justice department and how trump plans to use the justice department to overthrow the government and stay in power. in this part of the plot, the justice department would essentially tell the country that trump was right, there really was tons of fraud, swing states won by biden, probably really were not won by biden. the justice department would in fact tell those swing states that they really should consider sending in trump electors to the electoral college instead of biden electors. that was the plan the justice department play at that role. and how they carry out that plan? the vehicle for this part of the plan was, this official, jeffrey clark. the plan was to fire the attorney general, or place him with this guy, and then this guy would and after the trump plan, to have states that biden won decertify their votes, to instead proclaim trump had won those states and to have those states cast their electoral college votes for trump. clark promised to carry it out. we got new detailed revelations about every step of how they tried to do that today. and we will have more on that co

but donald trump didn't just want the justice department to investigate, he wanted the justice department to help legitimize his lies, to basically callhection corrupt, to appoint a special counsel to investigate election fraud, to send a letter to six state legislatures urging them to consider altering the election results. and then wheeze and other efforts failed, donald trump sought to replace mr. rosen, the acting attorney general, with a lawyer who he believed would inappropriately put the full weight to have the justice department behind the effort to overturn the election. let's think about what that means. wherever you live in the united states, there's probably a local government executive -- a mayor or a county commissioner -- there is also an official responsible for enforcing the laws -- a district attorney or local prosecutor. imagine if your mayor lost a reelection bid, but instead of conceding the race, they picked up the phone, called the district attorney and said, i want you to say this election was stolen, i want you to tell the board of elections not to certify the res

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but donald trump didn't just want the justice department to investigate, he wanted the justice department to help legitimize his lies, to basically call the election corrupt, to appoint a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud, to sent a letter to six state legislatures urging them to consider altering the election results. and when these and other efforts failed, donald trump sought to replace mr. rosen, the acting attorney general, with a lawyer who he believed would inappropriately put the full weight of the justice department behind the effort to overturn the election. let's think about what that means. wherever you live in the united states, there's probably a local government is that cute of, a mayor or a county commissioner there's also an official responsible for enforcing the laws, it district attorney, or a local prosecutor. imagine if your mayor lost a reelection bid but instead of conceding the race they picked up the phone, called a district attorney, and said, i want you to say this election was stolen. i want you to tell the board of elections not to certify

but donald trump didn't just want the justice department to investigate, he wanted the justice department to help legitimize his lies, to basically call the election corrupt, to appoint a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud, to sent a letter to six state legislatures urging them to consider altering the election results. and when these and other efforts failed, donald trump sought to replace mr. rosen, the acting attorney general, with a lawyer who he believed would inappropriately put the full weight of the justice department behind the effort to overturn the election. let's think about what that means. wherever you live in the united states, there's probably a local government is that cute of, a mayor or a county commissioner there's also an official responsible for enforcing the laws, it district attorney, or a local prosecutor. imagine if your mayor lost a reelection bid but instead of conceding the race they picked up the phone, called a district attorney, and said, i want you to say this election was stolen. i want you to tell the board of elections not to certify

the justice department won't tolerate it. the jus kit department's top priority is holding accountable those who commit heinous act. we must all continue to combat hate and discrimination before they escalate to violence. every community deserves to feel safe and protected. through vital grant programs and technical assistance, the department is working diligently to support victims and jurisdictions that have experienced these incidents of mass violence. the office of victims of crime deploy officials to work with the community and state officials to ensure that everyone who needs and wants services has continued access to mental health and other resources. the justice department stands with you and will continue to work to make real this nation's promise of justice and equality under the law. i am now going to pass it to assistant attorney general clarke. ms. clarke: thank you, associate attorney general gupta. mr. attorney general and colleagues, today i join my colleagues in grieving the innocent victims of this senseless

this one involving the department of justice. a key focus of our hearing today will be a draft letter that our witnesses here today refused to sign. this letter was written by mr. jeff clark with another department of justice lawyer. the letter was to be sent to the leadership of the georgia state legislature. other versions of the letter were intended for other states. neither mr. clark, nor mr. klukowski had any widespread evidence of election frayed. they were aware of what mr. trump wanted the department to do. jeff clark met privately with president trump and others in the white house and agreed to assist the president without telling the senior leadership of the department that oversaw him. as you'll see, this letter claims that the u.s. department of justices investigations have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states including state of georgia. in fact, donald trump knew this was a lie. the department of justice had already informed the president of the united

