00:02 Chris Hayes Tonight on All In, the White House requests an expedited release of Trump visitor logs as new text messages reveal new characters lobbying Trump before the Capitol attack. 00:13 I'll ask January 6th committee member Elaine Luria about all of it then. 00:18 Soundbite Where are these prosecutors? 00:19 Where is the DA? 00:21 Isn't that a federal affiliate? 00:22 Isn't that a, you know, isn't that fraud? 00:24 Isn't that all sorts of offenses? 00:27 Chris Hayes Why the Trump family panic after their accountant dropped them isn't exactly misplaced. 00:32 And guess who's at it again on Capitol Hill? 00:36 Soundbite Why is it that you keep being part of the transition team, helping advise district attorneys on how to release violent criminals? 00:44 And you're the head of the Innocence Project. 00:46 The sad return to the bad old days of criminal justice backlash politics. 00:50 Chris Hayes When All In starts right now. 00:57 Good evening from New York. 00:58 I'm Chris Hayes. 00:58 President Joe Biden is taking steps to answer one of the biggest lingering mysteries of the Trump administration. 01:04 Who was Donald Trump talking to in the days leading up to the January 6th insurrection? 01:09 Today, President Biden announced that he would be waiving executive privilege for the White House visitor logs from Trump's presidency, clearing the way for the bipartisan committee investigating January 6th to get their hands on them, although Trump will likely sue to block the document's release again. 01:25 It's important because Donald Trump has a talent for surrounding himself with the worst people. 01:30 People who often encourage his most lawless and authoritarian tendencies. 01:33 And when it came to the day of the insurrection, there were basically two groups of people in Donald Trump's orbit. 01:38 Those who, despite whatever odious other things they may believe, were adamantly opposed to Trump's coup. 01:44 And then the wackos and the sycophants who encouraged or even assisted the plan to steal a free and fair election and end American democracy as we know it. 01:54 And then there's another category. 01:56 Category one, with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. 02:00 That guy. 02:01 Not exactly clear which group he fell into. 02:04 Certainly assisted the coup in his official capacity in multiple instances. 02:08 But he also did not appear to be one of the true believers, like Rudy Giuliani. 02:12 One of the reasons it would be so beneficial for Meadows to speak with a committee investigating the attack. 02:17 Now, we now know in the run-up to January 6th, Meadows acted as a kind of intermediary, a clearinghouse, a way station for the then-president, fielding messages from both pro- and anti-coup camps, as helpfully aggregated by The Washington Post in a new piece out today. 02:33 In the days leading up to January 6th, for example, Fox News host Sean Hannity, one of Trump's closest outside advisors, was adamant that the coup plot was destined to fail. 02:42 First texting Meadows on December 31st, quote, We cannot lose the entire White House counsel's office. 02:47 I do not see January 6th happening the way he's being told. 02:51 After the 6th, he should announce he will lead the nationwide effort to reform voting integrity. 02:56 Then again on January 5th, as things are getting very close, I'm very worried about the next 48 hours. 03:01 Pence pressure. 03:03 White House counsel will leave. 03:04 Boy, it seems like Sean knows a lot about what's going on. 03:07 He's not sharing with the rest of us. 03:09 At least one Republican member of the far right House Freedom Caucus also appeared to have issues with the coup plot. 03:15 This is pretty interesting. 03:17 Texting Meadows on either January 1st or 2nd quote. 03:25 Strong words. 03:27 But the voices against the coup seemed to get drowned out by those who were abetting it. 03:31 I mean, way back in November 2020, before the election had even been called, a phone number linked to former Texas governor and Trump Secretary of Energy Rick Perry texted Meadows, quote, here's an aggressive strategy. 03:44 Why can't the states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and other Republican controlled state houses declare this is BS or conflicts and election not called that night and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the Supreme Court? 03:57 Yeah, that is aggressive. 03:58 That's an aggressive way to kill American democracy. 04:01 We should note Rick Perry denies sending that text message, but the January 6th committee staff tell The Washington Post it came from a number identified as Perry. 04:09 So I leave it to you to decide who's telling the truth. 