0 so that is the only reason i am home. other than me trying to do this myself while having absolutely no skills as an audio engineer, a lighting engineer, and makeup artist, or camera operator, other than that, everything art operator, other than that, everything should be fine. ahem. forgive me for everything that may go wrong. i'm happy to be here. thank you for being here. we've got a lot to get to tonight. so, he was a late hire in the trump administration. they didn't hire him until year four in the trump administration. he hired him in march 20. the administration hired a new lawyer to work in vice president pence's office. en a man named gregory jacob. now, this was not gregory is jacob's first stint in the federal government, he had worked before in the george w. bush administration. he was a lawyer who worked on labor arabs in the george w. bush administration. but when he came back in march 2020, he came back for a big time job, as vice president pence's chief legal counsel. that is a big time job. of course, gregory jacob did not last a full year in that job because he started in march 2020 and the trump administration didn't last until march 2021, they lost the election. and the biden administration took over in january of '21. but even for that less than a year that he was there, that was really an eventful tenure for gregory jacob, especially during the last few months of his time serving as vice president pence's chief counsel on january 4th, 2021, so, two days before the attack on the capitol, final days of the trump administration, right, gregory jacob attended a meeting in the oval office there for the meet was the president, donald trump, the vice president, gregory jacob's boss, mike pence and the chief of staff, a lawyer friendly to him and lawyer named john eastman. john eastman was apparent eyely there at that january 4th meeting to tell vice president pence that he had to act, he had to do something on january 6th, when congress was set to meet to certify the election. eastman, reportedly at that meeting told vice president pence and his staff that the vice president should refuse to certify the election. and if he refused to certify the election then the results could be overturned in trump's favor. that was the meeting oval office, january 4th. gregory jacob was there for that meeting at the vice president's side. the very next day, january 5th, they did it again. that same trumpy lawyer, john eastman reportedly cornered gregory jacob, the vice president's top lawyer. cornered him in another office in the white house complex. and when he cornered him, he argued that the following day, january 6th, when it came time for vice president pence to count the electoral votes he should actually just reject all the electors for joe biden. that was his pitch. that meeting reportedly lasted two solid hours in the white house complex. and the day after that meeting, of course, was january 6th. and gregory jacob was there for the interruption of the electoral vote count. he watched his boss get escorted off the floor of the senate while a mob of trump supporters broke into the capitol hunting down mike pence to try to stop the certification of the election for biden. gregory jacob was there for that, he saw his boss get rusheded off to safety by the secret service. and then he emailed that same trumpy lawyer who had spent the last 48 hours trying to talk vice president pence into this scheme that he should stop the vert fiction of the election. he wrote thanks to your bull bleep, we are now under siege. and the quote-unquote siege is because you and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this so the american people could see what happens. during the course of january 6th, they kept going back and forth. later on, the trump lawyer, eastman, emailed, this is after 150 police officers have been injured. a police officer is still in the hospital at this point. this is after multiple people died. while law enforcement was looked for what was left behind from ransacked offices that the mob had ma lauded late into the night. late that night, john eastman is still doing it. he wrote gregory jacob to tell him that vice president pence still should refuse to certify the election results. here's the important thing, though, vice president pence's counsel gregory jacob, he did more than just email back and forth with john eastman, with that lawyer who is still trying to get pence to heed the mob and overturn the election, keep trump in power. gregory jacob did more than just email with eastman that day. perhaps more importantly, he also took time to email himself. quote, after the unrest began on january 6, jacob jacob sent an email to memorialize his conversation with eastman from the day before. that was that two-hour meeting in the white house where eastman reportedly brow beat pence that he should throw out all the electors, gregory jacob apparently took contemporaneous or near contemporaneous notes of that email to save them, to memorialize them while the capitol siege was under way on january 6th. so this guy, gregory jacob, vice president pence's top lawyer, for the investigators trying to get to the bottom of donald trump's efforts to overthrow the u.s. government and prevent the newly elected president from being sworn in. for those investigators, gregory jacob san interesting fact witness, right? he was in the room when trump and this lawyer were pushing pence that they needed to go along with the scheme to overthrow the meeting. he had a two-hour meeting with this trump lawyer the following day trying to convey instructions, specific instructions for vice president pence to throw out the biden electors to overthrow the government, to overturn the election. gregory jacob as counsel has this interesting window into what trump allies were thinking and arguing for in realtime while the attack was in its final planning stages and while it was under way. even while the physical attack on the capitol was still under way, they were still pushing vice president pence to overturn the election. even when it was over, they were pushing vice president pence to overturn the election. and apparently, gregory jacob has a paper trail to back all of this up, having taken contemporaneous notes on what the trump side was telling and what they were telling vice president pence to do. interesting witness, right, if they can get him. well, today here was gregory jacob on his way to provide testimony to the january 6th investigators in congress. he testified to investigators for almost nine hours today. really. which is a very long time. part