>> approximately 140 police officers were injured on january 6th when a violent mob stormed the capitol. one of those officers was james blasting game, a 17 year veteran of the capitol police. this is how he described that day to pbs news hour. >> you just hear just noise and people running at me, as far as i can see, from the crypt all the way to the north side, center side of the capital, is running at us. as bad as it looks on film, believe me, it was much worse, they can stitch together as much footage as they want to, and i'm telling you, and anybody that was in that scrum will tell you, there was much worse in person than anything you will see on film. >> officer blassingname and another fellow officer became the first members of the capitol police force to sue the person they say is responsible for that attack, not any of the individual rioters and not the far right groups that helped organize the riot. those officers sued the man at the very top, donald trump, who urged the mob to descend on the capitol with the hope of overturning a legitimate presidential election. now, these capitol police officers filed civil lawsuits in march of 2021. i was just two months after the attack. but those lawsuits have been languishing in the federal courts for more than two years now. the d.c. circuit court heard arguments in those cases nearly a year ago. but that court still has not issued a warning. according to statistics from the administrative office of the u.s. courts, which tracks this sort of stuff, the deliberation here has taken nearly three times as long as an average ruling from this court, the d.c. circuit court. and that delay matters, not just for those capitol police officers seeking accountability here. the extraordinary delay also matters to special counsel jack smith and his federal criminal case against donald trump. and that is because in both the civil cases brought by the capitol police officers and a criminal case brought by jack smith, trump's lawyers have made essentially the same argument, they are using the same line of defense. they argue donald trump is immune from prosecution. according to their defense, trump's efforts to overturn the election riled the crowd. but those efforts were all somehow part of trump's official duties as president. and therefore, trump is immune from any liability, criminal or civil. he should not have to stand trial. judge tanya chutkan is being asked to rule on that very question right now in jack smith federal case. but anything she decides there could be overruled by the judges on the d.c. circuit court, the ones deciding the merits of that same argument, trump's presidential immunity argument, and the capitol police officers civil suit. and so, judge chutkan is taking her time here in what some people believe might be an attempt to wait for the d.c. circuit court to issue its very long awaited ruling first. now, any decision that trump gets on this from either judge chutkan or the d.c. circuit court could be appealed. and it could be appealed all the way to the supreme court. and remember, it has to be resolved before donald trump goes to trial. but if it goes all the way to the supreme court, it could delay trump's federal criminal trial for weeks or even months. so it really matters what the courts do here, and how fast they do it. could they get this all done before the republican convention this summer? couldn't get it done before election day? how long do american voters have to wait before they know whether a man who could be nominated or even elective present before they know whether he is a convicted felon or not? so all that is playing out as we are learning new details about what special counsel jack smith has in store for donald trump at that criminal trial, whenever it starts. abc news has reporting today about what vice president mike pence has told prosecutors and what he might testify to a trial, that trump acted recklessly ungenerous sixth, that pence allegedly told trump that there was no idea more on american and the idea that any one person could decide what electoral votes to count. and when we're counting a phone call with donald trump on christmas day on 2020, pence wrote in his book that he told trump you know, thomas, i don't think i have the authority to change the outcome of the election on january 6th. but pence illegibly told smith investigators that the khama, that comma never should've been their. pence -- admonished trump. you know i, don't you know i don't think i have the authority to change the outcome. so potentially damning testimony here from trump's own former vice president. tebut the question now is will a jury get to consider any of it before the 2024 presidential election? joining me now are kimberly atkins store, lost and kobe opinion columnist, and joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama. both are co-host of the sisters in law podcast. kimberly, let me start with you. the idf presidential immunity here, on its face to the casual observer, and i will put myself in that group, it seems sort of preposterous that trump's actions in and around january 6th would be part of his official duties. but talk to me about the merits about that line of defense, if you would. >> yeah, so, donald trump and his attorneys would essentially have to make the case that his actions leading up to and on that day were a part of his official duties as president of the united states. they weren't a campaign event, they weren't outside of those duties, it was his job as president when he was speaking at that podium and urging people to go, encourage the members of congress to do what they were doing, he was speaking as president. i am with you. i think there is a reason why he didn't give that message from the white house itself. it was because it was, clearly, a campaign event, at best, or something outside of the realm of the presidency. keep in mind, that privilege does not extend to illegality. so something was -- if he was creating -- engaged in some sort of crime, that could be seen outside of that. if a judge deems that this was a political and not a part of his duties, that could be outside of that. but because this, like so many things running donald trump and the events leading up to and on january 6th are so novel, these are things that have never happened in our republic before, we need these courts to evaluate it and make these rulings before going forward. and the problem here, as you outlined, these interlocutory