that stopped the president's efforts to subvert the department of justice, to get the department of justice to say that the election was corrupt. however, it didn't stop the president and his attempted coup. three days later, january 6th, the president was out there in front of that crowd, repeating all the same lies that all his members from the department of justice except jeffrey clark had told him were completely false. he was saying those things, the exact same lies, to that crowd, telling them to march on the capitol. also today, the committee publicly stated the names of republican members of congress who actively sought pardons from the former president. we're going to get into that in a moment. it is an extraordinary list. first we want to discuss what we just heard. i'm joined by jeffrey toobin, laura coates, both former federal prosecutors. also gloria borger, alyssa farah griffin, director of strategic communications for the former president. jeff, i mean this line, just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen, there were so many extraordinary

you know, these are serious people, at the department of justice. they were not about to go along with this and thank goodness they didn't. because, if they had stood up, trump would have gone through with this. >> absolutely. lauren, another question. >> mr. chairman, the committee released a list of about half a dozen members of the house, the public and members who requested pardons from the president, from someone in the white house. does the committee believe that is the full list? is it possible that there are people who requested pardons that the committee does not yet know about? >> you know, our instigation continues. we continue to seek new documents and talk with new witnesses. so, i am not sure that we know the complete universe of those involved in any element of the plot. it is why we would like more of these witnesses to comment. you heard the vice chairs appeal to passive baloney, which was basically like look, have these principle people who are coming in testifying, they're not hiding, you should not hide either pequino, if they do

justice department. i mean in modern times, sedition charges are rare enough and a risky enough prosecution effort that there are literally books written about every modern case in which sedition is charged by the government because it is such a big deal when they do it, it is so rare, it is so high stakes and if you're under the age of 100 and if you were to go to work as a federal prosecutor for the u.s. justice department, it would be a pretty good bet that you would never see this particular charge brought against anyone in your entire career and yet here we, are 16 people from two different para-military groups charged in two different sedition indictments in the space of six months. the ocean -- the oath keepers decision conspiracy brought in january and now the proud boys decision conspiracy indictment brought today, both related to the january 6th violent attack on the u.s. capitol to try to overthrow the u.s. government to try to prevent president biden from taking office. the fact that the just

the justice department stands with you and we will continue to fulfill the promise of justice and equality under the law. i will pass it to assistant clark. assistant attorney general clark: thank you associate attorney general gupta. today i join my colleagues is grieving the innocent victims of this senseless crime and express my condolences to their families in the buffalo community that has suffered through this dramatic event. i grieve with you as a new yorker, as a black woman, and as she federal law enforcement officer for civil rights at the department of justice. every day we see evidence that racially-motivated hate crimes are on the rise across our country, according to the fbi's most recent data. most victims of racially motivated hate crimes are black. these acts of hate are a stain on our democracy and have no place in our society. let me be clear, the civil rights division and the entire justice department will not stand by idly in the fight against white supremacists- fueled violence. as attorney general merrick garland noted, we will pursue the perpetrators of hate crimes

department, which were told, he became obsessed with the justice department. he becomes more and more and more manic. and what finally convinces him not to replace rosen with clark is rosen saying to him, you know, if you do that, and everybody leaves, and clark is providing over a graveyard, what does that say about you? and once he heard that, because, of course, it's all about trump, once he heard that, he thought, oh, that would look pretty bad. >> there is an exception to it. if i'm wrong here. you don't have to have him saying, i intend for people to then do x, y, nz. you have to have a good faith belief that, actually, what you're doing is not violating the law. he's told at every juncture that what he's doing will violate the law, undermine the constitution, harmed the institutions as we know it. as you just articulate it. and so all these no sense, it's all showing you that he absolutely was aware that this is not -- >> what was the mood at the white house around this time? >> so i left december 4th, and at that time, i kind of had a sense that's were

