0:02

The president's intent was to stay in

0:05

power at all costs. This election was

0:07

stolen. It's war and oath. I'm not going to break

0:09

it. I'm not putting on no stinking surrogates. They put

0:11

their faith in Donald Trump and he deceived them.

0:13

The select committee laid the path down for

0:15

the Department of Justice. Donald Trump is

0:17

going to be the defendant and the candidate.

0:20

It's hard to imagine how it's going to

0:22

play out. I'm Raini Ernst

0:24

and Roth, editor-in-chief and executive producer

0:26

of Frontline. Today we're

0:28

bringing you part three of an

0:30

audio version of our film Democracy

0:32

on Trial. As

0:57

the January 6 hearings continued, the committee linked the efforts in Georgia

1:00

to Trump

1:14

personally. They

1:16

had evidence and a witness. We

1:49

felt very comfortable with that, which

1:51

is a rare thing for anybody in

1:54

politics because engineers are very mathematical, very

1:56

linear, not always the biggest person

1:58

to have a job. George's

2:01

Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. I looked

2:03

at the Office of Secretary of State,

2:05

and how do we really improve the

2:07

process of elections? All

2:09

159 counties had new election equipment with

2:13

a verifiable paper ballot ready for the election

2:15

of 2020. It

2:19

was a phone call from the president that

2:21

put Raffensperger at the center of the hearings.

2:28

Everyone, I'm going to come with you through to

2:30

post momentarily. One moment.

2:33

Committee Senior Investigator Timmy

2:35

Dio Aganga-Williams. That phone

2:37

call is one of the most powerful

2:40

pieces of evidence that's come out of

2:43

this post-election period. The

2:49

conference is now connected. Hello? Mr.

2:55

Raffensperger, are you on the line? Mark

2:57

Meadows reached out to my deputy secretary

2:59

of state, and she called

3:02

me, and I told her I didn't think

3:04

that was a good idea. And

3:07

we were kind of told that,

3:09

no, we definitely need to have this conversation.

3:12

And Brad Raffensperger, I'm here. Okay,

3:15

all right. So, Mr. President, everybody is on

3:17

the line, and just so this is Mark

3:19

Meadows, the chief of staff. So,

3:21

Mr. President, I'll turn it over to you. Okay,

3:24

thank you very much. Hello, Brad and Ryan

3:26

and everybody. We appreciate the time and the

3:28

call. If

3:30

we could just go over some of the numbers,

3:32

I think it's pretty clear that we

3:35

won. We won very

3:37

substantially, Georgia. It

3:40

shows how frantic and

3:42

desperate President Trump

3:44

had become by that phone call. I

3:47

think it shows how his

3:49

demands were fully removed from

3:51

any kind of evidence. So,

3:55

dead people voted, and

3:57

I think the number is in the—

4:00

to 5,000 people and

4:02

they went to obituaries, they went

4:05

to... I just listened to him

4:07

talk. I was making some notes. Okay,

4:10

5,000. Okay, great. I'll

4:12

respond to that. But I

4:14

got an opportunity to, you

4:17

know, speak. Then I just said,

4:19

well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is

4:21

your data is wrong. Well, Mr.

4:23

President, the challenge that you have is

4:26

the data you have is wrong. The

4:28

actual number were two. Two

4:31

people that were dead that voted. My

4:34

job was just to respond with the facts. And

4:38

if I had a different set of facts, I would have responded

4:40

with whatever they were. Our

4:42

job was to give him the true data,

4:44

which I did. But why wouldn't

4:46

you want to find the right answer, Brad, instead of

4:49

keep saying that the numbers are right? Brad, we

4:51

just want the truth. It's simple. And

4:54

the real truth is I won by 400,000 votes, at least. We

4:58

believe that we do have an accurate election. No,

5:00

I know you don't. No, no. The

5:03

former president was pushing

5:06

to see if he could somehow, you know,

5:09

it would move me somewhere, someplace. Because

5:12

I think that's been an effective strategy for him

5:15

over his business career and political career. The

5:18

people tend to debacle and

5:20

stand firm on their principles. In

5:25

Georgia, Trump had lost to Biden by 11,779

5:27

votes. So

5:31

what are we going to do here, folks? I only need

5:33

11,000 votes. Tell us. I

5:36

need 11,000 votes to give me a break. Why

5:39

do you keep fighting this thing? It just

5:42

doesn't make sense. We

5:44

have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are

5:46

right. Georgia elections official

5:48

Gabriel Sterling. Trump didn't

5:50

understand. It just doesn't click with him,

5:53

didn't click with him that someone wouldn't

5:55

just give in. It

5:58

just did not occur to him that there was a bill. was some higher

6:01

level of loyalty to the law

6:03

and the Constitution. I

6:07

knew that we had followed the law and we followed the

6:10

Constitution. I think sometimes

6:12

moments required you to stand up and just

6:15

take the shots. You're doing your job.