appeals could slow the pace of these trials so that they don't happen before the next election. >> yeah. i'm gonna try and not use the phrase interlocutory appeal. but i absolutely understand what you are talking about. and joyce, while kimberly very rightly points out these are novel cases, they're also particularly fraught, right? any decision here is gonna be one for the history books. do you think that's why the d.c. circuit court is taking so very extraordinarily long to issue a ruling that could have a serious effect on this federal criminal case? >> yeah, so it's an interesting question, alex. it's tough to say when we look at the statistics from the administrative office of the courts that these appeals are really taking what we might characterize as too long. that's because not all appeals are the same, and the d.c. circuit here is some very simple appeals from some very basic criminal cases. and it also here's complicated ones from administrative decisions involving agency functions. so from my point of view, the year mark is not really an excessively long period of time. mike we read into that the court is maybe holding all of these opinions to release them together? i suppose that could be the case. but that's not typically how courts would handle this sort of a manner. the civil cases could be decided, and the court would make it clear in its opinions that it is setting up the standard for civil cases. and that would leave the issue still to be decided in the criminal context. the defenses are very similar, they overlap to some extent. but they still have very different nuances when they arise in the civil and criminal amphitheater. so i suppose i'm not answer your question directly -- >> [laughter] >> other than to say will simply have to wait for the courts to do what they have to do here. they don't give us a lot of advanced warning about what they're thinking is. >> i mean, again, to the casual observer here, kimberly, a sore seems like a game of hot potato. i mean, judge chutkan is waiting. this decision has made before trump goes to trial in the federal case. the d.c. circuit court is doing whatever it's doing, but it almost feels like no one really wants to hand down the ruling on this. am i over reading the situation? >> yeah, again, joyce is right, we really don't know, only the judges in this case know for sure. but that could quite possibly be. it could be a combination of all of those things, of busy docket, plus this novel question, plus it is a hot potato that will be in the annals of history forevermore. but so justice often operates solely. and in this case, when all the fraught issues we are talking about are in play, it can be even slower. >> i just, i guess the sort of acceptance that justice works its way slower. there's a lot of merit to justice working fully. but there is a story in the new york times today that effectively the generous sixth trial needs its own rocket docket for, i think reasons a lot of our readers will understand, this is not a proposal for a course to act in the present fashion. the outcome of the legal process is not the point. the point is that the country deserves to know that outcome before it chooses the leader, the next leader of the free world. i mean, the supreme court, the court system moved very quickly in bush v. gore. why cannot move expeditiously in this incredibly important very limited window it has to tell the country whether donald trump is guilty or not? >> yeah, i think that's exactly the question that we should be asking. and there's no reason that the court can't move quickly here. what we're waiting on now is for judge chutkan to rule on some of these motions that could give rise to what we're not calling tonight an interlocutory appeal -- >> [laughter] >> that is to say an appeal that takes place before the case goes to trial. you know, we let most issues wait till after a criminal case has been resolved. that way, if the defendant is acquitted, you don't have to have an appeal if the defendant is convicted, here she can then get their appeal and court resources are not wasted. but here with these constitutional issues, there will be an appeal before trial. and we've seen appellate courts act very quickly. the 11th circuit acted swiftly when it was considering the first trump case in front of aileen cannon that involved whether trump could prove -- justice fire from using the surge of the fruits of mar-a-lago in advancing that criminal case. the 11th circuit acted very rapidly. no reason that the 11th circuit could not take a look at these issues, which have been thoroughly briefed in a very prompt manner. and while the supreme court has the ability to take the case and here it, and perhaps they will, they could act quickly, or they might be satisfied with the court of appeals decision and remit that stand. so lots away for the appellate courts to move this case forward so that a trial can begin on schedule in march, if they are of a mind to do that. >> i wonder if and when the trial gets underway, presumably this year, kimberly, how damaging do you think the patents testimony might be, given what we're learning from that abc reporting this evening? is your expectation that he will be called to the stand? >> yes, he is going to be one of the most crucial witnesses in this case because he is the highest ranking current or former official who has key evidence directly weighing on what donald trump did and said in those days leading up to and on january 6th. i, mean i would have loved the testified about this under oath before he wrote in his book. but he's under oath, now having spoken to the prosecutors and have winning already testified in a deposition. so this is crucial evidence that not only to donald trump have mike pence telling him that this was not a valid avenue to pursue, but that there were lawyers within the administration who were telling him this too. and he made a choice to pick and choose who he listen to. and he listened to the giuliani and sidney powell in a circle, as opposed to even his own vice president. that could cut very deeply into his defense that he was only following lawyers advice. you cannot just pick and choose law, is cherry pick the ones who are telling you what you want to hear, for that defense to hold. >> kimberly brings up the name rudy giuliani, and i'd be remiss, joyce, if i did not get your opinion on the news today that fani willis, the d.a. down in fulton county, there is reporting that she