department of justice. but what we saw were donald trump's repeated efforts to convert the entire united states department of justice into an instrument of his political corruption and big lie. so look, i think he's a one-man crime wave and he converted his desperate crusade to stay in office despite the fact he had clearly lost the election into a government-wide conspiracy where they were trying to go after state legislatures, state election officials, local election officials, department of just and say when each of these things was frustrated because there are real constitutional heros in this story and people who refuse to bulk under buckle under, finally, ended up going to the most desperate hail mary past. always the mob. violence. in an urt to coerce the vice-president in congress to do his will, that's the story that remains to be told. >> we did hear about the end of the individual in the justice department, that he was trying to use, as his vup for all of th jeffrey clark. we heard a lot with him

clark was already at the top of the justice department. two hours later, doj leadership arrived at the white house. the select committee interviewed every person who was inside the roomduring this sunday evening oval office meeting. mr. cipollone said that he was unmistakably angry and he and eric herrishman wanted him to show the election fraud thoughries. can you talk about how that meeting started? >> yes. after -- mr. meadows had ushered us in and he left. so mr. cipollone did some introductions. so after some preliminaries, the president turned to me and he said, well, one thing we know is you, rosen, you are not going to do anything. you don't even agree with the claims of election fraud. this other guy, at least might do something. then i said, mr. president, you're right that i'm not going to allow the justice department to do anything to try to overturn the election. that's true. but the reason for that is because that's what is consistent with the facts and the law. and that's what's required under the constitution. so that is th

he was an environmental lawyer at the justice department. nobody really knew his name until in the closing days of 2020 early 2021, president trump at the time was trying to figure out a way to install him at the head of the justice department. he wanted to make him attorney general, because he was willing to carry out the former president's wishes to send letters to the states essentially saying that the justice department believed that there was sufficient fraud to investigate. this was obviously central to the former president's effort to essentially set aside joe biden's victory and to get the states to send these fake electors, and find a way for trump to remain in power. and so clark was willing to do that. there was this extraordinary meet agent the justice department on a sunday. january 3rd, a couple days before january 6th. where jeffrey clark and jeffrey rosen who was the acting attorney general at the time essentially were in the white house for hours as trump sort of lorded over this apprentice style competition between jeffrey

i'm proud of the department of justice they help lead. this may sound corny to some of your viewers. but that's what you are supposed to do. you are supposed to do the right thing, even when it is hard. they did that, good for them. but that is the job. but had they not intervened, had there been weaker people, had there been spineless people in their seats rather than them, chaos, stephanie. because it would have given the imprimatur of the department of justice to anybody in georgia who wanted to submit a false slate of electors or who wanted to claim that even the justice department believed that the election in georgia and elsewhere was fraudulent. so, a very important moment, when that we should not overlook. and i'm very glad that smart people -- courageous people -- did the right thing. again, that's the job. that is what you were supposed to do, even when it is hard. >> where they able to do the right thing, luke, by appealing to trump's narcissism? they stopped him, not because they convinced him that the letter was a bad idea or

justice department for his own personal-political benefit. his goal of overturning the 2020 presidential election and staying in office, no matter the cost to the country. let's go trait to cnn pamela brown on capitol hill. pamela, the justice department buzz under extraordinary pressure from the very top to declare the election was corrupt. but doj clearly redistincted. tell us more what we heard today. >> you wonder if these people were not in the positions they were at the time, what would have heaped to democracy, wolf? these top-former doj officials described how they were essentially the guardians of democracy. relentlessly pressured by the former president of the united states, donald trump, to use the power of doj to overturn the election results even after doj had investigated the fraud and found there was no widespread fraud. he here is a clip of the remarkable exchange former acting attorney general jeff rosen described in talking to trump during that time. >> you also noted that mr. rosen said to mr. trump, quote, doj can't and wo

this one involving the department of justice. a key focus of our hearing today will be a draft letter that our witnesses here today refuse to sign. this letter was written by mr. jeff clark, with another department of justice lawyer ken kuklowski. other versions of the letter were intended for other states. neither mr. clark, nor mr. kuklowski had any evidence of election fraud. but they were quite aware of what president trump wanted the department to do. jeff clark met with trump privately and with others in the white house and agreed to assist the president without telling the senior leadership of the department who oversaw him. as you will see, this letter claims that the u.s. department of justice's investigations have, quote, identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states. including the state of georgia. in fact, donald trump knew this was a lie. the department of justice had already informed the president of the united states repeatedly that its investigations had foun

