tomorrow night, to talk about a new book, pickle, and american faye against fascism. i'll see you there which stevens colbert tomorrow night, and i'll see you back here on monday. now it's time for the last word with the great lawrence o'donnell, good evening, lawrence. >> stephen colbert is so lucky to have you, rachel. i know he knows that. so, ritual, coming up in the show tonight, i don't think you'll be surprised to know is senator sheldon whitehouse. , who will be addressing the age old question in washington, is something better than nothing? >> senator sheldon whitehouse, who certainly more than any other elected official, maybe more than anyone else in america pushed the court to be responsive in this totally unprecedented way, for all the shortcomings that they have done today, they had never before fognini through answer to their ethical failings before the american people and i think sheldon whitehouse indeed i state senate is the man who more than anyone, push them to. it >> will find out if he feels like he has a big win or a tie, or he's losing by fewer points that he was losing by last week. just hottest feel senator whitehouse. >> listen, if at a regular day, you can ask in space, can anyone hear you scream, now, he knows, the supreme court can hear him scream. >> well, we'll hear from him, thank you, rachel. >> thank you, lawrence. >> we'll have birkin i about donald trump's criminal code a defendants in georgia who have already pleaded guilty in that case, video recorded statements to prosecutors by those defendants, right before they pleaded guilty, athlete and have become public tonight. first in reporting by abc news and then more extensively by the washington post. nbc news obtained video of two of the defendant statements, some of the defendant statements to prosecutors prior to the pleading guilty, and then the washington post is reporting on the video of all four of donald trump's criminal codefendants, who have already pleaded guilty in georgia. before we get to the actual substance of what those defendants pleading guilty said to prosecutors in this leaked video, we're going to go straight to the question of how material like this, could possibly be linked to the media, at this stage of the case. leading off our discussion tonight neal katyal, former acting solicitor general and professor at georgetown law, also with us joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and professor at the university of alabama school of law, and gwen keyes, former district attorney of dekalb county, georgia. when, let me begin with you as an expert on the procedure in georgia. who, at this stage, would be in possession of this video. obviously, the prosecutors have this video, but what about defense counsel, would trump defense lawyers, have at this video through the discovery process already? >> i would presume so. again, prosecutors have an ongoing application to provide defendants discovery, as they get new information, new witnesses, certainly statements by codefendants who have now entered pleas, all of that would have been turned over to the entire defense team, as the prosecutor honors her operation to meet the recovery requirements. >> let me stay with this with you for a second. when you look at this, you look at incentives for leaking. the prosecutors have no incentives for leaking this. they are often see in possession of it. what do you see as the possibilities for where this kind of leak would have come from? >> i think that there are several possibilities. there may be -- it may be viewed as a strategy for the defense to get these witness testimonies and statements out in a public eye, prior to them coming out in court. in that way, they may be able to water down some of their shock value and effect. so, there is just lots of different ways that you can think of how such, this type of disclosure might benefit the defense team, certainly not the prosecution. i am quite sure that funny is not happy with this. renault >> joyce vance, how could to stop the leak now? >> right, i think when absolutely is correct here. this is the sort of thing that you can see defendants being involved in. sometimes, defendants like to virtue signal to other defendants, or they like to get them re-since the stay strong. we call it as prosecutors, the stay strong signal. there is no need for you to cooperate, because of this offer that the government has obtained this not particularly powerful. it's not the final now in donald trump's coffin, so there are a lot of reasons that this could happen. i suspect we'll see a strong response. there was not a formal protective order in place, but i think we'll see fani willis make a request for one and asked that there be no further leaks. >> and neal katyal, abc news specified that they have obtained only portions of this video, only portions. the washington post similarly indicated that they had portions of it, so this is a selectively -- a obviously comes from a source that would have been imposition of all of it, but only pieces of it were being the. >> that is exactly right. the pieces, lawrence, are incredibly damaging. we can speculate about why any particular defendant might want to lead it, but this sort of evidence is basically a prosecutors will tear down trump's defense, piece by piece. it shows exactly what trump was told, exactly when he was told it, it exactly how he planned to ignore all of it, just so he could stay in power. and we have not even seen, as he set everything that the defendants have turned over, and so, and it's already clear to me, what the little part we saw today, exactly why fani willis cut deals with