now it is time for the last word with the great lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> stephen colbert is so lucky to have, you rachel. rachel, coming up in the show tonight i don't think you will be surprised to know senator sheldon whitehouse, who will be addressing that age old question in washington him, 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 for infrastructure charges that she i terms of thendividua not won, that ery longlist, whie attorneyeral, th o include veral ofs atrity adminis the oj, he list ting longer andger, and backed up bypowell'stestimony, s that the president wol that he did nowin da as neal pointet, of skin criticm en all of the legal av remain in offe were c and the only thing on his mind after all of the legal options seemingly on his mind after al of the legal options wer closed was to continue to stay in office, so that is th argument i anticipate that the team will make to support th charges that she has brought and the majority of people experienced long-lasting remission at one year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ♪ now's the time to ask your gastroenterologist how you can take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. nurtec is the only medication that can treat and prevent my migraine attacks, all in one. don't take if allergic to nurtec. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. talk to your doctor about nurtec today. j.p. morgan wealth management knows it's easy to get lost in investment research. get help with j.p morgan personal advisors. hey, david! ready to get started? 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ask your doctor about every-other-month cabenuva. every other month, and i'm good to go. >> donald trump's criminal defense lawyers have now contradicted themselves and are telling federal judge tanya chutkan that they now do want video cameras allowed in the courtroom in washington d. c. and the criminal trial of donald trump for crimes leading up to and on january six. in a motion supported cameras in the courtroom, which has never happened before in a federal courtroom, the trump lawyers used trump campaign rhetoric, accusing the prosecution of wanting, quote, to proceed and secret. that would mean that the trump lawyer definition of every trial in american history prior to the invention of motion picture cameras was proceeding in secret. special prosecutor jack smith opposes cameras in the courtroom, as have every federal prosecutor in the history before him. in his motion responding to the trump lawyers, jack smith said that donald trump is trying to, quote, turn the trial into a media event. a partial gag order on trump indicate temporarily not in effect while the u.s. court of appeals for the d. c. circuit considers thunderstorms appeal of decorator this weekend, knowing that the gag order was not in effect, donald trump once again attacked jacks mitt and jack smith's family at a campaign rally, inclement, new hampshire. while he was at it in a social media post, donald trump loved andrew weissmann and what jack smith, in one of his attacks, nothing in the jacket or the pretext of from attacking enjoys, been but the gag order does prevent them from attacking prosecutors in the case or their families. , back with us neal katyal and joyce vance. neil, i want to go first of all to, and the idea of the cameras in the courtroom and the federal trial in washington d. c.. jack smith's opposition to it, sites that attempts behavior in new york city, and the civil fraud trial says he tried to turn the courtroom into a carnival like atmosphere. this is, as he set before, unprecedented. what do you make of the trump lawyers complete flip-flop on this now, saying that they want the cameras? >> look i think trump turns everything into a carnival, cameras are. not credible argument does not move me. this one, lawrence, i think jack smith is wrong. he's understandably wrong, but he's wrong. i think cameras should be permitted here. i think the rules allow it. this is the people's court, it's at the taxpayers court. it's not jacks mitt score. trump's legal brief had no legal reasoning in it whatsoever. it was just discreet. i do think there is a compelling case for cameras in the courtroom. having said, that as i said, jack smith was understandably wrong, but because he does not want an appeal issue, it is not want trump to be able to say for the first time ever, this trial was televised, so he is opposing him. that's a common thing for prosecutors to do. i made the very same mistake myself, lawrence, when i'm a special prosecutor in the george floyd murder, minnesota had never televised a criminal trial, and we have prosecutors have said that don't televised this trial. you know what, lawrence, we were wrong. the judges right. the judge said for the first time, i'm going to do it, and all americans, indeed, the entire world, got to see the child during all of those days. i think a created -- enhanced the confidence and the outcome of that proceeding, so that's why i think it should be -- at least a minimum, live audio recording, that's what happens in the u.s. supreme court. they released live right away. >> joyce vance, the trump lawyers suddenly going for cameras, does seem like a reaction to what they perceive as donald trump's successful circus atmosphere that he has created in your chorus. >> perhaps so, but they sucker punched prosecutors on this one, because prosecutors want to trump lawyers before they filed, and ask what their position would be. they are obligated to do that under the procedural rules here, and they were told by trump's lawyers that they would not take the position, so they really set jack smith up. he then dog in, because the existing lot to say that there is no possibility of cameras in the courtroom, and that trump lawyers use that to launch this attack. jack smith was against transparency, that he wanted to conduct a show trial. i think that was really what was goi