6:17

And that's all we did. You know, we

6:20

just followed the law and we followed the Constitution. And

6:23

at the end of the day, President Trump came up

6:25

short. But I had to be faithful

6:27

to the Constitution. And that's what

6:29

I swore I know to do. Peter Baker,

6:31

New York Times. This call becomes

6:33

critical because it's recorded. We

6:36

get to hear in the president's own voice how

6:39

he's doing it, what he's doing, how he's putting

6:41

pressure on these people. So

6:44

look, all I want to do

6:46

is this. I just want to

6:48

find 11,780 votes. Conservative

6:55

columnist David French. This is a

6:57

scheme to overthrow an election. He

7:00

knew the number that he needed to hit to

7:03

change the outcome of the election. And

7:06

Trump accused Raffensperger himself of a

7:08

crime, allowing election

7:10

fraud. It's more illegal

7:12

for you than it is for them because you

7:14

know what they did and you're not reporting it.

7:16

That's a criminal. That's

7:19

a criminal offense. The

7:22

president of the United States demanding that

7:24

an election official find thousands of votes

7:26

and then strongly implying that there would

7:28

be criminal sanction in the event that

7:31

those votes were not found. I mean,

7:33

that is terrible evidence

7:35

for the president. Brad Raffensperger. What I

7:37

knew is that we didn't have any

7:39

votes to find. We had to continue

7:41

to look. We investigated. I

7:43

can just share the numbers with you. There

7:46

were no votes to find. Committee senior

7:48

investigator, Tenida Yoliganga-Williams. That

7:51

call is damning and I think it's going

7:53

to be damning potentially in front of a

7:55

jury because juries, when they can hear a

7:57

defendant's voice on tape, when they can

7:59

hear. something that is that real

8:02

and that visceral. It can be

8:04

incredibly powerful testimony. Thank

8:08

you, Brad. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thank

8:10

you, everybody. Thank you, President Trump, for

8:12

your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very

8:14

much. Bye. Bye. In

8:18

the federal indictment, the defendant said

8:20

that he needed to find 11,780 votes. Criminal

8:25

defense attorney Ken White. It shows

8:27

him demanding a remedy that doesn't

8:29

make any sense in the context

8:31

of anything lawful. That's

8:34

just asking, I want to win. You got to do

8:36

it. I think it's going to be a very powerful

8:38

call for that jury. For

8:41

his part, Trump has defended the phone

8:43

call with Raffensperger, describing it

8:46

as perfect. On Truth Social. A

8:49

perfect phone call to discuss a rigged

8:51

and stolen election and what to do

8:53

about it with many people, including lawyers

8:55

and others, knowingly on the line. Chapter

9:04

heading, the invitation. After

9:07

weeks of trying to overturn the results of

9:09

the election, his legal team has come up with

9:11

nothing. In the middle of

9:13

December, 2020, in the courts, where

9:15

evidence gets scrutinized, authenticated and tested,

9:18

they're getting hammered. As the president

9:20

was failing in his attempts to

9:22

reverse the election, all

9:24

but now ending the president's attempt to

9:26

reverse his election loss, a new

9:28

phase began. And it comes

9:31

as the electoral college is set to cast

9:33

their votes for president tomorrow.

9:35

January 6th, committee chair, Benny

9:37

Thompson. On December 14th, 2020,

9:40

the presidential election was officially

9:42

over. The electoral college

9:44

had cast its vote. Joe

9:46

Biden was the president-elect of

9:49

the United States. The

9:51

president has reached the end of the

9:53

road. The electoral college certified the election.

9:55

His legal team and allies lost more

9:58

than 50 challenges. Chief

10:00

Investigator Tim Heafey. The cases

10:02

run their course. The Electoral College meets. People

10:05

are saying no. So he's running

10:07

out of options, right? The sequence is

10:09

increasingly desperate. Committee member Jamie Raskin. On

10:12

Friday, December 18th, his team of outside

10:14

advisors paid him a surprise visit in

10:16

the White House that would

10:18

quickly become the stuff of legend. Peter

10:21

Baker in New York Times. This meeting

10:23

is one of the most extraordinary meetings

10:25

ever happened in that building in

10:27

more than 200 years of history. Here

10:30

you had a president of the United States who

10:33

had lost an election in the Oval Office being

10:35

advised by a swarm

10:37

of colorful characters, to say the

10:39

least. At

10:42

the meeting, former National

10:44

Security Advisor Michael Flynn and

10:46

Attorney Sidney Powell, by

10:48

then both known for their embrace

10:50

of conspiracy theories about the election.

