He clearly intended to use whatever means were at his disposal, whatever levers he could find to overturn a free and fair election. And it was a project, lets be clear here, that almost the entire Republican Party signed on to before some of them got a little freaked out and tried to distance themselves. The times Reports Trump was enabled by influential republicans motivated by ambition, fear or misplaced belief that he would not go too far. Hm. Mitch mcconnell was okay with the plan because he feared alienating a president whose tee his control of the chamber. He also heeded misplaced assurances from white house aides like jared kushner, mr. Trump would eventually cede to reality. Remember that texas lawsuit challenge the Election Results that 18 republican State Attorneys General signed on to . Right . That was ghostwritten, drafted by lawyers close to the white house. The lie that the election was stolen propelled forward by new and more radical lawyers and financiers including the former Chief Executive of overstock. Com whos financing his own team of cybersleuths to help prove voter fraud and disgraced former National Security adviser michael flynn. Then the day arrived, january 6th. The forces that could have, should have protected the capitol had been disarmed. Do you remember shortly after the election the former president removed a bunch of officials at the very top of the Defense Department and in a totally unprecedented move. Didnt really make much sense at the time, and he replaced them with Handpicked Trumpists whose resumes were, well, pretty insufficient for their jobs. Christopher miller never held a senior role at the pentagon, was elevated to acting secretary of defense, where he signed this bizarre memo. That memo forbade d. C. National guard members present at the Capitol On January 6th from using weapons or having helmets or body armor or employing any riot control agents like pepper spray or sharing any equipment with Law Enforcement agencies. Keep in mind, the planning of january 6th happened in coordination with people in of the rally, now on the lam, publicly proclaimed he had help from three trump loyalists in congress. I was the person who came up with the January 6th Idea with congressmen gosar, mo brooks and andy biggs. We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on congress while they were voting so that who we couldnt lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside. Hm, hearts and minds. He schemed it up with some of the former president s best allies in the body. And now we have some receipts about the extent of coordination, thanks to new reporting from propublica, a trump fundraiser played a key role in planning the rally that preceded the siege. Text messages and an Event Planning memo indicate that caroline rent played an extensive role in managing operations for the event, the records show that wren oversaw logistics, funding and messaging. Wren seen here with guilfoyle backstage before the rally that led to the riot. Working in a president ial Fundraising Committee called Trump Victory during the Campaign Last year. The reporter who broke that story for propublica, Michael Spies joins me with luke broadwater, reporting on the pentagon memo curtailing the National Guard for the new york times. Its good to have you both. Michael, tell us a little bit about who Caroline Wren is and what role she played in trump world . Caroline wren was and has been a Top Republican fundraiser for some time. Going back to working with Lindsey Graham in 2014, eventually making her way into trump world more recently. Working basically at the hip of Kim Guilfoyle and don jr. Over the last election cycle. And the documents you were able to obtain, what do they show . They showed that she was intimately involved in the planning of the january 6th rally. That evolved overseeing budgeting, messaging, making key decisions, making sure facilitating the president s speaking slot, making sure he was going to speak, basically. When she came in, it became like a much more real, legitimate rally. Was that known before and what was the sort of ostensible story about the rally in which the president appeared . It came together in a strange way. The person who was originally putting it on was a woman named cyndi shavy, affiliated with another group called women for america first, and she was planning an event in december most interestingly. She had been contacted or was in touch with alex jones, the conspiracy theorist, who was interested in funding said event. And jones at some point put her in touch with wren, who was working with a trump fundraiser who wanted to bank roll the affair. Alex jones put her in touch with Caroline Wren, the longtime republican staffer who used to work for Lindsey Graham, now works for Kimberly Guilfoyle and who was at the nexus of this . Correct. Alex jones told her that she had to get in touch with Caroline Wren, because this particular fundraiser wanted to put on an event or contribute heavily to it. Thats right. Luke, i want to talk to you about your reporting about this d. O. D. Memo. The memo strikes me as quite strange and quite anomalous, but i dont look at memos like this all the time. My first question is, is it strange