resign if trump tried to install jeffrey clark atop of the justice department. and one final important point about clark here, judy, is that he went before the committee in private deposition, and he pled the fifth over and over again, so as not to incriminate himself. judy: it appears he didn't answer any of the -- any of the committee questions. lisa, i want to turn to you now. we learned more today about the role in all of this of several members of congress, didn't we? lisa: we heard a lot of accusations and witness testimony about roles of members of congress. and this speaks to exactly what laura was reporting about. how did someone who was lower level in the justice department, jeffrey clark, be poised to become attorney general at this important moment? and in that, we heard testimony again from the former deputy attorney general richard donoghue. he had this fascinating bit, judy, where he said -- he talked about a phone call he was on with president trump. and during that phone call, mr. donoghue took notes on a pad near his phone, because he wanted to

justice department must do so. and critics of the department are asking why it does not appear to be investigating these allegations. the hearings point to a potential answer. the committee is laying a foundation upon which prosecutors could build in a subsequent investigation. you go on to write public hearings serve as subtle function. they permit the minds of american people to acculturate to the facts and evidence by laying out the facts that explain what mr. trump did, the january 6 hearings can in advance help acclimate the public to why the justice department has to take criminal action against the former president trump. the hearings may afford the department a deeper and public explanation of the reasoning than an indictment out of the blue would offer. public sentiment of this kind could help insolate the department against a claim that it is politically motivated. these hearings may prove to be a bridge between the justice department and the public. and neal, just in terms of your knowledge of the entire

but the issue was the use of the justice department, and it's just so important that the justice department adhere to the facts and the law. that's what it's there to do, and that's what our constitutional role was. and so if the justice department gets out of the role that it's supposed to play, that's really bad for our country. and i don't know of a simpler way to say that. and when you damage our fundamental institutions, it's not easy to repair them. so i thought this was a really important issue to try to make sure that the justice department was able to stay on the right course. >> mr. donoghue, did you eventually tell the president that mass resignations would occur if he installed mr. clark and what the consequences would be? >> yes. so this was in line with the president's saying what do i have to lose? and along those lines, he said, so suppose i do this. suppose i replace him, jeff rosen, with him, jeff clark? what would y do? and i said, mr. president, i would resign immediately. i'm not working one minute for this guy, who i had just declared was completely incompetent. and so

the department of justice needs to weigh that. because the committee, even if liz cheney is right, can't do anything about that. only the justice department can say that there seems to be enough evidence for us to actually charge either donald trump or rudy giuliani, or one of the people in that circle. where are we on that front? >> i think the committee has done a tremendous job of educating the public, and win this politically and weaken donald trump politically and i think there are republicans that are convinced that bill barr, you know, dismissing this idea that the election was stolen, and another aide, bill stepien, saying the same thing, and i think there are republicans who think of trump running again and i, they hear his accounts from republicans, including cassidy hutchison and there is a fatigue that this person is going to, i think in the tend will be the justice department, and again today i heard from a former official who is very much a centrist and a defender of bill barr, he thought that the cassidy hutchison e

the issue was that the use of the justice department, and it is so important that the justice department adheres to the facts and the law. that's what it's there to do. that is what's our constitutional role was, and so if the justice department gets out of the role that it is supposed to play, that is really bad for our country, and i don't know a simpler way to say that, when you damage our fundamental institutions, it's not easy to repair them. i thought this was a really important issue to try and make sure that the justice department was able to stay on the right course. >> did you eventually tell the president that mass rags and nations wouldn't -- and what the consequences would be? >> this was in line with the president saying what do i have to lose? he said, suppose i do this, suppose i replace him, and replace him with him. what would you do? president, i would resign immediately, i'm not working for a minute with this guy. i just declared he was completely incompetent. the president immediately turned to mr. engel, and said steve, you wouldn't resign, would you? he said absolu