them. you only cut sweetheart deals if there are star witness, and i think jen ellis and sidney powell are right now looking like big stars. they were in the room where it happened, and were basically saying no, it's clear that what happened in that room was that donald trump committed major crimes. >> now, let's take a look at the video, and the portion of the video obtained by abc news, attorney general ellison, pleaded guilty the day after she did this video interview with the prosecutors, described a conversation that she had at the final trump white house christmas party with dan scavino, a person who could not possibly have been employed in politics or government by anyone other than donald trump. dance given it working for donald trump, a job he was fully qualified for, as donald trump's golf caddie. here is the video of that conversation obtained by abc news. >> at the time, a period where they would start to discuss -- >> at the time, i believe his title was social media director for the white house, and became deputy chief of staff at the time that the conversation to place. >> and on was that? >> the conversation was on december 19th of 2020, at the white house christmas party, and i emphasized to him, i thought the, the claims and ability to challenge the election results were essentially over. he said to me, in kind of excited tone, we don't care, and we're not going to leave. i said, what do you mean? he set, the boss, meaning president trump, and everyone understood the boss, that's what we all called him, he set the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. we are just going to stay in power, and i looked at him and said, it doesn't quite work that way, you realize. he said, we don't care. >> gwen keyes, what did the prosecutors make of evidence like that? >> i think it goes right to their ability to establish intent to continue the fraud. that is a key element of every one of the crimes that is listed in the indictment. that being that the defendants knew that they were perpetrating a lie, and so this goes right to the heart of that. >> joyce vance, what about the admissibility of that testimony, as we just heard? there might be otherwise four pieces that testimony to come in, but could we hear in the trial, basically, the way that we just heard? >> you know, i think we could. this involves the application at the hearsay rule. hearsay is one of those things that gets overly complicated, but it basically is what prosecutors have to do when they got a statement that was made outside of court, that they want to introduce in court for the truth of the matter being discussed in that statement. and one of the big gaping exceptions to the hearsay rule is the coconspirator testimony. scavino, lawrence, as you pointed out, has been with trump for a long time, a confidant, his golf caddie. he became the manager of the westchester golf club, what with trump to the white house, manage his social media, reportedly wrote his tweets before becoming the deputy chief of staff, and so, when he makes the statement to ellis, i think it's fairly unindicted, coconspirator statement for further conspiracy, and prosecutors will try to bring it in on that basis. it's problematic. the defense can argue that it is only what dance given those set to jen ellis, and that was wide open, the question of whether scavino might not want cooperate at some point. he refused to testify in front of the house january six committee, the house orford into the doj for prosecution, and a techno action, which has always been very interesting, that question as to whether or not scavino might have cut some sort of a two. there is simply snowstorm indication either way in that regard, that he could be a very powerful witness here. >> neal katyal, the trump lawyers responded to this particular part of the video that was released, saying, that this is absolutely ludicrous because donald trump did, in fact, leave the white house on january 20th. >> yeah, that is called a non-answer. i think when got exactly right, lawrence, and sent this evidence goes to criminal intent, but on the top was not thinking about whether he won a loss, he was just since they empower no matter what, and now, you have the horse's mouth saying, jen ellis, not hakeem jeffries or some lefty, she was in on all of the coup plots and conspiracy trumpist offense anyone. this is where the date is really important, lawrence, jenna ellis said that that conversation with gavino app and on december 19th. that's after the save harvard deadline to resolve state election disputes and certify the election, that was december 8th. it's also after the date that the electors met the cats their vote, which is december 14th. most importantly, it was at the trump filed in the united states supreme court of december 11th, 2020, and you might remember, that jenna ellis testified from january six committee, a holiday party, donald trump said to mark meadows, 64 stuff, i don't want people to know that we lost, it's embarrassing, figured out. you need to figure it out. so, all of this together paints a really damaging picture for telecom. i can say that i have never been to any christmas parties, where a topic of conversation is whether a sitting president is going to complete disregard the results of an election, but evidently, that is what happened in the trump white house. >> okay, we have nor video, and this next pieces video obtained by abc news of attorney sydney powell, who pleaded guilty to the day after this video was recorded with prosecutors. >> miss powell, were you ever around when someone, anyone told donald trump that he had lost the