, and in the year 2000, nine unarmed lawyers said that al gore lost and they had to accept that. and when nine unarmed lawyers impose th

former attorney general bill barr, a staunch trump loyalist before he left office two weeks ago, said, "orchestrating a mob to pressure congress is inexcusable. the president's conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and his supporters." and scathing words from former defense secretary jim mattis, who said after joe biden is inaugurated on january 20th, "mr. trump will deservedly be a man without a country." there's also been a reckoning among trump loyalists in congress. outgoing senator kelly loeffler had planned to object to biden's electoral votes, but changed her mind after the capitol riot. >> there can be no disagreement that upholding democracy is the only path to preserving our republic. i yield the floor. [ applause ] >> reporter: as the senators applauded her decision to abandon the president, so did vice president pence. still, more than half of house republicans voted to overturn the election, and so did a handful of republican senators, including ted cruz and josh hawley, who was seen raising a fist in solidarity with trump supporters shortly before they stormed t

i don't doubt he had to make tactical judgments about when to press bill barr or the president, and that is not of his doing. i think he was doing wise things to be careful about how he approached it. but that to me speaks to why it was such an enormous mistake for this country to have a corrupt chief executive. that is not chris wray's fault. carol: i've been asking you a lot of questions about your book , especially at the end of your book. let me talk a little bit about the beginning of your book. i want to hear some of these examples. you talk about key moments, where you had to basically grow in the job as a prosecutor. as a baby prosecutor and not so baby prosecutor. talk a little bit about your choice in prosecuting mr. fleet. mr. comey: i was a junior prosecutor in the southern district of new york, and i was assigned a drug case that was ready for trial. there were two defendants, one of whom was clearly guilty and involved in this conspiracy. the other, henry, was a tangential figure in this case, all he had done was introduce a dea informant to the source. he was not involved

bill barr was the first attorney general for biden. but here is the thing with these executive orders. it's politics as usual. when donald trump is elected in a landslide. here is my beef. what bind is doing is dismantling all the buy american orders that i personally worked on on behalf of the communist chinese. two of them, infrastructure for our power system and another one in terms of extending financing to the states, our american taxpayers are going to be buying more chinese stuff. i'm not happy with all of that. and i think what joe biden needs to do is focus now on china. in 2017, xi jinping the president of china sent a high shard one right at the head of donald j. trump. trump struck back immediately and peace was restored through strength. xi jinping challenged biden. and this jen psaki. every time jen psaki says strategic patience which is code board for appeasement. judge jeanine: peter navarro, we can always count on you for some good comments. why are the democrats forcing the national guard to stay in d.c. while ignorin

this summer when bill barr and the fbi director chris wray were doing press conferences trying to draw people's attention to this great danger from antifa and anti-fascists, the then-attorney general bill barr told prosecutors they should consider bringing sedition charges because the concern was leftists were going to be overrunning the cities. well, here we are. by the way, nobody brought those cases. but now today the acting u.s. attorney here in washington, who was put in there by bill barr, said today at this press conference they are looking at bringing sedition and conspiracy charges against people who did this terrorist attack against the u.s. capitol. that's the great irony. you know, back this summer people on the right were very happy that this was being considered against the left. now here we go. it is probably going to be used against some trump supporters who stormed into that building and committed this act of terrorism. >> i don't know if you want to call it irony or poetic justice or what. look, john, i want to bring you back in here because we are learning that just

that was a moment where bill barr was not happy either. he and the president, others made it known when they made their march across lafayette park to stand in front of the church then. we have noticed now from the president-elect, joe biden, he's about to make a statement. i do believe he's in wilmington, delaware. unless advised otherwise. there's the picture now. so as we await to hear from him, we'll just update you on what we've been watching for the past several hours. if you have not been with us, it has been an extraordinary 24 hours. here in atlanta, georgia, in full -- fulton county, you have the control of the u.s. senate hanging in the balance. and 24 hours later, we're watching this. >> we've delayed, i've delayed coming out to speak to you. initially i was going to talk about the economy. all of you, all of you have been watching what i've been watching. at this hour our democracy is under unprecedented assault. up like anything we've seen in modern times. assault on the citadel of liberty, the capitol itself. and assault ope

i read it about bill barr. but he is my personal attorney, that he'll do anything for me. and i said you know, it really is genius because what they do -- and it makes it really impossible for them to ever give you a victory because all of a sudden, bill barr change, if you haven't noticed. i like bill barr, but he changed because he didn't want to be considered my personal attorney appeared in the supreme court, they rule against me so much. you know why? because the story is i haven't spoken to any of them. any of them, since virtually they got in, but the story is they are my puppet. and the only way that they can get out of it, it is not good in the social circuit. the only way, to rule against trump. so i want to congratulate them. but it shows you -- the media is genius. in fact probably if i was the media, i would do at the same way. but we've got to get them strained out. today, for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our constitution, and for the sake of our children, we lay out the case for the entire world to hear. you want to hear it? [cheers and applaus

