So tonight federal Court Documents showing the Justice Departments investigating a possible president ial pardon bribery scheme. Those filings dont reveal any names of people potentially involved. Also tonight, a source saying associates of President Trump including his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, are seeking preemptive pardons. All this happening as attorney general bill barr says there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the election. Effectively shutting down President Trumps false claims of massive voter fraud. Joining me now, cnn White House Correspondent john harwood, Ron Brownstein and amanda carpenter. Good to see all of you. Thanks for joining. John, youre first. The Justice Department is investigating a potential bribery scheme for president ial pardons. What do you know . What can you tell us about . We dont know a lot as you indicated in the open, don. We know that Federal District judge released a heavily redacted court filing from this summer that indicated federal prosecutors were investigating the potential for a bid to obtain a president ial pardon by means of offering a Campaign Contribution either to a campaign directly or to a pol e political committee. Names were not attached to t. We dont know whos being investigated. Were unaware anyone was charged with a crime in this investigation. As the conservative lawyer George Conway who happens to be married to longtime trump advisor kellyanne conway, ask yourself, who was running a campaign for high office this summer and who has the power to issue a president ial pardon . The answer to both those questions is President Donald Trump. Now, again, we do not know if he is referred to in any way in this document but it clearly hit the document itself and the coverage of the document hit close to home and President Trump tweeted out that the investigation was fake news. Of course, Federal District judges are not in the business of advancing fake news so were going to have to see what we can learn in the coming days about this case. Amanda, we are also told that trump is considering granting preemptive pardons to his three oldest children, his soninlaw Jared Kushner and Rudy Giuliani. He can claim hes going to win all he wants but doesnt this show he knows its over if hes even considering this . Yeah. I mean, this has been the time a lot of people have been worried most about the trump presidency, how he would potentially abuse his power on his way out. The use of pardons potentially to expunge people from being held accountable for their criminal acts on his way out the door is one of the most controversial things a president can do. The question comes what crimes would he be pardoning them for. I look at that and say, go ahead. If you want to admit that members of your family committed some kind of a crime, members of your inner political circle committed some kind of a crime by extending them a pardon, then lets use that to go forward and say they should never come back to republican politics again. Youre right. For what . What would he say . Im pardoning you for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then that would be a trail of bread crumbs. Actually, a big spotlight. This is where you should look. Ron, is that you saying, mmmm. First of all, you cant pardon people for state crimes, including yourself. That is probably where the biggest legal vulnerability is. My thought, don, you dont get to this point in a day and get to this point on your own. There is no way he would be contemplating acts that are so egregious, so violative of historical norms if republicans had not enabled him and abetted him at each step. Every time he breaks a window, republicans are sweeping up the glass. He exported the government in ukraine, tilt the census, especially in the post election period where i wrote today on the cnn website, the behavior of Mitch Mcconnell, Kevin Mccarthy and other leaders as trump has spun these poisonous theories that have been translated to Death Threats has been more cowardly and craven than it was to joe mccarthy. He has gotten to this point because he believes he will not be held accountable to his party any step along the way. Weve learned one party alone can not uphold the rules of small d democracy. That mccarthy comparison, amanda, you didnt really i you know, that was like, wow. You didnt really flinch at that at all. Heres what he have been thinking about for the last five years, when are people going to stand up to trump. And they never do. They never do. Theyre fine with it. Well, privately they have concerns. Ive come on and explained the politics of their decisions and saying why theyre strategically staying silent. Theyre fine with it as long as it keeps them power. Theyre fine with it even if the president has lost because theyre making the calculation that it would be good to delegit mietz Vice President joe biden. When you talk about the concern thing privately, theyll say it in front of cameras, im very, very, very concerned and then they vote and do everything the president wants them do. I think were almost afraid i am afraid i have been afraid to come to this conclusion that they are fine with. Ive want to believe somewhere in their hearts they would stand up if they werent so scared. Were at a bad place where people are getting Death Threats and they