is prepared to offer plead deals, or has left the plea deal door open, if you will, to all of the named coconspirators in that fulton county case, except donald trump, rudy giuliani, and mark meadows. to some extent, trump does not surprise me being a name on that list. but i was in fact surprise that giuliani and meadows are not people she is seeking to turned prosecution witnesses. were you? >> no, not at all. i think she is certainly not looking to hand out deals to them. in a r.i.c.o. case, there is a lot of advantage to trying the people at the top, the general and the left tenants together, to get in all the evidence about the r.i.c.o. scheme. in some ways, and we've seen trump already trying to do this with some of the co-defendants who are cooperating, if they are all cooperating against you, then you give that general of a defendant, in this case, trump, the opportunity to say they were doing all of this, i didn't know anything about it, i was, you know, sitting in the oval office trying to carry on the nations business well rudy giuliani and mark meadows were freelancing. so by seeding them all the defendants table together, you really uniquely have the ability to do that, and particularly, when you've got many of the lower level defendants cooperating, i think willis has four right now, she is certainly trying to get more of this codefendants to become cooperating witnesses, they all continue to point the finger at different ones of the defendants. that looks like a good r.i.c.o. case. >> [laughter] that r.i.c.o. case not held up by the same dc circuit court of appeals or the deliberations of judge chutkan on trump's presidential immunity defense. so we keep our eyes on this one. kimberly, joyce, think you so much for being here tonight. we have a lot more this evening, including the world's richest man, elon musk, resurrecting the pizzagate conspiracy theory. plus, more hostages freed in the temporary cease-fire in gaza, while negotiators, including a high-ranking american, try to extend that truce. we will talk to former cia director john brennan about the possibility of a more lasting peace. that's next. vy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. i chose arexvy. rsv? make it arexvy. having triplets is... -amazing -expensive. so, we switched to the bargain detergent, but we ended up using three times as much and the clothes still weren't as clean as with tide. so we're back with tide, and the clothes are clean again. do 3x the laundry and get a tide clean. it's got to be tide. >> on the fifth day of the now what causes a curve down there? can it be treated? stop typing, and start talking. it could be a medical condition called peyronie's disease, or pd. and it could be treated without surgery. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. visit makeapdplan.com today. extended cease-fire between israel and hamas, 12 hostages held captive by hamas were released, ten israelis and two thai nationals. this video shows some of them crossing out of gaza into egypt, including a 17-year-old girl carrying a pet dog. there were no americans among them according to the white house. nine american hostages remain in gaza. in exchange for today's hostage release, israel released 30 palestinians who were being held inside israeli prisons. according to the israeli military, the 12 hostages have arrived safely in israel, where their families eagerly await reunions, like this one. the young boy seen here hugging his mother's 12-year-old eatan yahalomi, an israeli-french citizen. eaton was released yesterday, but his father remains captive somewhere inside gaza. the truce that allowed for these exchanges is set to expire tomorrow night. but tonight, cia director william burns is in doha, qatar, in a round of new negotiations aimed at freeing more hostages. a diplomat with knowledge of those talks tells abc news that groups other than women and children are part of those hostage discussions. joining me now is john brennan, the former director of the cia and now an msnbc national security and intelligence analyst. director brennan, thank you for being here. one thing that has struck me over an interesting facet of all of this is that these negotiations are being led by a representative from mossad, and one from the cia, of course in addition to the qataris. how unusual is that set of talks, if you will, between mossad and the cia? >> well, the cia has had very strong and long-standing ties to mossad. and it's not surprising to me that cia is involved heavily in these discussions because the negotiations with hamas are taking place through intermediaries. in this case it's mostly the qataris, but also the egyptians. the cia also has contacts, some very close relations, between the qataris and egyptian intelligence. so therefore massage, being external intelligence organization of israel, also has dealings with egyptians and the qataris. again, it's unsurprising with these very sensitive negotiations are taking place in intelligence channels. i think with great confidence in players, the director of mossad, as well as director, burns are very close. i do believe the progress has been made over the last five days is the result of hammering out these discussions and the terms of the arrangements. the terms of the agreement have been followed through so far. tomorrow is going to be a very critical day, the sixth day of this truce and the exchange of hostages and prisoners. i am confident that director burns is doing all he can to extend that truce and to get more of these hostages free. >> can i ask you what you would assume that the sort of next group of hostages might be after all the women, after the remaining women and children have been freed from hamas custody or custody of other radical groups? >> i think hamas is going to keep the israeli defense force personnel. they're not going to give those up, certainly, at this point. the israelis have been insistent that any extension of the truce involves the release of 10 additional hostages. after the scheduled release of hostages tomorrow, i think the number of hostages will be about 150, 153 or so. the numbers are coming down, which is good. hamas may try to draw out this truce and offer fewer hostages for every day that the truce can be extended. clearly, i think, hamas wants to buy additional time. it is using the time to reposition its forces, and i think to prepare for the day after the truce, given that netanyahu is determined and has said publicly