it was something that bill barr had said privately and publicly to the president. and jeffrey clark having told them he reads a lot of things on the internet said that he disagreed with them and he continued. >> so this -- okay, you've got -- rosen is the acting ag after barr leaves. clark is the head of the civil rights division, which is in department -- >> head of the civil division. >> my bad. the civil division. >> it defends the administration in court. >> yeah, that's a very -- that's a big part of the department of justice. that is up near the top of the leadership. and he apparently was like introduced to trump by a pennsylvania politician and they start interacting for clark to be trump's guy in the department of justice to oust rosen so they could ride into georgia with the doj to, like, write some letter on doj letter head to say, you, georgia, must overturn your results? >> yes, first mr. clark asked mr. rosen to do it as the acting attorney general. when that didn't work, he had a conversation with mr. trump in which he came away from that conversatio

thanks very much for being on the show and responding to what bill barr just said. we appreciate that. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: busy day. lots of developments. more to come, i promise you that. more "varney" afterve this. . that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. (money manager) so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? (judith) nope, we tailor portfolios to our client's needs. (money manager) but you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right? (judith) we don't have those. (money manager) so what's in it for you? (judith) our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. if you're turning 65 soon, like me,l. you might be thinking about medicare. i know i want coverage that connects ... that's the aetna medicare advantage. [background noises] >> is just a black day on the country. >> i would like to see the president is forcefully denounce the violence as we had to over the past year. >> i think most of us need to stop being so surprised the markets to

because you realize up until now, bill barr has always had his back. but now it's like gone. mus be like when you roll up at a-- like you sorry as bichs, if you think you can take on me and my boy bill, yo bill, all rightk now when i said sorry ass, i am saying sorry ass bitches but if trump knows he will be dragged out of the white house soon, at least he is planning to do it in the trumpiest way possible. and let's find out how trump yen in another edition of go big and go home. one of the weirdest quirks of being an american president is having the power to pardon any one for any federal crime. sort of like a code for america's scrus tis system. it looks like president trump will spend the neck two months mashing those buttonses with president trump may soon wield the power of the pardon in unprecedented ways. multiple sources say the president is wearing weighing whether to preem tiffly pardon family members and several close associates. >> among the names the president discussed behind the scenes, the oldest three of his five children. don, jr., eric and ivanka as well a

and don, here's a bit of an irony, this summer, when bill barr and the fbi director chris ray were doing press conferences trying to draw people to this great danger from antifa and an anti-facists, bill barr told prosecutors said they should consider bringing sedition charges because they were worried that leftists would overrun the cities. nobody brought those cases. but here today, it was said today at the press conference that they are looking at bringing sedition and conspiracy charges against people who did this terrorist attack against the u.s. capitol. that's the great irony, you know, back this summer. now, here we go. it's probably going to be used against trump supporters who stormed in to that building and committed this act of terrorism. >> it is, i don't know if you want to call it irony or poet i c can -- poetic justice or not. we are learning just this moment, that youtube has now suspended president trump, go. >> well, look. social medadia companies of all kinds are recognizes that a, the president poses a danger to the country. given the way that he incited there a insu

that's bill barr. donald trump has now lost two cabinet members and more than half a dozen administration officials. education secretary betsy devos was the latest to hand in her resignation which is effective today. elaine chao, transportation secretary and wife of senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, also resigned on thursday. they are two of the longest serving cabinet members of the trump administration. nine other administration officials have resigned since wednesday's attack on the capitol. they come from the justice department, national security and from inside the white house. in is concern among some that more top officials could resign including national security adviser robert o'brien and white house counsel pat cipollone. "the washington post" reports at least four republican senators including utah's mike lee have been privately asking them to stay because there needs to be quote strong leadership at the white house in the 12 days that trump has left in office. >> well, willie, we have

when you have bill barr issuing the blistering statement and spade of resignations it's hard to say that most of this is kust because the liberal media don't like donald trump. mollie: oh, absolutely. i think it's true that at the end of an administration people tend to be leaving. we are literally in the last hours of an administration with media frenzy and you can overstate the importance of some of the departures. people are absolutely are saying how they feel about this and that's appropriate. it's inappropriate, of course, to blame 75 million americans for what happened which is what's quickly happening as the media mauve band of rioters across the capitol and entire impeach an entire movement and trying to silence that many people and that's a big story going forward. howie: liz, the washington reports that president trump is furious at mike pence for not using power which he does not have under the constitution to try to block the electoral college results and senator says that pence is mad at trump. the media don't need to hype the backlash against the president. liz: the media d