wont defend their friend in georgia who is begging before the cameras for support. What were you going to say, ron . Its very similar to what happened in the 1950s. Robert taft, the Mitch Mcconnell of the day, mr. Republican candidate for president privately knew what mccarthy was doing was reckless and dangerous. He thought it was expedient for the party because initially he was targeting the truman administration. The problem was that it kept going and he went after the Eisenhower Administration and had these reckless charges of communist infiltration everywhere. In much the same way they are making the calculations in the senate and house that it is in their interests to let trump poison the system this way both because it makes it tough for biden to get a second look. Others like dan crenshaw has said this could be the basis for a new round of voter suppression. It goes to a point where you are saying were going to look at the shortterm Party Interests over what is clearly a danger craven. Theyre dealing with Death Threats. Greedy and craven. John, i think your answer is going to be. I think i know where youre going. Let me play this. One of georgias top officials happens to be a lifelong republican weighing in on chris krebs being shot. Joe asked for chris krebs, a patriot who ran cisa to be shot. A 20 something tech and when a county has a death threat and noose saying it should be hung for treason, mr. President , you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. All of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. Someones going to get hurt. Someones going to get shot. Someones going to get killed. John, im going to give you the floor. Someones going to get killed. If this doesnt send a message to trump and his enablers, what the hell will . That is exactly the right message to send. Joe degeneva who he referred to in that sound bite is a perfect example of the dissent of the trump party into degeneracy. Hes shouting wild things about other people. He said he was sarcastic after this drew a lot of attention, but that is not anything to joke around about. Saar ramp is typically the cover that is used afterwards by trump and his enablers from things that they said that are extreme. Just to button up the point that ron and amanda were making earlier. Republicans do a lot of whining about how the media is biased against them, but in the case of the trump years, this is actually the bias of the media has actually worked to their benefit in the following way. The biggest analytical mistake that the media as a Mainstream Media as a whole has made in the last four years is over estimating the willingness of republican elected officials at crunch time to do the right thing. They have not been willing to do the right thing. They are not doing the right thing now to threats to democracy and people including republican officials in their own party. It is a very sad commentary on what has happened to the Republican Party and its to the detriment of all of us in the United States. Well, i have been saying all along that theyre okay with it because it just keeps happening. Amanda, i know youve been on the show and have heard me saying that. I know its hard for people to accept that. Fool me once, you know what im saying. Go on, ron. Five years later. To johns point, we dont fully have a language for whats happening. We are treating the Republican Party that its misbehaving in american politics and back and forth. What we are seeing in the post election period, the willingness to go along with such groundless fantasies, groundless and corrosive fantasies, don, there was much more push back on mccarthy than there has been from republicans now against trump. No question about it. Theres a willingness to go along with this and it is a party that is showing a broad willingness to subvert small d democracy if thats what it takes to hold power, and that is a scary prospect that we have not fully wrapped our arms around as a country. Its called hypocrites, greedy, drifters, power hungry. There are a lot of words. We have to come up with one that encapsulates it perfectly. Thank you all. I want to bring in the democratic governor of new mexico. Michelle grisham. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, don. Thank you. Lets talk about the coronavirus. It is awful. The hospitalizations in new mexico are at record highs this week. Are you worried hospitals in your state will become overrun, governor . Ive been worried about that single fact since the moment we were engaged in the late winter, early spring of this pandemic. If youre not paying real attention to health care capacity, you arent paying attention to this pandemic as well as saving lives. In mexico for an antiquated medical rule, its created very Severe Health care shortages. We have Less Health Care per capita than average states so we really have to do it better. Where we are today is in krit calling situations in every single hospital in the state. Don, thats why we did a reset that just ended monday of this week. Yeah. I want to ask you about that because you had a twoweek shutdown. Are you seeing signs that it helped in stopping the spread of this virus . It absolutely did and its exactly why we did that. We wanted to rest up our Health Care Providers and health care capacity. We wanted to stop exponential growth statewide