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[both] finch! let's go! oh yeah! it's not the same. what could you do to solve the problem? we could get xfinity? that's actually super adult of you to suggest. i can't wait to squad up. i love it when you talk nerdy to me. guy, guys, guys, we're still in session. and i don't know what the heck you're talking about. thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with katie fang in for ari melber starts right now. hi, katie. >> hi, and thanks to you, nicole and everyone else. welcome to the beat. we start with the january 6th committee releasing more new witness transcripts revealing stunning new details from inside the trump white house. more from the star witness, white house aide cassidy hutchinson, who told the committee her then-boss white house chief of staff mark meadows would burn documents. liz cheney asking hutchinson, did you ever see mr. meadows burn documents in his fireplace? hutchinson replying, quote, yes, maybe a dozen times. emphasizing, quote, he as in mark meadows would put more logs on the fireplace to keep it burning throughout the day. and that between two and four times he had had mr. perry in his office right before discussing the vice president's role on january 6th. that is damning testimony for mark meadows. burning documents in his office fireplace during the transition period? this new revelation will certainly get the attention of the department of justice. more on that in a moment. hutchinson also telling the 1/6 committee she remembers meadows, quote, having a meeting with the outer oval saying let's keep some meetings close hold. close hold, meaning let's keep those meetings off the books so no one knows. hutchinson testified there were certain things that had potentially been left off the oval office diary. hutchinson also testifying that her first lawyer who was paid by a trump pack told her, quote, the committee doesn't recall what you can and can't know. she elaborated, quote, in my mind this whole time i felt this moral struggle. hutchinson ultimately obtaining new counsel and doing the right thing, speaking truthfully and openly to the committee. her testimony critical in helping the committee piece together their road ma in proving trump's intent. >> the president said something to the effect of i'm the effing president, take me up to the capitol now. the president reached up towards the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. mr. trump then used his free hand to lunge towards bobby engel. >> and a shocking new piece of evidence we also learned in these transcripts. hutchinson wasn't the only white house staffer seeking legal advice. former labor secretary eugene asked none other than former attorney general bill barr what he should do after the insurrection. barr telling him, quote, if i were you i'd resign, get out of there. and new transcripts revealing how trump himself were considering blanket pardons for not only insurrectionists but for white house staff. now, there's a growing body of evidence about the extent to which many in mr. trump's orbed were seeking pardons after the 2021 attack on the u.s. capitol. as ari likes to say pardons are for criminals and if accepted an admission of guilt. joining me now is the political investigations reporter for the guardian. and emily, legal writer for "the new york times" magazine. hugo, i'm going to start with you. how big is this new testimony on mark meadows burning documents and concealing meetings? >> i think it's really big. we had reported previously that cassidy hutchinson testify today the burning documents, and the committee doesn't seem to establish what the documents were or the contents of the documents. but circumstantial evidence suggests that it was pretty bad. if you have the leader -- now leader of the house freedom caucus scott perry in your office in your office while you're burning these documents, which by the way he could have put in burn bags not for destruction if he really needed to. that just suggests a potential obstruction of justice that the justice department will look very closely at. >> emily, we talk about consciousness of guilt. what is your legal take away from the transcripts that have just been released. >> i mean burning documents is one of the more suggestive incriminating things you can do. it suggests you have much to hide, and when you combine this with hutchinson's testimony that meadows was saying there should be meetings taking place off the books, you really are drawing a picture of people planning things or discussing or plotting things they don't want other people to know about. it's just hard not to read it that way. >> hugo, there's a newly released interview transcript of former white house press secretary judson deer in which he says quote, beginning some time mid to late december the president discovered for the first time my understanding is we released a public schedule of his to the public. now, he wanted to change the way he did that, and so what became the new version of the public schedule was basically a couple of sentences about what his day would consistent of. with the timing of that, hugo, mid to late december, what does that tell us about trump's intent in these weeks leading up to january 6th? >> well, first can i just say the fact that trump only realized four years into his administration that his schedule was public is quite extraordinary in and of itself. and i think the timing as you say is also problematic for trump and his advisers because if you think back to november, december 2020 what was going on, you know, he was taking these meetings especially in mid to late december with members of congress. and we have january 6th rally organizers later in january. there are key lead ups to january 6th whether it's the december 18 meeting with rudy giuliani and, you know, michael flynn and kind of the other cookie lawyers like sydney powell and you get to members of congress and pence and trump obstructing the investigation on january 6th. the fact these meetings was starting to be kept off the books again suggests there's a level of consciousness of wrongdoing. you know there's a kind of consciousness of intent here if came out would look exemlael bad. i think this speaks to how everyone around trump and potentially trump himself knew what he was doing was potentially unlawful, even illegal, and that was the motivation for trying to keep what was otherwise public meetings and what he didn't mind previously suddenly now a big secret. >> and emily, to hugo's point about knowing what's going on, knowing it's potentially illegal, let's turn to that blanket pardon debate. white house counsel pat cipollone rejected it. cipollone also rejected trump's idea that all white house staff should receive a pardon. trump reportedly saying, quote, well, just so they can't go after them for any little thing and cipollone saying in response, yeah, but no one here has done anything wrong now. emily, that might be up for debate if no one dd anything wrong there. and i guess thanks to pat cipollone for his counsel on this one. why pardon anyone or anything if nothing was done wrong? >> i mean trump's lawyers will argue in defense it becomes an issue in court that he was just acting preventatively, he's someone who likes to use the power of the presidency in unorthodox ways, this is just an example of that. he was doing a favor on the off chance there was any potential for criminal liability. and i think your question will be a good one whether that's really a believable explanation for this idea of a blanket pardon. >> hugo, cassidy hutchinson also testifying qanon was often brought up in meetings saying, quote, i remember marjorie taylor greene bringing it in the presence of mark. i remember mark having conversations, too, more specifically to qanon stuff and more with the ideas they had with the election. hugo, the close proximity of qanon to the oval office i mean it's not in proximity but in the oval. what does this tell us about how it's no longer considered to be fringe? >> you know, trump has been playing around with right wing conspiracy theories for some time but i think it did ramp up in this post election period. if you go back to his tweets and the kind of things he was tweeting and this is stuff we looked at earlier in the january 6th investigation was this indicative of trump endorsing them or things he came across and wasn't actually sure what to do, but it does seem these fringe conspiracy theories that he was retweeting on december 2020 have now morphed and metastasized into something that he knows about and is actively pushing. we've been to rallies recently where they are playing qanon affiliated associated music. i mean he bows the signs that white supremacists make, the qanon supporters make, and he kind of plays into that. and he's always been about trying to figure out where his base is, and as his base becomes more and more conspiratorial he's moved and shifted into that space as well. i think that's a gradual progression we started in the lead-up to january 6th and only metastasized in the months and years since. >> my thanks to you for starting off our show tonight. happy holidays and always good to see you both. and ahead a gop scandal of lies and questions about money, silence from leaders, and a major confrontation on fox news of all places. but coming up in just 60 seconds more on the burning documents bombshell and what special counsel jack smith and the doj will do next. all of that and more when we're right back in just 60 seconds. n.