04:13 We also know that Meadows received the previously revealed text forwarded by Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who supposedly got it from some random lawyer, you know, copy, paste it, pass it along, instructing my pens to overturn the results of the election on the 6th. 04:26 The Washington Post is also reporting that Mark Meadows was fielding texts from other coup plotters, including Cleta Mitchell, conservative attorney who helped push Trump's big lie and who was on that now infamous phone call when Trump tried to bully Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into finding the votes he needed to flip the state. 04:45 Crosstalk You have all these different people that that voted, but they don't live in Georgia anymore. 04:50 What was that number, Clay? 04:51 That was a pretty good number, too. 04:53 Cleta Mitchell Well, the number who had registered out of state after they moved from Georgia. 04:59 And so they had a date when they moved from Georgia. 05:03 They registered to vote out of state. 05:05 And then it's like 4,500. 05:07 I don't have that right in front of me. 05:08 Crosstalk And then they came back in and they voted. 05:11 Chris Hayes By the way, 4,500 people who were not Georgia voters did not vote. 05:14 That's wrong. 05:16 But Mitchell was not the only bad actor with a direct line of access to the White House. 05:20 The Post also reports that I'm not quite sure how to describe him. 05:25 Right wing troublemaker, James O'Keefe, a guy who does all the deceptively edited gotcha stings that never really amount to anything. 05:32 He was texting Mark Meadows, that guy. 05:34 Leading up to the 6th, quote, thousands registered devoted to church addresses in Atlanta. 05:39 These admissions were obtained today. 05:40 James. 05:43 You got James O'Keefe like on the case. 05:46 Go get him, buddy. 05:47 We should note again, there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Georgia or anyone else. 05:51 All this stuff is nonsense. 05:52 It's all nonsense. 05:54 All of it. 05:55 Garbage in and garbage out. 05:56 And O'Keefe is, to put it lightly, someone who should be nowhere close to the levers of power in this country. 06:03 And yet, in the final days of the Trump administration, it seems like absolutely everyone had a line of communication open to Meadows. 06:09 A trend continued on the 6th when everyone from Fox News host Hannity or Ingram, Brian Kilmeade to unidentified members of Congress, you know, trapped in the Capitol while the mob is beating down the doors to the president's own son, Donald Trump Jr., are desperately trying to get the president to call off the violent riot he incited. 06:28 But at least when it came to the president himself, again, the pro coup forces won. 06:34 If those messages made it to Trump, he ignored them because he was too busy watching the violent and deadly riot on TV, reportedly gleefully rewinding as the mob he whipped into a frenzy threatened to hang Mike Pence and assaulted police officers with flagpoles and bear spray and their own weapons. 06:50 And all this speaks to the worst proclivities of Trump, which is surround himself with and listen to the worst people with terrible information. 06:58 Congresswoman Elaine Lurie is a Democrat representing Virginia's second district. 07:02 She sits on the bipartisan committee investigating January 6th. 07:05 And she joins me now. 07:07 First, let's start with the current President Joe Biden's actions on waiving privilege on the visitor logs and the significance and importance of that. 07:19 Elaine Luria Well, again, this is a great step forward for the committee. 07:22 It's been very helpful, the records we've already received from the archives and the fact that we'll now have access to the visitor logs, as you mentioned. 07:29 Of course, Trump could challenge this like everything else in the courts. 07:32 But the precedent has shown that the courts have upheld the need of the committee to have this information. 07:36 And within 15 days, we could have these logs. 07:39 So it's very important to us to understand who was... 07:42 There with the president who had access to the White House, who was meeting with him with other people in the White House during this time frame surrounding January 6th. 07:49 So it really is a good step forward for the committee. 07:51 And we're very hopeful that we'll receive those in the 15 day time frame. 07:54 Chris Hayes You said something in the Washington Post I want to read to you and have you elaborate on. 07:57 You said that the texts described that Meadows received are key to the investigation because they tie things together. 08:03 There's an immediacy to them. 08:04 You can tease out the facts and learn more about personal relationships. 08:07 Luria said, noting text messages often allow investigators to see how familiar people are with each other and how they interact in real time. 08:14 It seems like the committee has learned quite a bit from mapping this out. 08:20 Elaine Luria Certainly, you know, you've mentioned a few texts that have been cited and requests for interviews and subpoenas that we've issued to different people we want to hear from from the committee. 