and we wanted to reduce our positivity rates and all of that occurred. Two weeks in dealing with this highly contagious, out of control virus isnt enough time but it allowed us to create then a new system moving forward because until we have the vaccine, with this virus out of control in the country, what happens in texas, what happens in arizona, what happens at the border happens in new mexico. This is the problem without having a federal framework to actively combat this pandemic, states are in this roller coaster mode and it is untenable. So were going to keep going at this holding up our Health Care Workers and hospitals and were going to blunt the mortality rate to the highest degree that we can and were going to go to this slow gradual reopening based on cases per 100,000 and positivity ratings. Three tiered. Its the stop light, red to green. Red stop, yellow, proceed with caution or slow up, green, go. Okay. So cnn obtained a letter that members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent to the biden team urging them to choose you for health and Human Services secretary. Are you being vetted for this role . You know, don, being a cochair of the transition, we are incredibly focused on the things that americans need right now. You need the kinds of folks identified, appointed and nominated like you saw today, the Economic Team, so that we can get a stimulus out to the states. My job is to make sure that biden and harris have everything that they need to do that and while im incredibly honored and flattered that my colleagues can see the work that im doing on the ground and know that ive got 40 years in comprehensive health care experience, im focused on making sure i save new mexico lives. New mexico passed its own Stimulus Program because we cant wait for the federal government. While ive got total im positive about the success of biden and harris with congress to come to a deal, if you are going to have a reset and slow Movement Towards economic reopening and educational and in person successes, you have to take care of the people who are laid off and furloughed and the Small Businesses that dont have access to their customers. So we did all of that. Housing protection, good security, stimulus through unemployment, 1200 for every new mexican thats unemployed and Small Business grants so that we can weather the storm. Well, it sounds like you know what youre doing. You did get in there you have 40 years experience. We may see you in that role but until then, keep fighting and doing the right thing. We really appreciate you. You know what, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. By the way, i love the tree behind you. Christmas tree. Pretty good. Thats new mexico tree work there. Really beautiful. Thank you. Be safe. We have news on the Coronavirus Vaccine and who might be getting it first and as the virus rages, president elect biden introduces his Economic Team and promises to create a recovery for everybody. Let me be clear, with this team and others, well add in weeks ahead were going to create recovery for everybody, for all. Were going to get this economy moving again. Goes beyond just soothing sensitive skin . 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Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flulike symptoms, sores, new skin growths, have had cancer, or if you need a vaccine. Rpls, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible. Some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. Lasting remission can start with stelara®. If youve been financially impacted by covid19, janssen may be able to help. New developments tonight in the fight against the coronavirus. Vaccine advisers voting 131 to recommend Health Care Workers and residents of longterm care facilities be first to receive the Coronavirus Vaccines. Today the United States added over 168,000 new cases of coronavirus and over 2400 deaths. Recordbreaking levels. Over 98,000, the highest number of covid19 hospitalizations we have ever experienced. Joining me is dr. Michael osterholm and director of the center for Infectious Disease and research policy. Doctor, good to see you wince again. Good to see you, don. Lets discuss this. The cdc cries ri recommending Health Care Workers and those at longterm care facilities get the vaccine 131. Whats the next step . This is the very first of the recommendations that will be made. This will take care of the 24 Million People who will be vaccinated by the end of the year. Then the committee will decide whos after that. Essential workers, people at high risk for serious disease, et cetera. That was not addressed. I said it was 131. The one no vote came from dr. Helen thalmud. Shes worried it hasnt been studied enough in residents of longterm facilities. We hope it works. We hope its safe. That concerns me on many levels. That tells me a lot of folks have different issues. Are you worried about Adverse Reactions to the vaccine . We sure have to be mindful of that, but at this point, no. What we have to deal with is a classic riskbenefit issue. One, what is the risk of getting this infection and dying. Thats a pretty bad outcome there. Whereas, with a question of the vaccine, will it protect the people . With influenza, older individuals dont respond to the vaccine as well. Thats the real challenge. Will it protect the people . W