the issue was that the use of the justice department, and it is so important that the justice department adheres to the facts and the law. that's what it's there to do. that is what's our constitutional role was, and so if the justice department gets out of the role that it is supposed to play, that is really bad for our country, and i don't know a simpler way to say that, when you damage our fundamental institutions, it's not easy to repair them. i thought this was a really important issue to try and make sure that the justice department was able to stay on the right course. >> did you eventually tell the president that mass rags and nations wouldn't -- and what the consequences would be? >> this was in line with the president saying what do i have to lose? he said, suppose i do this, suppose i replace him, and replace him with him. what would you do? president, i would resign immediately, i'm not working for a minute with this guy. i just declared he was completely incompetent. the president immediately turned to mr. engel, and said steve, you wouldn't resign, would you? he said absolu

but donald trump didn't just want the justice department to investigate, he wanted the justice department to help legitimize his lies. to basically call the election rigged. to appoint a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud. to send a letter to state six legislators urging them to consider altering the election results. and when these and other efforts failed, donald trump sought to replace mister rosen, the acting attorney general with a lawyer who he believed would inappropriately put the full weight of the justice department behind the effort to overturn the election. let's think about what that means wherever you live in the united states, that is probably a local government executive, a mayor or a county commissioner. there is also an official responsible for enforcing the laws. the district attorney or local prosecutor. imagine if your mayor lost a reelection bid but instead of conceding the race, they picked up the phone and called the district attorney and said i want you to say this election was stolen. i want you to tell the board of elections not to certify the

rakowski persisted after he joined the justice department. ned the justice department. let's take a look at an email recommending that they briefed vice president pence and his staff. of the recipients of this email included of staff, congressman, louis. and email says as stated last week i believe the vice president and his staff would benefit greatly from a briefing by john and ken. i want to thank all eyewitnesses for being here today and answering our's. we asked mr. clark some of the same questions that we have asked you. here's how he answered. . >> executive privilege as stated. claimant >> if you look again, i can see the draft letter in the first paragraph we are able on investigating progress. at this time, we have identified significant concern. identified significant concern. >> the chair declares the committee in recess for a period of 10 minutes. period of 10 minutes. >> we have been watching, to get the, the fifth public hearing by the january 6th select committee. into an arm of his campaign to overturn the election results. the hearing is currently in a

he views the justice department moving on its own track. and his committee's investigation will continue to move forward, regardless of what the justice department is doing and rejected the demands by the justice department to turn over those transcripts. >> we are not going to stop what we are doing to share the information that we have gotten so far with the department of justice. we have to do our work. >> reporter: so he was asked whether or not they would turn them over this week. he said no, but that does not mean we are going to cooperate. they have spoken to thor than 1,000 witnesses, jake. there's been a lot of questions about when those transcript also be released. thompson indicated they would eventually be released, but that could be months in the making. so it could turn out to further delay the justice department's investigation, which is why there are concerns. i asked the chairman whether or not his view had changed against making a referral to the justice department to investigate donald trump over his role over january 6th

the department of justice needs to weigh that. because the committee, even if liz cheney is, right cannot do anything about that. only the justice department can say that there seems to be enough evidence for us to actually charge either donald trump or rudy giuliani, or one of the people in that circle. where are we on that front? >> i think the committee is in a tremendous job at educating the public. one member of the committee told me that their goal was to win this politically. to weaken donald trump politically. and i do think that there are republicans who are convinced, bill barr, you know, dismissing this idea that the election was stolen. another aide, bill stuffing, saying the same thing. i think that there are republicans who think of trump running again, and i think they hear these accounts, including cassidy hutchison, and there is a fatigue that this person is going to come back, who is so erratic. i think the committee succeeded there. but in the end, it will be the justice department. and again, i heard today from

department, heading into january 6th. >> speaking of justice, is the justice department expanding its criminal investigation? >> sarah, we've got new reporting here at cbs news in washington. we've been able to confirm the just yesterday morning, there was a raid on the home of jeffrey clark, he was the justice department official, who advocated this legal path to tell the states that they had found irregularities with the boat and they should have a special session to put forward new or alternate lectures to come to washington for the electoral college certification. and we learned to our reporting that they seized electronic devices from jeffrey clark's home, and that's happening at the same time that we understand subpoenas have been served on these electors, who were willing to serve for then president trump. that tells us the criminal justice department investigation has expanded and expanded to those individuals who it appears were willing to support this alternative view of proceeding with these electors on january 6th. >> part of what's really interesting and fascinating about