10:54

New York writer Susan Glasser. You

10:56

have people in there counseling

10:59

Donald Trump that he should

11:01

explicitly order martial law, that

11:03

he should create a special

11:05

czar. The

11:08

person they had in mind for this was Sidney Powell.

11:11

That she should become the

11:13

special election czar and be

11:15

empowered to use the machinery

11:17

of government itself to

11:19

overturn the election. As

11:22

word of the meeting spread, senior

11:24

White House lawyers rushed to the Oval

11:26

Office, including

11:28

White House counsel Pat Cipollone. I

11:31

opened the door and I

11:34

walked in. I saw General Flynn.

11:37

I saw Sidney Powell sitting there.

11:39

I don't think any of these

11:41

people were providing the president with

11:43

good advice. Committee senior

11:46

investigator Mark Harris. President Trump's

11:48

close advisors, White

11:50

House counsel Pat Cipollone, Eric

11:53

Hirschman, advisor to the president, and

11:56

others who were in that room, were

11:58

saying to this group, What evidence

12:00

do you even have that there was fraud in the

12:02

election? The White House

12:04

lawyers were insistent that the president shouldn't

12:06

declare martial law to overturn the election

12:10

or empower Sidney Powell. Former

12:12

Trump staffer Derek Lyons. At times

12:14

there were people shouting at each other, burling

12:17

insults at each other. Former

12:19

Trump attorney Sidney Powell. Cipollone and

12:21

Hirshman and whoever

12:24

the other guy was showed

12:26

nothing but contempt and disdain

12:29

of the president. Pat Cipollone.

12:33

The three of them were really sort

12:35

of forcefully attacking

12:39

me, if early. And

12:43

you're asking one sort of question, where

12:45

is the evidence? I

12:48

mean, if it had been me sitting in his

12:50

chair, I would have fired all of them that

12:52

night and had them escorted out of the building.

12:54

Committee Senior Investigator Mark Harris. The

12:56

president is taking all of this in, mostly

12:59

a passive observer in this meeting. But he is

13:01

watching this play out. His

13:04

close advisors telling his lawyers, you

13:06

have no evidence that there was fraud in the election

13:09

and you've lost every case. Every

13:11

case you've brought in court, you've lost. And Sidney

13:14

Powell says the judges were corrupt. That's

13:16

why we lost. And Eric

13:18

Hirshman, supporter, close advisor of the president says,

13:20

what are you talking about? Every

13:23

case, the judges, we appointed many

13:25

of those judges. You're saying they're all corrupt?

13:28

You people have nothing. You're crazy. From the

13:30

January 6th committee deposition of former Trump advisor

13:32

Eric Hirshman. I think that it got to

13:34

the point where the screaming was completely,

13:38

completely out there. I mean, again,

13:40

people walk in, it was late at night, it had been a long

13:42

day. And what they were

13:44

proposing, I thought was

13:47

nuts. Flynn screamed at

13:49

me that I was a quitter and everything kept on standing up

13:51

and turning around and screaming at me. And

13:53

then at a certain point, I had it with him. So

13:56

I yelled back, there's

13:58

Sidney Ref and As back down. —

14:01

From the committee deposition of Ruly Giuliani. —

14:04

I'm going to categorically describe it as, you guys

14:08

are not tough enough. Or

14:11

maybe I put it another way, you're a bunch of

14:13

pussies. Excuse the expression. —

14:16

Susan Glasser. — At the end

14:18

of it, Trump sees that there is

14:20

so much opposition, including from his White

14:22

House counsel. He understands

14:24

that people would very likely resign.

14:27

And so it seems that he

14:29

reluctantly concludes that he's not going

14:32

to declare martial law. —

14:35

Instead, late that night after the

14:37

meeting had broken up, the

14:39

president turned to Twitter. —

14:43

Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election. Big

14:46

protest in D.C. on January 6th.

14:49

Be there. We'll be wild. —

14:51

Committee member Jamie Raskin. — He's satisfied

14:54

with his options. Donald Trump

14:56

decided to call for a large

14:58

and wild crowd on Wednesday, January

15:00

6th, the day when Congress would

15:02

meet to certify the electoral votes.

15:05

— Peter Baker in New York

15:07

Times. — While he doesn't

15:09

actually go ahead with martial law, he is

15:11

embracing a path that is, in fact, radical

15:14

anyway. He's

15:16

not using the United States military, but

15:18

he's summoning his own army of supporters

15:20

to Washington. — Some of whom are

15:22

known to be extremists and in some

15:24

cases violent, to help him stay in

15:27

office over the will of the voters.