of the reason we know that, part of the reason that was confirmed tonight is because of comments from the chairman of the january 6th investigation. congressman bennie thompson of mississippi. i'm going to play you this from bennie thompson and a reporter. this is my favorite piece of tape from the january 6th investigation. you're about to see why. this is bennie thompson tonight talking to a reporter and confirming that, yeah, gregory jacob did come in and testify and it turned out to be a long day and a big deal. listen to how he spools it out. this is excellent. this is from tonight. >> how was your weekend, first of all? >> it was the end deer season. >> really? >> and i went deer hunting. >> did you get anything? >> i absolutely did. do you need some meat? >> i really don't -- i don't eat -- i like meat but i've never had deer meat. >> you never had deer meat? >> is it good? >> do you look it like steak? >> you can you do it any way. how do you like it? >> any kind of way i mean. >> what you can tell us about the greg jacob testimony today? >> well, it's still going on. >> still going? >> yeah. >> he obviously is close to former vice president, who you want to hear from. >> well, you know, it's -- we're glad he came and obviously, it's part of the work that we do. and he's a great patriot. he loves this country more so than other people who don't. >> so, a lot of news there. a., got a deer, venison is delicious, you should try it, anyway. b., also got the vice president's chief legal adviser in there. and yeah, we're heading into hour nine now. and in chairman thompson's words, turns out the guy is a great patriot. big day for the january 6 investigation, right? talking to this guy who may be a very, very important witness. of course, not all important witnesses have been coming forward to the committee. a large number of people in trump's circle have refused to cooperate with the investigation. including, interestingly, his chief of staff, mark meadows. today, nbc news had some really super interesting reporting that might help explain why meadows is no longer cooperating. yo might remember, the january 6th investigation in congress got up and running this summer, on july 1st. that's when the house voted to set up the investigation into the attack on the capitol into trump's attempts to overturn the election, july 1st. well, nbc's jonathan allen is now reporting that on july 26th, 3 1/2 weeks after the committee got set up, after the investigation got started. july 26th, donald trump's political pac donated $1 million to the conservative nonprofit where his chief of staff mark meadow currently works. that's the most money trump's pac donated to any of his political allies. that's the most money trump's pac donated to anyone in the last half of 2021. the other largest donation trump's pac made in that time was a $10,000 donation. almost all the other donations that the pac made were $5,000 donations. but for some reason right after the january 6th investigation got up and running, trump decided to have his pac give not $5,000, not $10,000 but $1 million to the organization that employs mark meadows, wow, a million bucks! huh. for what? as we know, mark meadows was subpoenaed by the january 6 investigation. as we also know, he initially cooperated, he turned over troves of documents and communication to the investigation. documents that led to some of the initial fascinating rounds of revelations out of that investigation. after that initial cooperation, all of a sudden, for some reason, mark meadows did a u-turn, said he changed his mind and would no longer be cooperating. so this new reporting from nbc on the money flow, the unexplained money flow from trump to meadows after the committee started its investigation is interesting, right? does that huge anomalous donation from trump's pac weeks after the january 6th got going have anything to do with why mark meadows all of a sudden stopped cooperating. because, so far, there really has been no good explanation for why meadows did that abrupt about-face. after he decided he was going stop cooperating with congress, mr. meadows, of course, was found in contempt for his refusal to cooperate. he was ultimately refused to the justice department, the u.s. justice department or prosecution. i should mention that the justice department has not made any kind of announcement about whether or not they plan to prosecute mr. meadows for the refusal to comply with subpoenas and other investigations from the investigation. but nevertheless, the january 6th investigation continue as pace. continues to spill out new eye-popping revelations all the time. last week, for example, we learned that investigators have obtained this document that was first obtained by politico.com. and it is a draft executive order prepared for president trump that would have authorized the military -- would have authorized the defense department to go around the country seizing voting machines after the 2020 election. cnn reported last night that was actually a second executive order like that banging around the trump white house. one that laid out the same scheme to have men go seize voting equipment around the country. but that second executive order wouldn't have had it done by the military. it would have had it done by the department of homeland security. well, now there's this new explosive reporting from michael schmitt and "the new york times," six weeks after election day with his hold on power slipping president donald trump directed his lawyer rudy giuliani to make a call. trump asked giuliani to ask the department of homeland security in key swing states, giuliani did so, calling the department's acting deputy secretary who said he lacked the authority to auditor impound the machines. the outreach to the department of homeland security came not long after attorney general bill barr raised the possibility of whether the justice department could seize voting machines. a previously undisclosed -- trump raised the idea whether the justice department could be used to seize the machines according to two people familiar with the matter. mr. trump told mr. barr that his lawyers had told him the department had the power to seize the machines as evidence of fraud. trump mentioned a specific state that had used the machines built by dominion voting systems because lawyers believed there had been fraud. mr. barr had been briefed extensively by federal law investigators about how the views were unfounded because there was no probable cause to believe a crime had been committed. and i meaner the more we learn more about trump's