the justice department is committing to do our part to end the plague of gun violence. we strongly support congresses efforts to do so as well. in recent weeks, mass shooting after mass shooting has taken the lives of children in their classrooms, beloved community members during their grocery shopping, and worshipers at gathering at their church. so, as her agents and prosecutors works get crime "guns out" of our communities we are also committed to doing everything we can to support the bipartisan gun safety negotiations that are taking place in congress as we speak. finally, the case we announced today illustrates the critical role that atf plays in battling gun violence and saving lives. atf needs permanent leadership to continue carrying on that fight. and we urge the senate to ask what you can from the president's nominee to serve as director of atf. our agents and atf critical mission deserve nothing less. i'm now pleased at how the program over to the united states attorney chad meacham. >> thank you mr. attorney general. i am chad the united states attorney for

department and the congress that you guys near cahoots but the justice department asked you to open up and give them everything you have and you have denied? >> well, we said look, we will work with you but you will have to be specific about what you need and give us a sense of why you need it. that is traditionally how this process has worked. and, and the justice department should be able to do that. i am confident we will work it out. it was breath taking to have that initial request just say give us everything. >> your next hearing has been pushed to july. your colleague says the committee has gotten a deluge of new evidence, can you characterize the information what does it pertain to? >> well, you know, the reality is we continue to get new information pretty much every day. sometimes every week. it really is aided in our investigation but presents a challenge. you start preparing for a hearing and then suddenly you get new additional information and you need to figure out how to make sure to incorporate the most important things. it is a nice problem to have. we have been ver

that comes as the justice department is now ramping up its criminal investigation into the fake elector scheme that was concocted by trump and his allies with federal agents delivering grand jury subpoenas to at least four people on wednesday. >> the scale of that investigation seems to be greater and on a much wider scale than we had understood. we're going to have much more on that in a moment. first, though, new information about what we will hear at today's january 6th hearing. cnn's sara murray here with that. good morning to you. >> good morning. this is going to be a hearing that is really focused on the pressure campaign that came down around the justice department. so we are going to hear today from the former acting attorney general jeffrey rosen, we're going to hear from his former acting deputy richard donohue, we're also going to hear from steve engel the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel. these were folks who were all impacted when after the 2020 election then president donald trump decided he wanted to try to push aside jeffrey rosen and pu

justice department hearings are like bad jt law&order" episodes normally. but as nicole was saying, this is like the apprentice, or the apprentice meets the bachelor. trump was telling the justice department to file fake briefs in the supreme court of the united states. trump is the one who's pressuring all these officials to cast doubt on the election. trump is the one trying to get jeffly clark to take the place of jeffrey rosen, the person who he put in as the acting attorney general because jeffrey rosen is not doing his bidding. time and again,s the trump. trump is hoping he can pin this on the paul eastmans of the world. the testimony today coupled with the testimony earlier, this is not like some eastman thing, this is not some people who invaded the capitol on their own. this is donald trump at the center. he's the hub of the criminal conspiracy. >> i am so struck now by where this january 3rd showdown in the oval office takes place in the time line of what we already know. it's saturday night around -- this is obviously when trump's nocturnal impul

trump's top justice official -- justice department officials, rosen, richard donoghue, and assistant attorney general stephen engel all recounted how mr. trump wanted the department to undermine and overturn the election and how when that effort failed, mr. trump nearly installed a loyalist who would carry out his demands. here is donahue. >> for the department to insert itself into the political process this way i think would've had grave csequences for the country and it may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis and i wanted to make sure he unrstood the rabbit he of the situation. judy: congressman adam kinzinger led the presentation today. in his opening remarks, he had a message for his party. >> i want to take a moment now topeak to my fellow republicans. imagine the country's top prosecutor with the power to open investigations, subpoena, charge crimes, and seek imprisonment. imagine that official pursuing the agenda of the other party instead of that of the american people as a whole. and if you are a democrat, imagine if the other way around. today mr. donal

after a day of sworn testimony about how former president trump tried to weaponize the justice department to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, even some former trump administration officials and allies are acknowledging to cnn that the revelations were damaging. the most damaging yet. even bleak. so why, why so damaging? and what now? that is the focus this morning. testimony about a relentless almost daily effort to push officials to say things that were not true and do things that arguably were not legal. a scheme that seemed minutes from success to install a man named jeffrey clark, an environmental lawyer, an election lie promoter into the top job at the justice department. federal investigators raided clark's home wednesday, the day before he was to be the focus of this congressional hearing. clark described the raid overnight. >> at one point, you know, 12 agents and 2 fairfax county police officers went into my house, searched it for three and a half hours. they even brought along something, tucker, i have never seen before or heard of, an electronic sniffing dog and they