08:29 But these are just a few of thousands of texts. 08:31 So it is it's fascinating to be able to review these documents and understand, first of all, I mean, who had access to the cell phone number for the chief of staff, the president of the United States? 08:40 And then to look at who were these people who were texting with the frequency? 08:44 What did he respond to? 08:46 I mean, I think that's key to say these are things he thought were important. 08:49 These were things he didn't think were important. 08:51 You have media personalities. 08:52 You have current and former members of Congress. 08:54 You have a whole host of people that we're familiar with in this plot, in this scenario, who are just bombarding the former chief of staff with this information. 09:04 And teasing that out and understanding who were the players in this is just 09:09 It's really fascinating. 09:10 You can see personal connections. 09:13 You can see relationships who was asking for favors. 09:16 It really does provide an insight in how the Trump White House was functioning and who had access to the people closest to the president. 09:24 So it's incredibly useful for the committee to have this information. 09:27 Chris Hayes I wonder if you could clarify something for me. 09:29 You may not be able to, but the Washington Post piece cited this one text from a Freedom Caucus member, which, you know, the sort of ultra conservative wing of the Republican Party in the House, saying if POTUS allows this to occur, and this is before January 6th, it's on the first or second when they sort of get the plan, we're driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic. 09:48 And I couldn't tell if that was... 09:50 Someone saying allowing to occur, meaning allowing Joe Biden to be certified as the president or allows this plot to occur in which Mike Pence overturns the election like that member was pro coup or anti coup. 10:04 Elaine Luria So the way I read the text and the way I understand it is that if we allow this to occur, if we allow the vice president to follow this plot of these false electors and say that he can change the outcome of the election. 10:15 So that's the context in which I understand that text. 10:19 Chris Hayes I mean, there's something about that language was driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic. 10:22 It was so striking to me because it's exactly the kind of thing that it's language close to what I've used on this program. 10:26 It's an accurate description of how what the existential stakes were here. 10:31 And here you have apparently a very conservative Republican recognizing in real time precisely what they were seeing in front of their faces, as is evidenced in many of the other texts of people whose politics are. 10:42 I hate and have nothing in common with, who at the very least understood that what was being contemplated was essentially an existential threat to American democracy. 10:53 Elaine Luria I think that's true. 10:54 And I think very few of those people who understand that threat have stood up and come forward. 10:58 I applaud my colleagues, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, those who understood that and voted in favor of the impeachment of Donald Trump. 11:06 But I think that there are many more who could provide a voice and information to the committee that would be important in understanding what the different camps thought and felt and the influence that they were trying to apply on the former president as we approach January 6th and the events of that day. 11:22 Chris Hayes We expect there will be some lawsuit and some legal wrangling over the White House visitor logs. 11:29 We also expect, I think, given how courts have ruled and have ruled in a fairly expedited fashion, the committee will get access to them. 11:35 Where are you in the arc of this investigation? 11:40 Elaine Luria Well, we've received a lot of information from the archivist. 11:44 We still have additional information that the archivist is compiling and provided to the committee or preparing to provide to the committee. 11:51 And then information is coming in on a regular basis. 11:53 So it is key to the investigation that we're carrying out. 11:57 And these visitor logs are really important. 11:59 I think I've said before that 187 minutes, over three hours, 12:03 that the president observed via the TV, like you said, what was going on. 12:07 And he didn't take action. 