15:29

— Fire right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

15:33

— It's Saturday, December 19th,

15:36

and one of the most historic

15:38

events in American history has just

15:40

taken place. President

15:43

Trump, in the early morning hours

15:45

today, tweeted that he wants the

15:47

American people to march on Washington,

15:50

D.C. on January 6th. more

16:00

violent, organized Trump

16:02

supporters, the Oath

16:04

Keepers. He called

16:07

us all to the Capitol and wants us to make

16:09

it wild. Gentlemen, we are heading

16:11

to D.C. Pack your... The

16:15

Proud Boys. It's all

16:17

or nothing, patriots. Boldness and bravery

16:19

is necessary. They

16:22

heard it as a message from their

16:24

leader. Come to Washington.

16:27

Committee Communications Director Tim Mulvey. The

16:29

Will Be Wild tweet was

16:32

the call in a call in response.

16:34

They mobilized to come to Washington. These

16:36

individuals came to Washington because

16:38

Donald Trump told them to be there, because

16:40

Donald Trump told them the election was rigged,

16:43

because Donald Trump told them that someone was

16:45

trying to take their votes away from them

16:47

and silence their voices. They believed it. A

16:49

pro-Trump YouTuber. This could be Trump's last stand.

16:52

And at the time when

16:54

he has specifically called on his

16:56

supporters to arrive in D.C. The

16:59

time for games is over. The time

17:01

for action is now. Where

17:04

were you when history called? Where were you

17:06

when you and your children's destiny and future

17:08

was on the line? For

17:13

prosecutors, that tweet, the

17:16

call to march on Washington, represents

17:18

a crucial step in Trump's criminal

17:20

conspiracy. Criminal defense attorney Ken

17:23

White. Jack Smith's theory is

17:25

that that was part of the attempt

17:27

to obstruct the proceedings on January 6th.

17:31

Trump wanted a large, at

17:33

least boisterous, if not violent

17:36

crowd there to interfere

17:39

with the proceedings, maybe stop

17:41

them, put pressure on

17:43

the people there. And that was one

17:46

component of his obstruction. From the federal

17:48

indictment. After cultivating widespread

17:50

anger and resentment for weeks with

17:52

his knowingly false claims of election

17:54

fraud, the defendant urged his supporters

17:57

to travel to Washington on the day of

17:59

the certification. Occasion proceeding lawfare at

18:01

her Clint address the Special Counsel

18:03

Us are situated at us as

18:06

Hinge. Were things sort of really start

18:08

to go wrong? That.

18:10

Shows that. This

18:12

is part of our plans. I'm and

18:14

if they can convince the jury of that, that's.

18:17

A huge portion of the bargain. A

18:21

little filings: Trump's attorneys have argued that

18:23

his statements were protected by the First

18:25

Amendment. The Indictment therefore attempts to criminalize

18:28

core political speech and political advocacy, which

18:30

is categorically impermissible under the First Amendment.

18:32

Former Trump attorney Robert Re. There should

18:35

be room under the First Mm in

18:37

an otherwise who the President to say

18:39

an awful lot without having to tag

18:42

him with a criminal offense. That's.

18:45

Why there's a First Amendment? That

18:48

you're you're given a big amount

18:51

of latitude to say a lot

18:53

of wild and crazy stephen stupid

18:55

things without having to worry about

18:58

somebody afterwards deciding that you should

19:00

be sent to jail for it.

19:02

Conservative columnist David French, while prosecuting

19:05

the president in an electoral context

19:07

is new. Prosecuting people for electoral

19:09

fraud is not new at all.

19:13

Their. Burdens of prove their legal test,

19:15

their jury instructions, and if you can

19:18

meet those elements, then you're outside of

19:20

the protection of the First Amendment. This.

19:23

Is Not a novel legal

19:25

theory hear? The.

19:33

Journalism behind a frontline dispatch is

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possible thanks to the support of

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you our listeners. Join and

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19:41

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gift Had Front line.org slashed dispatch.

19:48

Thank. You. Chapter

19:52

Headings: Rule Of Law As

19:55

January sixth approached from Free

19:57

focused his efforts closer to

19:59

home. at his own

20:01

Department of Justice. January 6th, committee

20:03

chair Benny Thompson. Today, we'll tell

20:06

the story of how the pressure

20:08

campaign also targeted the

20:10

federal agency charged with

20:13

enforcement of our laws, the

20:15

Department of Justice. January 6th,

20:17

committee report co-author Tom Josselin.

20:20

Trump tried to weaponize the Department

20:22

of Justice against our own democracy.