efforts to overthrow the government and prevent the next duly elected president from being sworn, the more it sounds a little like speed dating, right. he tries roping the defense department into this scheme. hey, send out the military and seize the voting machine. the military passed. then he turned to homeland security department, no, pass. also a no go. how about the justice department, bill barr have the justice department go out and seize the voting equipment. apparently, bill barr wasn't going to do it either. but in this new reporting from the "times," we learn about one more potential suitor, one more potential date that donald trump tried to get on board for his effort at an insurrection. this is what the "times" reports, quote, around the same time that mr. trump brought up the possibility of having the justice department seize the voting machines he also tried to have state lawmakers in states like michigan and pennsylvania that they should use local law enforcement agencies to take control of the machines. the state lawmakers refused to go along with the plan. you might remember there was reporting in days after the election how trump was calling up republican state legislates in states where he lost, trying to get them to throw out the election recalls. he made a show inviting republicans from michigan and pennsylvania to the white house to explain to them until late november about how he really won those two states and they should do something about it. but this new reporting in the "times" is that trump was not only telling these guys that joe biden lost their states, he was telling them that they should have local law enforcement in michigan and pennsylvania start seizing voting equipment. that reporting is brand-new. and, frankly, red hot. i mean, presently, local reporters in michigan and pennsylvania are now doing back flips to try to follow up on this reporting to try to contact those local officials who were in contact with trump after the election to find out what was said to them. to find out if there was ever an active plot to use law enforcement in the state of michigan, law enforcement in the state of pennsylvania to try to go get voting equipment at trump's insistence. he was asking them for that, did it go any farther than that? you know, this hoping up a whole new line of inquiry. after trump told state lawmakers they should have law enforcement seize voting machines. i mean -- we should hear about it from those local republicans in michigan and pennsylvania but we should also probably here about it from the january 6 investigation, potentially for anybody bringing criminal charges around this plot. did anybody actually try it? how was this demand from the president received? we've learned a lot about how trump tried to use the power of the federal government to seize voting machines to try and change the results of the election in his favor. was there a state level component of his plan, too? well, the january 6th investigation is trying to find out. just in the last hour, "the new york times" is newly reporting that the january 6 investigators are scrutinizing donald trump's involvement in proposals to seize voting machines after the 2020 election, including efforts to create a legal basis for direct will go national security agencies to take subpoena an extreme action. that's according to three people with knowledge of the committee's activities. the "times" is reporting, quote it is not clear what evidence the committee is examining as it looks at any involvement. but the committee recently received documents from the trump white house, including what court filings describe as a document containing presidential findings concerning the security of the election after it occurred and ordering various actions, joining us now is michael schmitt, he's the washington correspondent from "the new york times." he's one of the reporters who broke the story about trump's involvement in seizing the voting machines. it's nice to have you here tonight. congratulations on this scoop. >> thanks for having me. >> there's been a lot of revelations in the last 48 hours. let me ask you if i put anything wrong if i put the emphasis wrong, is there anything i missed on anything that your colleagues reported? >> no, that was a great summation of it. i think for us, the most important thing here is is that there's a lot of different things that have emerged in the past year. that we've learned that donald trump advisers and republicans across the country did. we also know a lot of what donald trump said out loud and did publicly. what our reporting, we thought, advanced and what made it important is that it brought trump himself into the effort. in a way that we had not seen before. this was more than just using, you know, calling people and pressuring them and filing fruitless lawsuits. this was contemplating using three of the most powerful institution, not just in the country, but in the world. the department of against, the justice department and the department of homeland security. and to use that apparatus, as the president of the united states, the person who controls them, you know, and consider using them in this effort to remain in power, sets itself out as one of the more extraordinary efforts that was under way to undermine this election. i'm not diminishing the other things that he tried. but we thought that this attempt was in a special lane of itself. and he was there and was more than just curious about the idea. >> do we know, mike, what will the -- why they thought it would be necessary, or helpful, or advance the plot to physically seize voting equipment? i mean, whether they were going to have defense or homeland security or the justice department pull off the scheme, why did they want the physical equipment? >> it's a great question, and even as we were finishing our reporting on this, i was thinking to myself, well, why did they want these machines? because it's -- it's so different than any other type of election interference, we've seen in this country. to our best understanding from our reporting they wanted the machines because they thought that the machines where they had been hack -- the conspiracy was that the dominion machines had been hacked. and that they needed to get their hands on the machines so they could show that there had been hacking and that votes had been turned, you know, away from trump that, you know, should have been for him. so, they needed the machines in order to do that. at the same time, though, and i don't know how this relates to it, flynn wanted to re-run the election. flynn wa