12:08 He didn't stand up. 12:09 He didn't make a public statement to say, stop this violence, go home in a forceful way. 12:13 It's really important to us to understand who was there in the White House, who might have been having conversations with him on that very day. 12:19 And, you know, all of the times we're talking about leading up to January 6th. 12:22 Chris Hayes All right, Congresswoman Elaine Luria, thank you for your time. 12:26 Elaine Luria Thank you. 12:27 Chris Hayes After he was formally and publicly dumped by his accountant this week, Donald Trump did the only thing that he knows how to do, firing off a classic statement full of wild claims and inflammatory language and really long. 12:38 The only problem is it looks like his response to getting dumped may have made things even worse. 12:43 Next, what we know now about those financial documents and why the attorney general of New York might have caught Trump in a lie after this. 12:56 There's a collective shock in the Trump world following the announcement that his company was dumped by its longtime accounting firm, Mazars. 13:04 Earlier this week, the New York attorney general, who's been investigating Donald Trump's business practices since 2019, released this letter from the accounting firm, which says that their work for him from 2011 to 2020, quote, should not be relied upon. 13:17 Person close to Trump told the Daily Beast, I have said for years this whole thing is one big fishing expedition. 13:22 The Mazar's news was the first time I started thinking, hey, this might be serious. 13:27 Trump himself is clearly freaking out about this. 13:29 He was kicked off Twitter. 13:30 So yesterday he released this unusually lengthy statement for raging pages insisting the whole thing is a witch hunt. 13:35 And then in a move he seemed to think was helpful to his case. 13:39 He posted another Mazar's letter from 2014, which carried the same warning about the reliability of his financial statement, saying we have not audited or reviewed the accompanying financial statement and accordingly do not provide any assurance about whether the financial statement is in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. 13:57 And a letter like this was apparently attached to, quote, each financial statement dating back many years. 14:02 It closes the line, users of this financial statement should recognize they might reach different conclusions about the financial condition of Donald Trump if they had access to properly prepared records. 14:12 He posted that one himself. 14:13 Make no mistake, it's a very big deal. 14:16 I mean, Trump used his financial statements to get millions of dollars worth of loans to prop up his image as a successful businessman as well. 14:23 Aswin Soob Sang is a senior political reporter, the Daily Beast, one of the reporters chronicling the reaction of those close to Trump to the Mazar's decision. 14:29 Danya Perry is both a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York and a former New York state deputy attorney general. 14:36 And they both join me now. 14:38 So let's start with your reporting about the reaction inside the circle to this, which seems to have people spooked. 14:45 Asawin Suebsaeng No, absolutely. 14:47 Look, and these are people who have operated under the assumption that if you are Donald Trump or you work very close to him, the story of Trumpism over the past half decade has been escaping consequences. 15:01 But for the first time in a while, when you hear it in the content of what they're saying and also in the timbre of their voice, when you're talking to people who are very close still to former President Trump, whether they're operating in his legal orbit, in his business empire or in his political realm, when they talk about the letter that was just sent. 15:20 There are many of them who view it as important. 15:23 Do they think this will definitely bring down his business empire 100 percent? 15:28 No, not necessarily. 15:29 Or at the very least, they think it's way too early to tell. 15:33 But when they actually read this thing, some of them tried to get directly in Donald Trump's ear to tell him over the past years. 15:40 several days or so. 15:42 Look, you need to take this more seriously. 15:44 They are not messing around. 15:46 And Mazars just doesn't do this if there is nothing for you to worry about. 15:51 Chris Hayes Yeah. 15:51 And then after this long statement, there's this letter from the attorney general basically says your statement defending yourself contradicts things that you have, you know, essentially filed in court that you're contradicting yourself, Danya. 16:05 This is the letter to the judge dated today. 16:07 It is not unusual for parties to a legal proceeding to disagree about the facts, but it's truly rare for a party to publicly disagree with statements submitted by his own attorneys and assigned pleading. 16:16 let alone one day after the pleading was filed. 16:18 That is what Mr. Trump has done here. 16:20 What's the significance of that? 16:24 Danya Perry Really significant. 16:25 This is, as you said, Chris, a very big deal. 16:29 You know, it is a big deal in his business life. 16:33 It's a big deal in the legal proceedings against him, but the civil enforcement proceedings and potentially the criminal proceedings. 