20:26

Bill Barr is the first one to stand up and

20:28

say, no, I'm not going to do that. He steps

20:30

aside, he resigned, and he's

20:32

replaced by Jeff Rosen and Richard Donahue, who has

20:34

sort of a tag team here. Rosen

20:38

was a Republican political appointee

20:40

who had served throughout Trump's

20:42

administration. Donahue,

20:44

also a Republican, had spent much

20:46

of his career as a government

20:48

lawyer in the Army and at

20:50

the Department of Justice. Deputy Communications

20:53

Director Hannah Moldavian. These are folks

20:55

who were appointed by Donald Trump.

20:57

They are aligned with

20:59

him politically. Former Wall Street

21:02

Journal reporter Byron Tao. Pretty

21:04

much every day after Barr left, Trump

21:06

would call Jeffrey Rosen at the Justice Department

21:09

or his deputy, Richard Donahue, and try to

21:11

put pressure on them to get

21:13

the departments to go along with this narrative

21:15

that there were serious questions about the integrity

21:18

of the election. January

21:20

6th, committee member Adam Kinsinger. Mr.

21:22

Donahue, you had a conversation with

21:24

the president where he raised

21:26

false claim after false claim with you

21:28

and Mr. Rosen. How did

21:31

you respond to what you called a

21:33

quote, stream of allegations? Richard Donahue. I

21:35

wanted to try to cut through the

21:37

noise because it was clear to us that

21:39

there were a lot of people whispering in his ear, feeding

21:42

him these conspiracy theories and allegations.

21:45

As the president went through them, I went

21:47

piece by piece to say, no, that's false.

21:49

That is not true. And to

21:51

correct him, really, in a

21:54

serial fashion as he moved from one theory to

21:56

another. How did

21:58

the president respond to that, sir? He

22:01

responded very quickly and said, essentially, that's not what

22:03

I'm asking you to do. What I'm just asking

22:05

you to do is just say it was corrupt

22:07

and leave the arrest to me and the Republican

22:09

Congress. From

22:13

a defense attorney, Ken White. He's

22:16

saying, don't care about evidence, don't care

22:18

about facts, just say this, and

22:21

then I'm going to be able to use

22:23

that to give people political cover to

22:25

do what I want them to do, which is

22:28

to overturn the vote. Former Trump attorney, Robert Ray.

22:30

I look, I think that's a very unfortunate

22:33

statement on the on the president's

22:35

part, but it wouldn't

22:37

be the first time that a president made

22:40

a conscious decision to reject advice from

22:42

his legal advisors, including the Department of

22:44

Justice. Is

22:46

that evidence of criminal misconduct? Could

22:49

be, could be. But

22:52

sorting that out before a fair

22:54

minded jury, assuming that there's

22:56

a fair minded jury is I think another question.

23:00

As it became clear, Rosen and Donahue

23:02

wouldn't go along. Trump

23:05

looked for someone who would. Committee

23:07

senior staffer Tom Jocelyn. Trump

23:10

turns to this mid level Department of

23:12

Justice employee, Jeff Clark, and

23:14

he says, let's put him in as the acting

23:16

attorney general. New

23:18

Yorker writer, Susan Lasser. He

23:21

had been an environmental prosecutor. Clark's

23:25

official role has nothing to do

23:28

with anything involving election fraud. He

23:31

had no business at all being involved in this.

23:34

Clark drafted a letter that would

23:36

claim publicly that the department was

23:38

concerned about serious allegations of election

23:40

fraud, even

23:42

though his superiors had said there was

23:44

no such evidence. Lawfare editor, Quinta Jurassic.

23:46

That letter, of course, was never sent.

23:50

Clark tried to push for it to

23:52

be sent by sort of attempting to

23:54

dethrone acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen. According

23:58

to testimony and evidence before the. Trump

24:00

told Clark that he was going to

24:02

fire Rosen and make him the

24:04

new attorney general. Susan Glasser. Well,

24:07

Clark makes an incredibly stupid mistake,

24:11

which is that he tells Jeffrey Rosen,

24:13

the acting attorney general, that he is going to

24:16

be replaced. Jeffrey

24:18

Rosen with the January 6th committee. On Sunday the

24:20

3rd, he told me that the president had

24:22

offered him the job and that

24:25

he was accepting it. Clark

24:27

tells him, oh yeah, Trump is going to put me in

24:29

jail. And he gives notice to his opponents. That's

24:33

always a huge

24:35

mistake in Washington or anywhere else. Jeffrey Rosen. Well,

24:39

on the one hand, I wasn't going to accept

24:42

being fired by my subordinates, so

24:44

I wanted to talk to the

24:46

president directly. January 6th committee senior

24:49

investigator Mark Harris. And

24:51

there was another crazy White House

24:53

meeting where Rosen, Donahue,

24:58

meet with Clark, the

25:01

president, and other presidential advisers in

25:03

the Oval Office for hours fighting

25:06

over whether Clark should be the attorney general.