and anomalous . Is this sort of pro forma thing you usually get or did this stick out at the time . So this all originates from the d. C. National guards enforcement of black lives matter protests in june. There was some criticism of the guard at the time they had been too aggressive, and they had flown helicopters too low, buzzing the protesters. And so at the time the Defense Department was ostensibly trying to limit the rough tactics of the guard. And d. C. Mayor bowser had wanted the guard present on january 6th, but had requested they not be as aggressive. So this memo purportedly is for that purpose. What is somewhat worrying about it is as it comes down january 4th, two days before the rally that precedes the riot, and at that same time, Capitol Police say theyre gathering intelligence that white nationalists, other extremist groups, are going to be armed and are going to be attacking the capitol that day or at least there is a potential for that attack on the capitol. So there is intelligence that exists that there could be this insurrection, there could be this attack on the capitol, and at the same time the commander of the d. C. National guard is being told that he needs additional levels of approval to use tactics to suppress a riot. So he testified before a closed Door Committee last week of the House Appropriations that, you know, he felt this slowed him down and limited his authority. There is some question as to whether how much this did slow things down, thats something were still investigating, but certainly he feels that way and thats what he told Committee Members behind closed doors. Luke, how good a sense do you as someone who is reporting on this full time have of like the full story of why they were so underprepared on that day for what presented itself . Well, it was a tremendous failure on many levels. I mean, i think one reading of it is simply they did not truly believe that the trump mob would or the mob of Trump Supporters would attack the capitol, and clearly they didnt prepare for that. Had they truly believed that, i think we would have had a much different response. There are some other indications, though, that perhaps there were some other considerations at play. There has been some talk that the sergeant at arms didnt want the National Guard there because of optics, because they method it would send a bad message. Theres some talk that some in the military did not want the National Guard standing by, they felt it would look bad to have them standing in front of Trump Supporters as they, were you know, outside the capitol. But clearly, i mean, everyone now realizes this was a huge, huge failure on many levels. Thats what we have seen the resignations we have seen, the Capitol Police chief and the sergeant at arms, and i think this is something that were only sort of beginning to understand everything that went wrong, and were going to continue to investigate, and i know congress is certainly going to continue to investigate, and theyll be future hearings and investigations to determine exactly why there was such terrible failures. Luke broadwater and Michael Spies, thank you for sharing your reporting with us. I want to bring in walter dellenger, hes served in several roles, including head of the office of Legal Counsel at the department of justice. Lets start on the reporting over the weekend about the notion of this trial that the president s lawyers presenting this preposterous, invidious lie about the election as their defense. What do you make of that . Well, we dont know why that set of lawyers, you know, resigned from the representation. But, you know, there is a limit to what lawyers can do. And one of the lawyers whom i know, josh howard, a north carolinian, very well respected, one of those who stepped down, there were three possible defenses you could make of the president in the impeachment proceeding. One is that they dont have Constitutional Authority over a former president. Secondly, that what he said was protected by the First Amendment on the morning of january 6th. And the third was that what he did was right. What he did was right because he was trying to incentivize a group to storm the capitol to stop the greatest theft, the greatest fraud in american history. Thats, according to reports, the argument that the former president wanted his lawyers to make. Now the first two arguments, constitutionality, First Amendment, protected speech i think theyre wrong for multiple reasons, but theyre respectable lawyer arguments. The third argument is just false. And thats why its a real dilemma for an attorney did put forward an argument, when what the judicial process showed over 60 cases was that there was simply no basis and these are false allegations. Right. It is striking right there, youre sort of bumping up against the boundaries of professional ethics from just a lawyer standpoint in terms of vigorous defense of a client, former president of the United States, and everyone is owed a defense to just, you know, saying things that you know are not true, which has been what the entire problem has been from the beginning and brought us to this moment. Right. Absolutely. Thats the problem. And, chris, it says something good about our process