efforts to find evidence of authority fraud. but i think the lockest indication is the investigation is still ongoing. if your one of the six people unnamed in this indictment or you think you are, you're probably not resting easy at this stage. >> absolutely. zachary, thank you very much. with these charges, these are very serious. 20 wroers, bent years, 10 years. this is incredibly, incredibly serious allegations that cnn as a conspirator would be facing. i want to bring in tim haffey. so timothy you look at this with an eye on almost anyone else because you have been through reams and reams of information, hundreds of hours of interviews all related to the january 6th committee's investigation, which was exhaustive. so when you read through this 45-page giemt from jack smith, did you learn anything? did anything surprise you about
the core story that's laid out in the indictment was laid out by the select committee. the facts win cases. facts inform reports. the facts here have been fairly obvious for a long time. >> tim, to follow up, why do you think that the special counsel made a deliberate decision to mention them as co-conspirators, not name them, unless there's a sealed indictment, not indict them at this time? >> hard to tell whether or not they have been charged and have resolved those matters with respect to guilty pleas or that they will subsequently be charged. i do think that president trump, because he is a candidate for president, the justice department policy suggests you can't take any enforcement action too close in time to an election or an election season. there's some haste to bring that case first.
saying today? >> he is saying less than you might have expected, given how long they have anticipated this moment. i was interested in his truth social post that he posted a little while ago, thanking his supporters and almost trying to declare victory, moving on saying we're going to make america great again. almost dismissing this and moving past it. it's not hard to see why he feels this way. the campaign has been buoyed by this national poll that came out showing the lead over the rest of the republican primary field and showing him tied with president biden in a 2020 rematch. this is what this is all about. they have and intend to make the case that this is political, that the timing is political. you heard some of that from lauro, which is an interesting argument for an attorney to make. they will try to take this on the political battlefield as proof they are ready to take on joe biden. >> garrett, phil and tim, thanks to all of you. we will go to breaking news from pittsburgh in the trial of
theories, former assistant attorney general for the environment jeff clark, who tried to take over the justice department and actually tried to become acting attorney general, kenneth chesebro, another attorney accused of pushing the fake electors scheme, number six is described as a political consultant. we're not sure who. joining me now, nbc's garrett haake, who is covering the trump campaign, "washington post" deputy national editor phil rucker, who will take over as national editor for the paper, and tim haffey. tim, you did so much of the footwork. you did a road map listed in this indictment. for the january 6, you spoke to many of the same people. how much of your work is reflected in this indictment? you didn't have the subpoena power. you couldn't get mike pence in to a grand jury. and mark meadows, as we spoke
i think the special counsel will want it to go fast. it goes faster when it's a single defendant as opposed to a seven-person conspiracy. the last chapter has not been written here in terms of who will be -- we will learn about who is facing charges. >> phil, tim was talking about mike pence, a key player here clearly who would not appear before the committee, but of course did testify here. the indictment highlights a call between trump and vice president pence from january 1 after trump learned pence learned he didn't have the ability to not do that. he told him he is too honest. he reminded his supporters to meet in washington, tweeting the big protest rally in washington, d.c. will take place at 11:00 a.m. on january 6, details to follow. stop the steal! phil, could that line, you are
the jury. it will show why he was doing this in the lengths to which he went. but for many of these charges, it is not legally required. you can think you won the election. you know what that doesn't entitle you to do? it doesn't entitle you to threaten criminal prosecution of the secretary of state of georgia to get him to change the outcome of the georgia vote. what you can do is go to court. well, they went to court and they lost. so this is when we're to tim's point, this is an incredibly strong hand. what we're really dealing with here, though, is the former president is -- has -- it's not going to be a question of facts and law, because that is just overwhelming. as you've pointed out, nicolle, over and over again, there is no articulated defense here. the defense that you're hearing from the president is i embrace what happened. it is a good thing what these people did.
so he sees his salvation through a very different means than the rule of law. and to your point, that he is actually used those tools, for instance, in the mueller investigation, he proceeded to essentially pardon everyone but the people who cooperated with us. so, you know, michael cohen, rick gates, they didn't get pardons because they were cooperators. so he basically used the power of the presidency the way a mob boss would. >> and to claire's point, that's what we have to make sure we are not numb to. let me bring in our coverage tim haffey, the lead investigator for the january 6th select committee. tim, we've had so many chances to talk to you lately. but the very first time i talked to you, and i mentioned this last week, i asked you if jack smith is able to pierce through some of the few places where the committee wasn't able to go, would they find more evidence
enablers, because donald trump was able to do this because of so many people who knew better and didn't do their job. and i remember thinking that years ago when which worked on the enron investigation, there will always be, for instance, people like ken lay and jeff skilling and di fastow, the leaders who do something corrupt. but there were scores of people who knew what they were doing who did not do their job. they did not blow the whistle. they did not take any of the steps you're supposed to take. and that is the reason that we're in the position we're in. to luke's point, there are all these people who on the day of january 6th were saying one thing and didn't have the backbone and integrity to do the right thing. and to finally as tim has pointed out, there is finally there was a small cadre of people who said no to the
administration abuse or irregularities if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign, would that be outcome determinative. and i think everyone's assessment in the room, at least amongst the staff, marc short, myself and greg jacob was that it was not sufficient to be outcome determinative. >> i told him that i did believe yes, that once the legal processes were run, if fraud had not been established that affected the outcome of the election, that unfortunately i believe what had to be done was concede the outcome. >> tim, harry, luke, claire and andrew are all back. i worked on campaigns for a really, really long time. i never knew anyone that talked about things that were outcome determinative. i think that meant could it make us win, could it swing the election. and tim heaphy nobody, nobody from the day he louisiana to the day he plotted the insurrection
but, you know, tim raise as great point. i expect many of the witnesses if there is an indictment coming soon, many of the witnesses that will have testified, whose evidence will have been used in this indictment will be republicans, and probably the republicans who are closest to donald trump who knew him best, who knew exactly what he did and said. >> yeah. i mean, tim, the people who will be able to testify to donald trump's role and planning inciting, wanting to join, cheering and now being for pargd and lifting up the insurrection and the insurrectionists were the dead-enders out of lack of a better word. they're the people who stayed after he lost. they're the people who were still there on january 6th and the days leading up to it. >> yeah. just exactly right. look, the test at the very end became loyalty over competence, right? people like bill barr, who was a champion, who argued vociferously against the russia investigation, right, who was right there on family separation