25:09

Former Trump senior adviser Eric Hirschman. Jeff

25:11

Rosen was proposing that

25:16

Jeff Rosen be replaced by Jeff Clark. And

25:20

I thought the proposal

25:22

was asinine.

25:25

Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donahue.

25:29

He repeatedly said to the president

25:31

that if he was put in the seat, he

25:33

would conduct real investigations that would,

25:35

in his view, uncover widespread

25:37

fraud. Eric Hirschman. And

25:39

when he finished discussing what he planned on doing,

25:41

I said good. Excuse

25:46

me. Congratulations.

25:48

You just admitted your first step to the act you

25:50

take as attorney general. We'll be committing

25:52

a felony and violating Rule 6A. You're

25:55

clearly the right candidate for this job. Richard

25:57

Donahue. And I said that's right. You're an

25:59

environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your

26:01

office and we'll call you when there's an oil spill. Committee

26:05

member Adam Kinsinger. Mr.

26:07

Donahue, did you eventually

26:09

tell the president that mass resignations would occur

26:12

if he installed Mr. Clark and what the

26:14

consequences would be? I said,

26:16

Mr. President, within 24, 48, 72

26:19

hours, you could have hundreds and hundreds

26:21

of resignations in the leadership of your

26:23

entire Justice Department. Because of your actions,

26:25

what's that going to say about you?

26:28

Susan Glasser. In the end, that

26:31

proves to be enough to stop Trump

26:33

very reluctantly, very reluctantly, from

26:36

putting Clark in as his acting

26:38

attorney general. Talk about a close

26:40

call. But

26:43

for the January 6 committee and

26:45

federal prosecutors, the pressure

26:47

on the Justice Department was another part

26:49

of the conspiracy. Peter Baker in New

26:51

York Times. He's trying to enlist as

26:53

part of a scheme these

26:55

officials of the Justice Department, lawyers, officers

26:58

of the court, people who have taken

27:00

an oath to uphold the rule of

27:02

law, and they won't go along

27:04

with it. From the federal indictment. The

27:07

defendant and co-conspirators attempted to use

27:09

the power and authority of the

27:11

Justice Department to conduct sham election

27:14

crime investigations. As

27:17

with the pressure on state election officials, Trump's

27:19

attorneys have argued that he was just doing

27:21

his job. Urging

27:23

his own Department of Justice to do

27:25

more to enforce the laws that it

27:27

is charged with enforcing is unquestionably an

27:30

official act of the president. And

27:32

the president is entitled to name anyone

27:34

he wants as the attorney general. Deliberating

27:36

about whether to replace the acting attorney

27:39

general of the United States is also

27:41

a core presidential function. Former Trump attorney

27:43

Robert Ray. Jack Smith has made that

27:45

judgment that that has crossed over the

27:48

line into criminal conduct, but

27:50

he's now going to have to prove that the president went

27:52

over that line, whatever that line is. Chapter

28:02

heading, pressure on Pence. Having

28:05

called his supporters to come to Washington

28:07

on January 6th, Trump turned

28:09

his attention to a key player in his

28:11

effort to stay in power. Vice

28:14

President Mike Pence. January 6th

28:16

committee vice chair Liz Cheney. Today

28:19

we're focusing on President Trump's relentless

28:21

effort to pressure Mike Pence to refuse

28:24

to count electoral votes on January

28:26

6th. Committee senior staffer Tom

28:28

Jocelyn. The pressure campaign on Vice President Pence

28:30

is the last gambit to keep Trump in

28:33

power. Basically it's the last

28:35

lever that they can pull to try

28:37

and steal the election. It

28:40

was based on an obscure legal theory

28:42

that the vice president had the power

28:44

to overturn the election results. January

28:47

6th committee chair Benny Thompson.

28:49

Greg Jacob was counsel to

28:51

Vice President Pence. He

28:53

conducted a thorough analysis of the role

28:55

of the vice president in the joint

28:57

session of Congress under the

29:00

Constitution. I now

29:02

recognize the gentleman from California, Mr.

29:04

Aguilar. Mr. Jacob,

29:06

did you go to the vice president's residences on

29:08

the morning of January 6th? Yes.

