William barr telling the Associated Press today we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election. Thats coming from william barr, a guy who has bent over backwards to back up the president. Remember the attorney general back in june validating the president s attack on mailin ballots. A foreign country can print out tens of thousands of ballots and it would be hard for us to protect. Bear in mind, that was not true then and he offered no evidence to backup that statement. But it does show you how willing he was to echo what the president wanted to hear. And after, he authorized federal investigation of vote tabulation irregularities. The move drew widespread criticism. With all that said for all the controversies surrounding these investigations, he must have drawn a blank, otherwise, attorney barr certainly would have said so. He said, these are not systemic allegations. Those have been run down, they are being run down. He dismissed the claim the president makes constantly. The dominion machines where tremendous reports have been put out. We have affidavits on from many people talking about what machines. These were glitches. You know what a glitch is. Its supposed to be when a machine breaks down. No, they moved thousands of votes from my account to bidens account. These arent glitches. They are fraud. Absolute fraud. Thats madeup. Here is what the attorney general told the Associated Press. There is one assertion that would be systematic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed to skew the election results. The department of Homeland Security and doj have looked into that and so far we have not seen anything to substantiate that. Nothing. Nor has chris krebs, who was fired by the president. There is no foreign power thats flipping votes. There is no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election. And he got fired for that conclusion, and got Death Threats and was on the receiving end from the member of the president s team. Anybody who thinks this election went well like that guy krebs. The guy who with us was on 60 minutes last night. That guy is a moron, he should be drawn and quartered and taken out at dawn and shot. Now of course digenova is saying he was speaking in jest, and just kidding of shooting the Public Servant for doing his job. In this environment where people have been told the election is stolen or talking about killing people is not anything a responsible or reasonable person should be doing. In georgia where the president lost, another Public Servant, the republican in charge of voting systems, had this to say to the president. I dont have all the best words to do this because i am angry. The straw that broke the camels back, the 20yearold contractor just trying to do his job. Just there i talked to dominion today, they said hes one of the better ones we got. His family is getting harassed and there is a with his name on it. It is not right. I cant begin to explain the anger that i have right now over this. Every democrat or republican alike should have that same level of anger. Mr. President , it looks like you likely lost the stage of georgia. We are investigating. There is a possibility and i get it, you have the right to go through the courts. What you dont have the right to do is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get shot and killed. It is not right. Gabriel sterling is being protected by police just for doing his job. His boss, the secretary of state, has been getting Death Threats. The president has called him the enemy of the people. You heard that before. Again, just for doing his job. The president shows no sign of caring. After all there is money to be made and outrage. The president has been bombarding supporters. Friends, i cant do this alone, i need your help. Please contribute so you can increase your impact. The link leads you to a website that says, President Trump is counting on you to defend the election. Unless you donate more than 5,000, none of the money you send goes to the president s socalled election defense fund. It has raised 170 million so far. Because it is set up as whats called a leadership p. A. C. And not a candidate committee, there is no personal use prohibition. Thats really important. As one financial official tells the washington post, if you are talking about an expenditure pact, there is no prohibition on how they use that money. In short, the president is being handed tens of millions, more than 100 million after losing the election, telling his supporters that he did not lose the election. Hes telling them they can do something about it by sending him more money that goes to a fund that he has a wide discretion to spend however he wants it. They dont even get the trump steaks, or a worthless diploma. You have to wonder which of his collaborators are in on it as well. First, lets go to jim acosta. Barr concluded there is no evidence of fraud. Whats the white house is saying about that . Is now barr an enemy of the people as well . Reporter well, they have not gone that far yet. But we are waiting to see what the president say about this. White house officials are turning us to the Trump Campaign and the Trump Legal Team and statements they put out of Rudy Giuliani being on that trump team saying in a statement that bill barr and the department of justice have not done a semblance of an investigation stemming from the 2020 election. Thats rigged obviously because Rudy Giuliani and trumps team have not put forward any evidence at