election. >> oh, yeah. >> who? >> pat cipollone, eric herschmann, their clients all thought that he had lost. >> was that on the december 18th meeting? >> yes. >> what was president trump's reaction one's advisers would say he lost? >> it was like, well -- they would say that, and he would go, see, this is what i deal with all the time. he was specifically willing to appoint a special counsel. in fact, he looked over cipollone three different times and set, do i have the authority to name a special counsel, and cipollone said, yes, you do. cipollone said, you should have security clearance. he looked at somebody, he said, do i have the authority to give security clearance? cipollone said, yes, you do. about the time we went through that, cipollone thanks to you can name anything you want, mister president, nobody is going to pay a bit of attention to it. >> neal katyal, what do you see nvidia? >> ind got that wrote the special counsel regulations, and there is no way, shape or form that any of that is right. you can have the president appointed special counsel, that is done through the attorney general. who is not possibility, but i think what you are seeing there, besides just crazy legal advice on the president, but is really kind of further evidence that, trump was told, he lost, told he lost, and it's going to be a devastating thing to discuss the trial, the trump tries to assert, that i believed i one, because he will look insane, probably not quite enough to get the insanity defense going, but, certainly, not something that will be credible before a jury. >> gwen keyes, sydney powell seems to say, seems to tell the prosecutors, she believed that donald trump believed that he won. >> again, i think that is where the jury is going to be able to assess witness credibility. what miss powell, or who miss powell listed on that tape in terms of the individuals that told the president that he had not won, that is a very long list, which includes the former attorney general, the head of the cyber infrastructure security administration, cisa, include several officials at the oj, so the list is getting longer and longer, and it is backed up by miss powell's testimony, the number of times that the president was told that he did not win dalen, and as neal pointed out, of the skin critical point in time when all of the legal avenues to remain in office were closed, and the only thing on his mind after all of the legal options, seemingly on his mind after all of the legal options were closed was to continue to stay in office, so that is the argument i anticipate that the team will make to support the charges that she has brought. >> all right, the washington post is saying that they have seen some of all of the video of all the codefendants who have pleaded guilty, and they are reporting details from attorney kenneth chesebro's interview with prosecutors, the very same day that he pleaded guilty. the washington post says, chesebro disclosed in his coed statement that a previously unreported white house meeting, he briefed trump on election challenges in arizona and summarized a memo, and what she offered advice on assembling alternate slates of electors in key battlegrounds to cast ballots for trump, despite biden's victories in the states. chesebro also disclosed for the first time that he played a role, transporting documents signed by wisconsin trump electors to capitol hill, as part of a trump campaign plan 2% vice president pence with competing slates of electors. and joyce vance, those wisconsin electors and how they got to washington has been a part of the story from the start. >> that's absolutely right, and, lawrence, this reporting is interesting because it underscores the point that you originally made, and that neal discussed, that what we know about are these snippets of testimony that has been released. there is obviously a lot more, and prosecutors believe they have good reasons for making the sweetheart plea deals with these folks. we begin to see some of that here. the story of the fake slates of electors is critical. chesebro's a big player in the, along with john eastman, and so, going through the mechanics of how those parts in the scheme were executed, and who was involved, is potentially some of the most devastating testimony that they can. personnel sectional up more now than she knew even at the point where she indicted. >> and, gwen keyes, we also learned and the washington post reporting, that's got, all the bill bondsman, who has pleaded guilty, told prosecutors in his video interview that he helped track down fulton county election worker ruby freeman, so that she could then be harassed by other trump codefendants. going, that's information that we did not know before. >> that is true, and again, let's remember, if you look at the overall indictment, you can bring it down into at least four different sub parts. you got the fraud against the legislators, lying to elected officials. you have the coffee county matter. you have the fake electors, better and you have the allegations of intimidation against miss freeman. all of these pleas and not the proper's, anticipated testimony from the police, will all help didier established the various elements of the crimes that outline those four or five major teams within the indictment. >> gwen keyes, neal katyal, joyce vance, thank you all for joining us on the breaking coverage of the league material in the georgia prosecution of donald trump. when we come back, donald trump's lawyers have contradicted themselves and are now asking for video cameras in the courtroom, for 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