believing bill barr was quite frankly his personal lawyer. >> yeah. >> i have no doubt that there is some poetic justice in the coming back of a merrick garland in the interesting confirmation hearings or senate testimony that might ensue. but i do think that he's just -- he does strike me as the deep and richen bodiment of such a important position and a foundational role that makes our democracy what it is. >> it is true, i mean, donald trump never and still could grasp that jeff sessions and i forget the guy in the middle, rod rosenstein, whitaker was one of them and then barr, were not his personal roy cohen. he said in interview, that is what he sought. he wanted jeff sessions to unrecuse himself and fire robert mueller and bill barr did what he wants and not everything and they parted on unhappy terms. and what is the task, i hate the word norms, but to restore that building to regular order? >> well, my hunch is that that building is still filled with tens of thousands of people that got into working at the justice department to oversee that department of justice and to overse

barr, who i think we can agree was pretty loyal to president trump. he did like 98% of what trump wanted him to do. he has accused president trump publicly of organizing a mob to pressure congress, which is the very least of what i think we all saw trump do. but i have to say, i just generally don't believe that 18 senate republicans are going to be willing to vote to convict president trump. i just think that they are that far gone, and you'll get romney, maybe you'll get sasse. but after that, i don't know. >> yeah, and i tend to agree with you, jake. i don't see an avalanche of republican senators, enough to convict president trump speaking out about this. if they were going to speak out, they would have spoken out by now. and on top of that, i do think that with mitch mcconnell, watching him, talking to people close to him, and his aides over the years, he is very careful to kind of just walk a very fine line, especially with president trump. he may allow this to go forward but i don't know that he's going to be whipping votes for an impeachment.

bill barr has been a water-carrying lackey for donald trump since before he took the job. both merrick garland and joe biden said, you're not my lawyer, you're the people's lawyer, you don't do the president's bidding, you do the work of the people. is it your sense that this will be that overhaul at the justice department that will reinvigorate the place and deal with the morale issues and the departures we've seen over the last few years? >> you know, joe biden has put together a really extraordinary team at doj, and i view it as a team more than as individual people. something folks may not be aware of is that judge garland and the deputy attorney general lisa monaco, both have deep experience and bones in these white supremacist incidents. both of them were around and involved in the oklahoma city bombing prosecutions, so they understand what white supremacist-motivated tear in this country looks like. i think they'll put the best priority on the sorts of challenges we face. >> joyce, good to talk to you, as always. joyce vance, professor and attorney in alabama and ms

bill barr was speaking as to the evidence the department of justice saw. the department of justice wasn't administering any elections, did not have access to particularly widespread evidence on either side of the issue, as for the states, there are a lot of people in the states and states legislatures who have expressed deep, deep concerns about the unlawful practices that we saw on election day, that we saw particularly cities controlled by democratic politicians, shutting down the vote, throwing out observer, disregarding the law, and final ly, you mentioned the supreme court. listen, i wish the supreme court had taken this case. there were two opportunities to take this case. one out of pennsylvania, one out of texas, and in both instances, the lawyers asked me to argue those cases, and so with regard to the texas case, president trump called me and said ted, would you do the oral argument in this case if the court takes it? i told the president absolutely, i'd be happy to do it. i wish the court had taken one or both of those cases. i think the supreme

and many of bill barr's former attorney general bill barr's colleagues said that basically his departure just before christmas was because he was sort of tired of the president haranguing him about overturning the election. hats off to katie for breaking this great scoop which, you know, last night my colleagues and i were scurrying to confirm, and i have to say one of the big takeaways from this is not just the president's desperation, but the fact that he is somehow able to always find another person who will enable his nutty scheme and replace the person who is pushing against him. in this case, we learned last night and katie broke most of this, too, but we confirmed that pat sipiloan who tried to help him stay in power and avoid impeachment and a vote impeachment in the senate that he was telling the president this cannot stand. we are not going to overturn the georgia election and remove your acting attorney general weeks, days before the inauguration of joe biden. >> katie, i guess i'm looking for your interpretation on this a little bit because while carol is right there always s

>> reporter: yeah, it was under the attorney general bill barr that this happened, that the president was putting pressure on top officials at the department of justice to try and file a lawsuit with the supreme court to see if they'll -- they would overturn the election. of the attorney general and other senior officials at the department of justice said they don't have any legal standing, they had no legal rights to file this kind of lawsuit. so they didn't. that was early on, right. so there was another part that we learned of friday. "the new york times" was first to report and we've since confirmed that after bill barr left, the acting attorney general, jeffrey rosen, was in that spot, and that the president was trying to -- was contemplating having him removed from the acting attorney general role to replace him with someone who would more likely file a lawsuit or act in the ways that the former president wanted. that sort of set off alarm bells inside the department of justice with top leaders there saying they were all going to quit in that happened. so that prevented that fro

