0 it's great to see you. i'm geoff bennett, and as we come on the air, there is a lot happening on this summer friday. this hour we will see president biden and the first lady at the g7 summit in the u.k. they're about to have a gathering of world leaders and they'll be joined by british royals. we'll have it for you live if it happens. back here at home, there is bombshell news on the trump doj, saying they seized the records of high democratic lawmakers and their families members all hunting down leaks about trump and his contacts with russia. >> obviously deeply suspicious of what the justice department was doing. more than that, this looks like a patent abuse of the department, yet another example of the president politicizing, using the department of justice as a cudgel to go after his enemies. >> more that in a moment, but any moment attorney general merrick garland is expected to announce new actions by the doj to protect voting rights in this country. as legislatures attempt to restrict the vote with donald trump's lie about the stolen election. it must go through congress, but with little or no gop support and opposition from democrats, that's looking increasingly unlikely. so what will the attorney general do? we'll bring you those comments from garland as soon as they begin. we start this hour with reporter shannon pettypiece, garrett haake. we also have the brennan center for justice at the university school of law, that's wendy wiser, and carol anderson. she's also the author of "one person, no vote: how voter suppression is destroying our democracy." shannon, we'll start with you. what are we expecting to hear from the attorney general, and his policy address today, should this be read as a tacit acknowledgment that this legislation likely isn't going to pass through congress? >> what we know from the justice department is he's going to announce some concrete steps that the justice department said they can take that they said would secure the fundamental voting rights of all americans. now, what the justice department can do from the executive branch versus what can be done through the legislative branch, that is something for lawyers and general counsels in the executive branch to figure out amongst themselves. i'm sure they have been spending a locality of time on that in anticipation of this. but even before we kind of got a sense that this for the people act, this voting rights act in the senate wasn't going to go anywhere with joe manchin saying he did not plan to support it, we're already getting some signs from the white house and from president biden that they were looking at what they could do on their own without congress to address what president biden has called an assault on democracy regarding some of these bills being passed at state legislatures in georgia and in texas, for example. biden has not held back at all in saying he is going to use every tool that he has available, and potentially we will see the fruition today of what some of those tools are that this administration has. i also think, geoff, it's important to note this comes during president biden's foreign trip, his first foreign trip. i can't tell you if this was timed in any way for that. obviously the justice department operates independently for the most part. but this announcement will be coming as president biden is meeting with these g7 world leaders, as they are literally having dinner and a reception together. that is very important for this administration, as they have said, to show that the u.s. can lead in areas of humanitarian rights, freedom of speech and voting rights. it's certainly significant to see this occurring at that same moment, geoff. >> let's talk about the for the people act on capitol hill. it doesn't have a path forward in the senate. the john lewis voting rights authorization, i think the path forward for that is tenuous at best. we talk so often about these pieces of legislation in the context of what democrats are going to do and what joe manchin has an appetite for, but let's talk about republicans. mitch mcconnell supported the last review of the voting rights act. is this all about republicans not seeing a path forward in future elections unless they make it harder for folks to vote? >> reporter: mcconnell now says this version is not necessary and not something he would support. the push on the right for changing how we vote started a long time ago, and it started primarily with voter i.d. laws which were popping up in different states over the last 15 years or so. i was a local news reporter in kansas city when chris kobak was the secretary of state there and kansas put into place controversial voter i.d. law. but this has really taken off under the trump presidency and particularly the trump post-presidency, the idea that elections could somehow be stolen. they weren't. that mail-in ballots would be fraudulent. they weren't. things put in place because of the pandemic to make voting easier and more accessible should now be rolled back because the pandemic is being rolled back has really caught on on the right, and i think you're seeing republican-led states try to outdo each other with who can come out with the most stringent republicans, and you have representatives who represent those states in many cases who don't want to step on the messages that their own state legislators are putting out there, because that's where the trump base in this country are in state legislatures and governors' mansions, and that's what pushes elections in congress even further to the rye, because they're seeing these folks come up behind them. >> garrett, that's such good context. i appreciate that. wendy, let's talk about the for the people act. it makes it easier to register to vote, it makes it easier to vote by mail, it restores the voting rights act. there is a code of ethics for supreme court justices, there is a requirement that presidential candidates release their tax returns. do you think this bill is too comprehensive for its own good? that's even what some democrats say who have been doing some hand wringing about whether or not they support s-1. >> the for the people act's breadth is actual its strength. we are facing a real crisis, a crisis of voting