29:12

And did the vice president have a call with the president that

29:14

morning? He did. We

29:17

were told that a call had come in from the

29:19

president. The

29:21

vice president stepped out of the room to take

29:23

that call and no staff went with him. The

29:27

president had several family members with

29:29

him for that call. I'd

29:32

like to show you what they and others told

29:34

the select committee about that call along

29:37

with never before seen photographs of

29:39

the president on that call from

29:41

the National Archives. Ivanka

29:43

Trump. When I entered

29:45

the office the second time he

29:48

was on a telephone with who

29:51

I later found out to be was the

29:53

vice president. Can you hear the vice president

29:55

or only hear the president's end? Or

29:57

Trump adviser Eric Hirschman. Only hear the president's

29:59

end. That's it. At some point it started off

30:02

as a calmer tone and then became

30:04

heated. Donald

30:08

Trump is focused on this idea that

30:10

Pence wielding the gavel

30:13

on January 6th could single-handedly overturn

30:15

the election because he was presiding

30:17

over this final certification of the

30:19

electoral votes. Pretty

30:24

heated. Peter Baker, New York

30:26

Times. It's an extraordinary

30:28

thing. A president pressuring a

30:30

vice president this way, insulting him that way.

30:32

A person who had been nothing but loyal

30:34

to him through all those all

30:37

those months and years. A committee lawyer

30:39

interviewing Ivanka Trump's former chief of staff.

30:41

Did Ms. Trump share with you any

30:43

more details about what had happened? Her

30:46

dad had just

30:48

had an upsetting conversation with

30:50

the vice president. It

30:52

was a different tone than I'd heard him take with

30:55

the vice president before. I

30:58

mean, I think she was uncomfortable

31:00

over the fact that there was obviously that type

31:02

of interaction between the two of them. Remember

31:13

what she said her father called him

31:16

the P word.

31:18

Trump told Pence you have a choice. You

31:21

can either be a patriot or you can be a pussy. Patriot

31:27

means turn the

31:29

election over to me. Being a pussy

31:32

means being afraid to to use your

31:35

power. Committee member Pete Aguilar. Mr.

31:37

Jacob, how would you describe

31:39

the demeanor of the vice president following the call with

31:42

the president? When he came back

31:44

into the room, I'd say that

31:46

he was steely, determined, grim. Almost

32:00

four years, it was

32:02

the first serious break between Pence and

32:04

Trump. Peter

32:06

Baker. Donald Trump had every expectation that

32:08

he would go along with him on this. Why

32:12

wouldn't he have done everything else up until now? Pence

32:16

is a vice president who has been exceedingly

32:18

loyal to Trump. For

32:21

three years, 11 months, and however many days,

32:24

Mike Pence never, ever

32:26

broke with the president. Now

32:29

Pence had to make a critical decision. Conservative

32:32

columnist Bill Kristol. Pence

32:34

had a clear conflict between what Trump would have

32:36

to do and what the Constitution

32:38

and the rule of law required him to do.

32:40

I think he'd managed to navigate those conflicts in

32:42

various ways over four years, not always in

32:44

my view the right way. But

32:47

this was such a blatant transgression.

32:51

Pivotal to the plan was this man,

32:54

John Eastman. Criminal defense attorney

32:56

Ken White. Here's his law professor,

32:58

a member of

33:00

the Federalists. His

33:04

role was to provide sort

33:07

of a pseudo-intellectual cover for

33:09

legal arguments. Committee

33:11

senior staffer Tom Drosselin. And

33:14

he manufactures this theory of

33:16

the vice president's power that says that the

33:18

vice president of the United States is the

33:20

ultimate arbiter on January 6th. Those are his

33:22

words, the ultimate arbiter. And

33:24

Trump fully endorses Eastman's plan. Former

33:27

U.S. Court of Appeals judge Jay Michael

33:29

Lutig. Well, John Eastman was

33:31

one of my law clerks. Perhaps

33:36

20, 25 years ago, I

33:40

was greatly concerned that John had

33:42

given the advice that he had

33:44

given. Committee chair Benny Thompson. Judge

33:47

Jay Michael Lutig is one

33:49

of the leading conservative legal thinkers in

33:51

the country. He served

33:53

in administrations of President Ronald

33:55

Reagan and George H.W.

33:58

Bush. Draper,

34:00

New York Times Magazine. Judge

34:02

Lutig had a kind of moral

34:04

authority within the

34:07

conservative community. A

34:09

guy himself who had been shortlisted for

34:11

the Supreme Court was

34:14

on a first name basis with members

34:16

of the Supreme Court. Committee counsel John

34:18

Wood. Judge Lutig, I had

34:20

the incredible honor of serving as one of your

34:22

law clerks. Another person who

34:24

did was John Eastman. And

34:28

you've written that Dr. Eastman's theory

34:30

is, in your

34:32

words, incorrect at every

34:35

turn. Mr.