bill barr calling trump's conduct a betrayal of his office. they all revolve around this immediate question. can the president be restrained? congress soldiered on last night well into the night, in a capitol scarred by broken windows and bullet holes, as the smell of tear gas lingered in the air, to affirm that joe biden will be sworn in as president, but in 13 potentially very long days from now. 13 days. they made a movie about it, the last crisis that took 13 days. let's hope this isn't that kind of crisis. just like yesterday, i will be joined by my nbc colleagues, andrea mitchell and katy tur, we'll do our best to anchor the coverage over the next four hours. our nbc reporters will have the latest. we have political experts and insiders all standing by. we're also expecting to hear from quite a few leaders including i believe speaker pelosi. but andrea mitchell, and katy tur, i think we've got to begin today with, andrea, the accountability question and whether -- what's going to happen in the next 13 days? how does president trump get r

>> each side will play it politically how they want it attorney general bill barr will play it in the conservative lens, you're ken soring us people on the left will say, you're giving them a dangerous platform everyone wants to crack down on tech companies that don't alter the rules in their favor tech companies have been regulated by congress. i think what you're going to see now is there's going to be new conversations on capitol hill around how do we introduce amendments not just the communications decency act but also to other forms of the regulation that would help keep these companies account for things like terrorism, domestic terrorism, people congregating online to do harm? i think that's where they have the moection exposure. limiting people's political speech will always be tough but holding them to account where people are planning riots where there's guns and weaponry involved is something where i think there will be much more bipartisan support on capitol hill to go after this them. >> sarah fisher from axios, a busy day for you ahead, i'm sure. >>> how new covid-relate

thank god fortunately that they have more scruples and that they have more value than bill barr did because how do you think, again, going back to my remand to prison, simply because i refused to sign a document that said that i couldn't publish a book in violation of my first amendment constitutional right, so i find it ironic that donald trump is claiming constitution, constitution, constitution only when it benefits him, right, and if it benefited anybody -- he's willing to step on anybody else's constitutional right simply. that means entire country so long as he gets what he wants, and in this specific case it was to stay in power and to basically become the autocrat and dictator that he wants to be. >> you know, what's interesting right now, the biden administration trying to bull over what happens here, whether they release trump's federal tax records to house democrats who certainly have been asking him for years. should that happen, michael, and if it does, what will it reveal? >> wow, so if it does, first of all, i like the fact in a joe biden is trying to keep an arm's length dis

at the time the attorney general was bill barr so it was his department of justice who refused to do this and said according to "the wall street journal" they had no legal basis to file the claim. the president's attorneys and the white house also said this wasn't a good strategy to pursue. and so it went nowhere. after the attorney general at the time, bill barr, leaves, jeffery rosen is acting attorney general and the "new york times" first reported and cnn confirmed that president donald trump tried to get the acting attorney general, tried to fire him so he could put someone in his place who perhaps would go ahead and pursue some of these lies, some of these claims of fraud in the election. but that prompted concern inside the department of justice so many of the top officials at the doj threatened to quit, as you said. so that also went nowhere. now, of course, there are calls for further investigation. certainly senator chuck schumer saying the inspector general should take a look at this and perhaps we could see this come up in the impeachment trial. >> okay. thank you. let's

it is important to bring the justice department to wash clean the stains of bill barr and jeff sessions from the justice department. that is all well and good. but this moment demands more restoration. this demeans the justice department who is willing to go after the people who threaten our democracy and who openly threatened the safety of black people in this country. and merrick garland have an opportunity to prove he is willing to do that. amy: then you have the speculation that if in fact he is approved by the senate, down democratic senate, you will have his open seat on the federal that -- the possibility judge brown jackson will fill that seat and then possibly be nominated to the supreme court if there is an opening. >> here's the thing about the d.c. circuit company i don't want to get too far into the weeds. the d.c. circuit, which garland currently sits, is basically for the theater circuit supreme court. a lot of the supreme court justices got their start on the d.c. circuit currently on the supreme court, john roberts, clarence thomas, brett kavanaugh all came from the d.c

barr's effort to designate left-wing groups as domestic terror groups. >> many thanks indeed for being with us, claire finkelstein in philadelphia. u.s. federal prosecutors say criminal charges have been placed on 70 people involved in last week's capital attack, and it expects that number to grow into the hundreds. the fbi says it has received over 100,000 videos and pictures to identify the perpetrators, and the justice department said it is considering sedition charges. that's punishable in the u.s. by up to 20 years in prison. >> the fbi receives enormous amounts of information and intelligence, and our job is to determine the credibility and viability of it. we have to separate the aspirational from the intentional and determine which of the individuals saying despicable things on the internet are just practicing keyboard bravado or have the intent to do harm. in the latter, we work diligently to identify them and prevent them from doing so. >> the u.s. secretary of state says al qaeda has established a new home base in iran, although he has not presented hard evidence. mike pompe