rights, redistricting crisis, a crisis of big money flooding our politics and a recently growing ethics crisis, and these have been left to fester and linger and get dramatically worse in recent years because congress has not yet stepped in. these are solutions most of which have been adopted in the states successfully before and that have been working and that have been parts of congressional legislation for some time, and now there is finally an opportunity to put the solutions in place for the whole country, to create a baseline set of voting rules that every american can rely on, a federal floor, and to deal with things like extreme gerrymandering and dark money that have reached crisis proportions. >> so, carol anderson, professor anderson, republicans, as you well know, say these voting restrictions are needed because of so-called fraud, fraud that we should say does not exist, did not exist in that last election. can you provide some historical context in which those accusations have been made over generations, not just about fraud but a whole host of things in order to suppress the vote. >> absolutely. so beginning in 1890, in the mississippi plan of 1890 which created this comprehensive disenfranchisement package, it was predicated on a lie that we needed to have voter integrity. blacks were not doing massive voting fraud, but this was a plan to eliminate african-americans from the ballot box. they were very clear about that when they spoke amongst themselves. you had the lie of massive rampant voting fraud happening again, really, in the 2000 election. we remember that one, that was the one in florida and the one in st. louis, that presidential election, where up comes the lie that african-americans were trying to steal the election, and so we needed to have voter i.d. embedded into federal law in the help america vote act as a way to stop this massive rampant voter fraud. but the st. louis post dispatch did a study and all of the republican claims about massive rampant voter fraud in st. louis did not happen, did not happen. over 3 million votes cast. there were only four irregularities, none of which could have been solved by voter i.d. but the lie hung there, and it hung there and it's doing its damage. it's the same lie that you hear happening now with trump, that the people in the cities, in philadelphia, in detroit, in atlanta, in milwaukee, that they stole this election. that is linking criminality with blackness and, therefore, providing that kind of hard narrative that then pushes forward all of these voter suppression laws that are targeted at african-americans, they're targeted at hispanics, they're targeted at asian american and pacific islanders, at young people and poor people. >> professor anderson, i want to ask you about the thesis of your new book which is reflected in the title. you say voter suppression is destroying our democracy. what does our democracy look like without federal voting rights reform? >> it looks like what we have during the jim crow era where we would have federal elections in states like alabama and mississippi where you would have single-digit voter turnout rates. when you start to think about what single-digit voter turnout rates look like, in terms of moving people up the power ladder in congress so they're now sitting as the chair of the judiciary committee, or the chair of the foreign relations committee, that does damage. you're having this small, cauterized group of people determining what federal policy looks like for all of us. we had, by 1940, only 3% of age-eligible african-americans were registered to vote in the south because of the poll tax. disenfranchisement does damage to a democracy and it did damage internationally. so when the u.s. was putting pressure on the soviet union to open up the eastern bloc and bring democracy, you had the foreign minister turning to the secretary of state saying, when are you going to bring some democracy to south carolina? >> wendy, let's talk about the current day here, because absent federal action, this will be fought in the courts. will that effort be successful based on what you know about who is bringing these cases and the courts in which they're being filed? >> so i want to just start by saying that there is still a path forward in congress. the game is not over for the for the people act or the john lewis voting rights advancement act. despite the setbacks, this is still a top priority for both the majority leader in the senate and the house, the speaker of the house, and the president. so i want to be clear, negotiations are happening now and they're -- hopefully there will be a path forward, because the laws we currently have in place are simply not sufficient to fully protect americans' right to vote against this onslaught, against this assault that we are facing today. that said, the courts play a critical role, and they are a critical backstop. if we just look -- unfortunately, they've been getting less protective, increasingly making it harder for american voting rights, and we saw that especially in the last presidential election cycle where after dozens of courts actually issued rulings expanding voting rights, removing barriers that would have made it difficult or impossible for many people to vote safely. they were all abruptly reversed right in advance of the election under new doctrines that are making it harder to enforce voting rights. so the courts are important and critical and necessary but simply not enough with our current laws. >> wendy weiser, carol anderson, garrett haake, shannon pettypiece. while we were having that conversation, you saw on the left side of the screen queen elizabeth flanked by the world leaders who participated in that event. we see them walking off there. i think that's president biden in the back of the pack with canada's justin trudeau next to the queen. coming up next, explosive new revelations about donald trump's justice department. republicans accused of seizing documents of representatives and their family members. >> it's hard to express just how shocking an abuse of power this really is. plus, we'll go back live to the u.k. where queen elizabeth and members of the royal family just arrived for a dinner with president biden and his former g7 leaders. and later millions of americans are out of work, and they're about to lose the $300 extra money a week they get that so many of them rely on. will the move by the g7 fix the support shortage? 