34:37

Eastman said to the

34:39

president that there was both legal

34:42

as well as historical

34:44

precedent for

34:46

the vice president to

34:48

overturn the election. This

34:52

is constitutional mischief. I

34:56

would have laid my body across

34:59

the road before I would have

35:01

let the vice president overturn

35:04

the 2020 election. I

35:08

diagrammed his legal

35:12

analysis from beginning to

35:15

end and concluded

35:17

that he was wrong at

35:20

every turn of his analysis, every

35:22

turn of his thinking. Committee

35:24

member Pete Aguilar. Judge Lutig, you

35:27

wrote that the efforts by President

35:29

Trump to overturn the 2020 election

35:31

were, quote, the most reckless, insidious,

35:34

and calamitous failures in both legal

35:36

and political judgment in American history.

35:40

What did you mean by that? Exactly

35:43

what I said, Congressman. White

35:49

House lawyers had also warned about Eastman's

35:51

theories. But Trump

35:53

persisted, summoning the vice president

35:55

to the Oval Office. plan.

36:01

It was the last option for Donald

36:03

Trump. January 4, 2021, in

36:05

the Oval Office, John Eastman, President

36:10

Trump, they pull Vice

36:12

President Pence in. He's

36:14

joined by his aides, Greg Jacob and Mark

36:17

Short. Trump

36:20

says to Pence, in front of others,

36:23

you have to now listen to

36:25

John Eastman. You have to follow

36:27

the Eastman plan. Object to the

36:29

certification. It's a pressure campaign.

36:34

Pence says to Trump, I'm going to do

36:36

what I can, Mr. President. I want to

36:38

help you out, but I'm listening to my

36:40

lawyers. He turns to Greg Jacob, his advisors,

36:42

and he says, they're telling me I can't

36:44

do it. I

36:47

can't do it. It's not constitutional.

36:49

It's not legal. Trump says you

36:51

can do it. Listen to John.

36:56

Mr. Jacob, during that meeting

36:58

between the President and the Vice President, what

37:01

theories did Dr. Eastman present regarding the role

37:03

of the Vice President in counting the electoral

37:05

votes? So during

37:07

that meeting on the 4th, I think

37:10

I raised the problem

37:13

that Mr. Eastman's proposals

37:15

would violate several provisions of the

37:17

Electoral Count Act. Mr.

37:20

Eastman acknowledged that that was the case. Peter

37:24

Baker. Pence turns to Trump and says, are you listening

37:26

to this? Do you hear this? But

37:29

Trump isn't listening to that. He just is banging

37:31

away on Pence. You're the guy

37:34

who's going to keep us in power. Pence

37:40

stood firm. Former Pence advisor,

37:42

Olivia Troy. This is a man

37:44

who has been so loyal for so long.

37:47

But I think at the end of the day, Mike Pence

37:49

knew that he was going to uphold the

37:52

Constitution. And

37:54

he knew that he had no power to overturn

37:56

and do the things that the President was saying.

37:59

Conservative strategy. strategist Brendan Buck. The choice

38:01

Mike Pence was facing was not really a

38:03

choice. He had no

38:05

choice to do anything other than count the

38:07

votes that took place. But

38:10

at this point, Donald Trump had surrounded himself

38:13

with people who were feeding him

38:15

more and more nonsense about how

38:18

this process worked. It

38:20

was just another situation of the

38:22

president creating his own reality, deciding

38:25

things that can happen that simply

38:27

can't, and set Mike Pence up

38:29

for the fall in a way that he had really

38:31

no choice in what to do. The

38:37

pressure on Pence figures prominently in

38:39

the indictment of Trump. The

38:42

defendant and co-conspirators attempted to enlist

38:45

the vice president to use his

38:47

ceremonial role at the January 6th

38:49

certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the

38:52

election results. John

38:54

Eastman is listed as one of

38:57

those unindicted co-conspirators, though

39:00

he still defends the advice he gave the

39:02

president. Trump's

39:06

interactions with Pence, direct and indirect, are

39:08

crucial. They really go to

39:10

showing that part of the way he

39:12

obstructed justice was trying to wrongfully pressure

39:15

Pence, who had an official task, not

39:17

to undertake that task. Is

39:21

the fact that Donald Trump asked him

39:23

to do that, is that criminal? Again,

39:27

I think you've got to be really careful there.

39:29

I don't think that's something you want to make

39:31

criminal on its own. The

39:34

mere ask to say, you know, I want

39:36

you to not certify the results, it

39:39

doesn't necessarily mean that it was a violation of the

39:41

criminal law. It depends on context

39:43

and what other evidence the government has. Committee

39:46

senior investigator Mark Harris. Whether or not a

39:48

particular act that the president is alleged to

39:51

have engaged in is in

39:53

and of itself a crime isn't really

39:55

going to be the question at that trial. It's

39:57

going to be whether that act was in furtherance

39:59

of a criminal. objective. All

40:03

of these acts, all of the

40:05

things that we've been talking about, they don't have

40:07

to be illegal in and of themselves. The

40:10

crime is a conspiracy to defraud

40:12

the United States.