all. Anderson, what we are left with is what you were teeing up over the last several minutes, which is a disinformation for dollars scheme that the president is orchestrating right now to a great success. Hes raising a lot of money for his future plans to essentially make joe bidens life miserable the next four years. And you have some reporting of associates of the president , Rudy Giuliani, maybe, asking for pardons . Reporter thats right. I am told by my sources that associates of the president have been pleading to him, appealing to him for pardons and what are being called preemptive blanket pardons. Our sources say those associates include Rudy Giuliani who by the way has been leading up these legal challenges across the country. I am told by a source whos familiar with some of these discussions that a lot of these associates who are seeking these pardons, friends, allies, people who think they are in hot water the next four years, they fear what an in coming Biden Administration means and they see some hostility and what they view as hostility coming from that incoming administration. Is that a thing . Preemptive blanket pardons . Reporter you know, i am not a lawyer. I dont play one on tv. I think what they are looking for is, yes. Some sort of blanket immunity for prosecution from here on forward, whether or not that can be tested in the courts, well see. And also about the prospect of the president pardoning himself which we dont know is constitutional. But he busted norms before. Talking to my sources, he may try that one, too. Like a monopoly, getting out of jail free card. Hes not being inaugurated again, so what is this about an event around the inauguration . Not many of the outgoing advisers for the president think he will go out there and put his arms around him and wish biden luck. They dont see it as happening. A potential event on Inauguration Day where President Trump will announce some kind of intention in terms of what he may do the next four years. He may hint of a comeback run in 2024 and all of that is up in the air and depending on how the president is doing politically and legally over the next couple of years. But it is something being discussed as an attempt to steal the limelight from his successor. Have they said hes not going to go the inauguration . Reporter he was asked but did not answer that question. He wanted to keep everybody in suspense. Keep his supporters in suspense. If he says hes going to the inauguration, that is in and of itself an acknowledgment that he wont be president of the United States. We go back to those fundraising emails you were showing a few moments ago, they become even more laughable. The cameras are going to be at the inauguration. I think the president is going to be there. I am rolling the dice there. In some way, shape, or form. Jim acosta, thank you very much. Documents by the washington, d. C. District court is also making headlines. Evan perez is joining us now. What do they reveal . Reporter it says there is an investigation thats been ongoing that appears to show that there is a bribery scheme. Someone was trying to funnel money, some kind of Campaign Donation in exchange for a president ial pardon. We dont know who the Campaign Donation was going to. From reading the document, we can tell this involves some kind of contact with white house officials. We talked to them, they say they have no idea what this is about. The names of the people, the law firms thats involved and all of this have been redacted and clearly released by the chief judge here in washington over the objections of the justice department, which wanted to keep these documents secret. We dont know if it will become public in the way of a court filing of charges. It appears right now no charges have been filed with regard to this bribery scheme. It does raise the question of who it was trying to use access to the president and the white house in order to get a president ial pardon in exchange for Campaign Finance donations. And it was revealed back in october, bill barr, pointed a counsel to investigate violations of the law in 2016. Did barr give an indication why decide to do this or why doing it right now . Reporter he simply says it is in the Public Interest but this investigation to be completed. Keep in mind if you remember, bill barr kept saying that john durham, the attorney in connecticut, was finding all sorts of interesting things. He suggested there may be crimes involved and suggested that there may be some kind of october surprise. Something before the november election. The president also kept trying to raise the prospect that this was going to happen. None of it came to pass. We know durham is not done. According to bill barr, he decided that he needed to appoint john durham as a special counsel. According to regulations, durham cant serve in the way Robert Mueller did. Because hes a current government employee. The rule is you have to be someone outside the government. What barr is doing is going around the regulations and hes giving durham the powers. And hes leaving this to keep going well into the joe Biden Administration. This is something that the incoming attorney general under joe biden will have to deal with when they take office. Evan perez, i appreciate it. Thanks. Now, lets talk to former Nixon White House counsel, john dean. A cnn contributor and commentator and also David Axelrod. So if there is been some sort of rumblings of a president ial bribery scheme, what would it mean legally . I am not clear this means if somebody had given donations in the past or someone looking for a pardon by giving donations, what do you make of this . Well, i read the largely redacted document and as evan says it is hard to glean much from it. They did get a lot of information from a raid that they were obviously authorized. They got several terabytes of digital materials from iphones and ipads and hard drives and what have you. In that material were emails correspondent between the party involved and an attorney. They apparently had to breach or break that privilege and went to court to get an order that they could confront the people that were involved in the investigation with the fact they had this information and not be breaking the privilege. They did so. And they did that based on the fact, information had been shown to people that were not attorneys and they were not breaching the Attorney Client privilege. So this is what happened and the judge, whos an experienced seasoned judge, said at the outset, i want these documents made public as soon as possible and put that in the original order. The department of justice resisted that to the last minute and filed a request saying we dont want it public. The judge went back at them and said, please, i want something in a week that we could put, release. She forced the issue and we got the highly redacted memo today. The investigation indicated indiduals and conduct had not been charged yet, is there any conclusion to be drawn from this . It seems sketchy. Look, i think the real question is, was there any conversation between anyone at the white house or the campaign where the people received any encouragement . We dont know the answer to that. But like many other elements of this white house, the pardon situation is a bit of a cesspool. There was a system set up in the obama administration, pardons were reviewed by the justice department. There was a rigorous system to make sure everything was on the up and up. Is there such a thing as a preemptive pardon . Well, gerald ford provided a pardon for Richard Nixon but it was not for a crime he may have committed. John, you can correct me if i am wrong. It was specific to crimes that were associated with the investigations that were ongoing. It was throughout his presidency, from his inauguration to his resignation. That was more the exception that proves the rule. It is highly unusual. Yes. Also unusual, Rudy Giuliani is out there flacking the president s fantasy fraud, and asking for 20,000 a day and hes apparently talking about a preemptive pardon. Thats sketchy, too. We are going to take a break. Well have more david and john, stand by. We want to ask about the new reporting from the New York Times and jared kushner. Also, a medical team joins us to talk about the vaccine rolling out and time and logistics, some better news after what looks like to be dark times ahead. 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Claim your seventyfivedollar credit when you post your first job at indeed. Com promo the teams been working around the clock. Wire, weve had to rethink our whole approach. Were going to give togetherness. Logistically, its been a nightmare. Im not sure its going to work. Itll work. I didnt know you were listening. Were talking about people seeking president ial pardons, and the possibility of corruption surrounding the process. This just hitting the New York Times. President trump discussed with advisers whether to grant preemptive pardon to his children, soninlaw, and to his own personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Back now with john dean and David Axelrod. The New York Times is saying this. Is there any historical parallel you know of, this granting pardons of his kids and soninlaw and Rudy Giuliani . I cant find any historical parallel for this. The family particularly. Certainly, i cant think of any family that was ever involved in the processes of the presidency as the trump family has been. But its certainly not a surprise. I think this is a trial balloon to see what the reaction is. I would be surprised if he does not than if he does. David, if he just pardons in advance all of his children and jared kushner, its something you would expect to see in a country with a ruling family, and theyre looking for a, you know, a way out without being hauled into prison. It is, anderson. But the president does not respect the rule of law, laws, you know, norms, institutions. He hasnt from the beginning. It is not at all surprising. I think hell end up the ability to pardon himself by the time its all said and done. And he cant pardon for state crimes. There are two active investigations by new york, one by the attorney general and the District Attorney of manhattan thats looking into the trump organization. These pardons will not protect himself or his children. But you can see what hes setting up. The story said hes concerned the Biden Administration will go after his family in retribution. Thats the kind of thing he would do. Biden has indicated hes not interested in that. But i think thats the rational he will use if he goes ahead with the pardons. Rudy giuliani reportedly talking about the preemptive pardon, which Rudy Giuliani denied doing that. There is only a handful of that in u. S. History. You talk about president ford pardoning Richard Nixon which was controversial. This is a whole other level from that. Hes helping him launch a fraudulent assault of election integrity. Yes, we got a sample today of hi