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(gasps)... now. upgrade your phone. upgrade your network. hearing is important to living life to the fullest. that's why inside every miracle-ear store, you'll find better bedtime stories. you'll find a better life is in store at miracle-ear, when you experience the exclusive miracle-ear advantage. it starts with our free hearing assessment. plus innovative products that fit your needs and budget. with free service and adjustments for life. we're so confident we can improve your life, we're offering a 30-day risk-free trial. call 1-800-miracle today and experience the miracle-ear advantage for yourself. i think we can safely say the word bombshell is overused these days when new information comes to light, but it's hard to describe the "new york times" story that dropped last night in any other way. they report, quote, as the justice department investigated who was behind the leaks of classified information early in the trump administration, it took a highly unusual step. prosecutors subpoenaed apple for data from the accounts of at least two democrats on the house intelligence committee, aides and family members. one was a minor. now, nbc news has confirmed those details via an official familiar with the subpoenas, and congressman adam schiff and eric swalwell have identified themselves as two of those who had their private information seized. now, the trump doj was already under fire for seizing call logs and e-mails from journalists. that's a shocking development in itself but it's not unheard of. seizing the private information of congressmen, however, if they're from the opposing party, experts say that might be unprecedented in modern american history. senate democrats are now demanding that the former attorneys general, barr and sessions, must testify before the senate judiciary committee and they're subject to a subpoena if they refuse. all right, joining us now are nbc national security correspondent ken dilanian, and msnbc contributor betsy woodruff swann, and in a moment we expect contributor barbara mcquade to join us. you've also contacted the doj, no comment from them, but betsy is now asking the doj to look into this, but they're only doing anything because the investigators commented on this. >> the revelations that the doj went after the news media, whichly initially they defended it, but after the white house got involved, the doj is now saying they will never do that again. what's going on here is a clash of interest in our democracy which goes beyond donald trump, geoff. you and i make our living in part based on leaks and we think leaks are an important part of holding government officials accountable. doj national security advisors are more than happy to put someone in prison if they think they leaked classified information. so they will go after these cases, in fact, donald trump leaked more classified information than anyone in recent memory. it's usually the attorney general who reins in these prosecutors and say, wait a minute, we're not going to subpoena the media records, we're not going after members of congress. in this case it was the opposite. they had donald trump and his associates screaming from the rafters -- >> i'm sorry, i have to go to the doj where merrick garland is giving a speech on voting rights. >> i appreciate everyone with the rights of america. i was confirmed, and in that time i've had the pleasure of working directly with certain members of the department. i went through two investigations of unconstitutional policing in minneapolis, minnesota and louisville. i discussed with you the criminal indictments on civil rights charges for the death of george floyd, and i worked with you for protecting every americans' right to vote. today i look forward to speaking to you, all of you, about the work on the voting sector. that work has personal reference to me. when i first came to the justice department as a 16-year-old, drew daiz took me under his wing, beginning a lifelong friendship. at that time drew was working in the city of rome which included the extension of the voting rights act and the clearance provision. the brief was filed just weeks after i arrived at the department, and in seven months later and in an opinion by douglas thurgood marshall, they said the act was plainly a constitutional method of enforcing the amendment. there are many things that are open to debate in america. but the right of all eligible citizens to vote is not one of them. the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow. in introducing the 1965 voting rights act, president johnson told the congress, quote, it is wrong. deadly wrong, to deny any of your fellow americans the right to vote. in signing the 1982 reauthorization of the act, president reagan stated, quote, the right to vote is the crown jewel of american liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished. and in signing the 2006 reauthorization, president bush stated that the right of ordinary men and women to determine their own future lies at the heart of the american experiment. this proposition has not, of course, always been accepted. when the constitution was ratified in 1788, most states limited the right to vote to white men and often only those white men who owned a certain amount of property. since then, constitutional amendments have expanded the franchise. the 15th and 19th amendments prohibited citizens' rights to vote based on gender or sex and it only was for people 18 and older. but the voting rights on people of color has never been steady. moments of voting rights expansion have often been met by counterefforts to curb franchise. actually securing the protections guaranteed by our constitutional laws has always required vigilant enforcement by congress, the courts and the justice department. this department's role effectively began in the 1870s. the reconstruction amendments adopted after the civil war were a dramatic step forward. the framers of the 14th and 15th amendments recogniz