>> right, you -- the justice department needs to know or feel they can win. to some extent it is not just a question of being cautious. it is a question of, you know, can a prosecutor responsibly or ethically proceed with charges they think they might lose, right? now, there is a growing body of evidence here that makes it harder to not charge if not the president, a number of the people around him, where there is a clear body suggesting. needless to say what you have to establish, you know, again there is no one thing and it is somewhat suggestive -- somewhat subjective but a lot of evidence there at a certain point and it is getting hard to say no. >> for those of us that are not lawyers and folks at home, neither you nor i nor the sitting president can legally be willfully blind to the facts. is that correct? >> right. neither -- no one can, at a certain point you need to establish that you knew something, but if 61 courts and all of your lawyers and all of your staff and the private citizens are conveying the same thing to you, at a certain point, you can

but the transparency of the justice department can go a long way to assessing what happened in uvalde in respect to law enforcement response and getting guidance for the future. that is what we are here for today. the justice department is undertaking a critical incident of the law enforcement response that day at the request of the uvalde mayor. the review will be comprehensive, transparent, and independent. we will be assessing what happened that day. we will be doing site visits at the school. we will be conducting interviews and among an extremely wide pool of stakeholders with families, school officials, and we will be reviewing the resources available in the aftermath. the review will come in a final report which will include our findings and recommendations and it will be made public. the department of -- is leading the review. director rob chapman in her senior counselor cutler will be leading the team. i will be happy to introduce to you the team who will be doing the investigation. chief rick brazil, who served as chief of sacramento police department and lead investigator o

and we'll look at where things stand in the justice department's investigation. that and more as we continue in le mons, lemons. look how nice they are. the moment you become an expedia member, you can instantly start saving on your travels. so you can go and see all those, lovely, lemony, lemons. ♪ and never wonder if you got a good deal. because you did. ♪ what's on the horizon? the answers lie beyond the roads we know. we recognize that energy demand is growing, and the world needs lower carbon solutions to keep up. at chevron, we're working to find new ways forward, through investments and partnerships in innovative solutions. like renewable natural gas from cow waste, hydrogen-fueled transportation, and carbon capture. we may not know just what lies ahead, but it's only human... to search for it. a monster was attacking but the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. ♪ making friends again, billy? i like to keep my enemies close. guys, excuse me. i di

>> i think for the justice department, this is a big step. obviously you know that the attorney general merck garland has been getting a lot of criticism about the case of some of the investigations that have to do with january 6th. this is not directly related to anything that happened on january 6th. this is more about navarro's trying to obstruct essentially. that's what the prosecutors are trying to allege here, the investigation that's being done by this committee on the hill. but from a larger point -- from a larger standpoint, you've seen a flurry of activity from the justice department. you know that merrick garland doesn't say a lot about what's happening. we've seen subpoenas being sent to fake electors, so called. people who were involved in the overall process by the former president to essentially stay in office. and so you're seeing the justice department pick up some of the activity that we've been long promised by the attorney general, was actually going to happen. we're now seeing it come to fruition. so at least i think for

i wouldn't say the justice department is pursuing these lawyers but we do know is other justice department stephen beaufort formation, pertain to them. we do not yet know that there are technically targets of the investigation. one of the people of interest of course this john eastman, he's made a large, a big appearance of the hearings. we see that he was involved in a lot of the various schemes to keep donald trump in power. and we also saw that he knew in the background, he never said publicly but he knew when he was having conversation with others that a lot of the scheme is probably not constitutional. even if you represented them as such. when he was made public statements and when he would ask people to do things for him that would keep the president in office. one of them was to overturn the electoral key swing states. and replaced -- with slates of fake electors who falsely say that joe biden lost the election. >> and let's pick up on that point about eastman. the hearing so far have placed intense focus on associates just like him. he's the attorney for those who drafted the plan