16:40 In this letter, he or his public statement, he admits a lot of the facts that are in contest. 16:48 Right. 16:49 I mean, and you do rarely see that, as the attorney general said in her papers to the judge today. 16:56 Rarely within a day or ever do you see a counseled client or target of an investigation come out and make admissions that go both to knowledge and to intent. 17:07 So in the short term, he has contested some facts that he, through his lawyers, have alleged 17:15 in the proceedings against the attorney general's office, including his knowledge of the financial statements, his understanding of the business, its assets, its values, and the like. 17:25 He just, in his answer a short while ago, contested any knowledge of those things and then today made this public statement that shows not only was he aware that the financial statements could not be relied upon, 17:40 But he also showed this intimate familiarity with a lot of the underlying assets and values of them that will not serve him well going forward. 17:49 Chris Hayes Yeah. 17:49 One of the examples, I think, if I'm not mistaken here, is that previously they had sort of, you know, undersworn pleading said he didn't know what brand value was. 17:57 It just never, you know. 17:58 And in this, he has a long disquisition on brand value. 18:01 It's like, well, you clearly do know what brand value is. 18:03 Like you are contradicting directly. 18:05 And a lot of my understanding is a lot of the pleadings they put in was kind of like, 18:09 I don't know anything was the sort of theme here, which is belied by the very lengthy statement, Dania, that he released getting into some of the weeds of the business's valuation. 18:21 Danya Perry Correct. 18:22 And that's going to be a defense of his in both in the attorney general's investigation and the district attorney's investigation, is that, you know, he's at the top of this organization. 18:33 He doesn't know. 18:34 He's not familiar. 18:35 Other people do this. 18:36 He hires the best accountants, the best lawyers. 18:39 And here he is in a publicly filed statement saying, actually, I do know. 18:44 I mean, to the extent anyone thought maybe he didn't understand the value of the brand. 18:50 Here he is saying it in his four page statement over and over and over. 18:55 So the attorney general seized on it immediately, put that in front of the judge to say, judge, you shouldn't listen to anything they're saying in the answer. 19:02 You should go ahead and order these depositions to take place immediately. 19:08 Chris Hayes And Swin, you know, there's I mean, I think we've all covered what you said, the theme of sort of, you know, lack of accountability and sort of getting away with stuff for decades, really. 19:17 I mean, if you go back and certainly over the course of his presidency, though, he was impeached twice. 19:22 I think there's a lot of focus on. 19:24 the possibility of criminal charges, how you would make that. 19:27 But it strikes me that the civil case moving forward here could present an enormous, almost existential threat for the business. 19:34 I mean, you know, they shut down the Trump Foundation. 19:37 That was a relatively small thing. 19:38 But they could have very, very serious, like business-wise, the enterprise can have very serious problems on its hands in this civil channel. 19:47 And I wonder how much that's sinking in. 19:50 Asawin Suebsaeng No, absolutely. 19:51 I mean, with Trump himself, he has been telling people for days that if you're asked about it or if you're on TV talking about, just say my business empire is doing great, never been better, no matter what the witch hunting prosecutors or whatever are trying to do to it. 20:05 So that's the swagger he's trying to project that, again, might be belied by developments in actual reality. 20:12 But going back to your point about how this actually could spell significant trouble for his business empire, which in many ways was built upon, as was his political ascension, not maybe not necessarily legally speaking, but at least morally and substantively speaking, a sort of fraud, a kind of gravata that he was something more than he was. 20:34 But to the people we spoke to who are still close to the former president, 20:38 All of them said across the board that they believe that this latest development, if anything, if it's going to have a political consequence, one of them is probably going to simply be that it could definitely harden his resolve to run again for the White House in 2024. 20:53 Because as we all know here, if you're sitting in the Oval Office, you enjoy the protections of 21:02 not enjoy right now, now that he's a post-president. 21:05 Chris Hayes Yeah, it is. 21:05 I mean, there is a stay-out-of-jail issue about running for president now that I think looms over all of this. 21:13 Aswan Supesang and Danya Perry, thank you both.