luria saying if criminal happened, it s their responsibility to report it to doj. with me now is msnbc legal analyst glen kushner and tim o brian. anybody who has put together anything and you have done trials. what they are doing with this committee was complicated. so maybe this postponement as they maybe even getting in more stuff isn t probably a terrible surprise, but one thing we do know because during this hour, attorney general merrick garland said yesterday afternoon he and his prosecutors are watching these hearings very closely. as a case, what might they be learning to help them with any potential criminal charges. yesterday, i think the american people and the federal prosecutors who are handling the insurrection investigation learned a little something a about donald trump s motive to
engage in the conduct. and to give birth to the big lie and the early morning hours of november 4. i think it was worth noting prosecutors never have to prove motive to hold somebody accountable for a crime. we need to prove that a crime has been committed. we need to prove the identity of the perpetrator, the person who committed it beyond a reasonable doubt. and we need to prove that the person had the requisite criminal intent when they were engaged in the conduct that institutes the crime. but we never have to prove motive. that s why somebody committed a crime. a rare exception like in hate crimes case where is we need to prove motive, but what we got from other members of the committee and witnesses in the last public hearing was evidence of donald trump s motive. we sort of assumed all along that one of the reasons donald trump wanted to retain the power of the presidency was one kind of feels good. but two, we have this really unfortunate doj policy that
should be held accountable for that. that relies on merrick garland taking action at the end of the day. what do you think? how much more did they have to push sort of the proof for that to happen or do you think there s a an awful lot that he s already got that we don t know? they have it buttoned up. if they were being more active, there would be leaks in the media. but he has signalled he s paying attention. he doesn t need a criminal referral from this committee in order to take action. and in fact, i think a criminal referral from a political stand point would be problematic because it has this umbrella hanging over it. it was a democratic referral to the doj and this is a political hit. i actually think from a strategic perspective, it makes great sense for garland to make his own call on this. i hope at the end of the day, he prosecute this is. we were just saying we haven t seen each other in
not offensive on the other issues. so if i were advising the white house, i would say make this a big argument on the fate of our democracy and we cannot turn over the country to the republicans who have no interest in holding anybody accountable that threatens our democracy. that s what the race should be about if the democrats. to win. thank you all very much. we ll get the latest from capitol hill where the january 6th committee has officially postponed round three of its public hearings. former doj officials were expected to take the stand amid mixed messages from committee members on potential criminal referrals. you re watching chris jansing reports, only on msnbc. no, he s seizing the moment with merrill. moving his money into his investment account in real time and that s. how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company.