of law as it operates in the trial courts that it does kind of wash out untruths because you have to get up in court and present affidavits that are sworn to the argument that, for example, republican counters were excluded from the secret counting processes. Well, you put someone on the stand and the lawyer has to answer for it, and the lawyer says in one of the cases the judge says to the lawyer, i am asking you as an officer of the court, were there republicans in the Counting Room as observers . And after a long pause, he finally says, yes. How many, says the judge . A number greater than zero. Thats the point at which no matter what they say in a Press Conference in front of the whatever four seasons and gardening shop it is, its a very different matter than when youre standing in court and i think thats how the truth of the baseless charges came to change. I guess the question was your sense of the contours of what an Impeachment Trial is like. Is an Impeachment Trial more like standing outside four seasons total landscaping . Or is it more like being in an actual court of law . I think it is a mixture. But when it comes to presenting evidence that is not the case, you cant put on an affidavit in any context that you know to contain false information. So any argument that, you know, 13,000 trump votes were switched and turned into biden votes is not something that a lawyer can say without being called up upon his State Bar Authority that there is no basis for it. The other two, you know, there is an interesting wrinkle to this, because The Other Two arguments are also flawed, but they are not false. The argument that the president is in longer in office. But when he was indicted on january the 13th, he was in office. Im sorry, when he was impeached on january 13th, he was in office. And judge Michael Mcconnell has argued i think very persuasively that if you are impeached while you are president , then clearly they have that authority in the and the senate has the authority to try all impeachments. So this is not even a case that raises a serious question about that. As for the second matter, i think his lawyers will try to put on a case that there was not an incitement per se in his remarks, that it was within the zone of the First Amendment protection. But thats beside the point, because its the whole 77 days correct. Of conduct that tells that convinces a lot of the country that there as been a Theft Of American Democracy that leads to the rioting in question. Yeah, in fact theres reporting tonight the case being put together by the Impeachment Managers as the sort of opening of the show would indicate isnt about what he said specifically, devoid of context on that one day. It is the sum total of the actions that led to that moment and then led to the storming of the capitol. Walter dellinger, thank you very much. Always so good to have you on. Youre welcome, chris. Still ahead, why the Republican Partys problem is so much bigger than Marjorie Taylor greene and bigger than donald trump. They have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the Post Office Plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. Democrats Just Announced that on wednesday they will start the process of removing republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor greene from her Committee Assignments if republicans dont act first. Greenes a member of the Education Labor Committee and the Budget Committee and has a history of conspiratorial thinking. She has, for example, endorsed a comment to shoot nancy pelosi in the head, claims School Shootings were hoaxes to generate support for gun control, and on and on and on. She was elected in a landslide in a northwest georgia district, which points to a big part of the problem about the Marjorie Taylor greenes of the world and the Donald Trumps of the world. What they believe is what a lot of the Republican Base believes. And its why many other republicans like Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson just keep refusing to condemn the congresswoman on her position. First of all, the people of her district elected her and that should mean a lot. Given her history, is she fit to serve . Im not going to answer that question as to whether shes fit to serve because she believes in something that everybody else does not accept, i reject that. But shes going to stand for reelection. Joined now by someone who has written how much greene reflects her party, molly jung fast, headline, the scariest thing about Marjorie Taylor greene, shes not alone. I thought of this piece when i was watching this clip of asa hutchinson, you see it repeated among republicans, this representation dodge, right . We saw it in questioning the Election Results, josh hawley would say, a lot of my constituents have questions. At some level it is true, like it is the case that there are probably tens of millions of people that have views similar to Marjorie Taylor greene. Yeah. I mean, there is really scary polling out there, 56 of republicans believe that, you know, some amount of qanon is true, right . I mean, thats madness. And 1 in 3 republicans think that the deep state is working against the president. So there are a lot of crazy beliefs, but i t