Let’s Call It What It Was—Trump’s Failed Coup

Good evening from New York I’m Chris Hayes it was a failed coup
Let’s call it what it was in the immediate aftermath of the January 6th
Attack and the early revelations of Donald
Trump’s attempts both publicly and private to overturn a democratic
Election there was a kind of back and forth among scholars about
Whether coup was the appropriate term but as we learn more
Really does feel like that’s the best way to describe what we are talking
About here and today we got new evidence that
Supports precisely that earlier today the New York times first
Reported that not only did Donald trump press the justice department to say the
Results of the 2020 presidential election were corrupt
But there are contemporaneous notes that prove it quote
The exchange unfolded during a phone call on December 27th
Less than two weeks before the attack on the capital in which Mr. trump
Pressed the acting attorney general at the time Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy
Richard Donahue on voter fraud claims the department had disproved
Now the thing is Donahue the deputy attorney general was taking notes
And the department of justice turned those notes over to the house oversight
Committee and today they publicly released some of them now
Just a heads up because they are handwritten, they’re a little difficult
To read according to the deputy attorney general’s notes Donahue responded to
Trump saying quote I understand that the DOJ can’t and
Won’t snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election
It doesn’t work that way to which trump replied
Don’t expect you to do that just say the election was corrupt
And leave the rest to me and republican congressman
Just say it was corrupt president is asking the department of justice
To help him overturn the election and stay in power
Remember the deputy attorney general is writing this down because in that moment
One imagines he realizes the sheer transgressive
Gravity of what’s happening somewhat reminiscent of former FBI
Director James Comey’s contemporaneous notes of his interactions
With trump holy crap this guy is whoa I should put it in writing what the
President is asking us to do for posterity
We’re learning about this now because the house oversight committee got access
To these notes but in May trump’s acting attorney general Jeffrey
Rosen, who was on that call, was specifically asked about this under oath and he dodged the question prior to January 6, “Were you asked or instructed by President Trump to take any action at the department to advance election fraud claims or to seek to overturn any part of the 2020 election results?”
Well congressman as has just alluded to in your prior question I can tell you
What the actions of the department no sir no sir
I cannot tell Mr. ross assisted with my obligations today
About private conversations with the president one way or the other
Keep in mind that as trump was trying to get the department of justice to help
Him overturn the election that was of course not the sum total of the plotting
Trump and his allies made multiple calls the election officials in Maricopa
County Arizona pressuring them including one official who said he let the calls go to voicemail and did not return them. Trump called an official on the Wayne County, Michigan board of canvassers after she voted against certifying the county’s election results there was an invitation. The Republican leaders of the Michigan state legislature then flew to D.C. to meet with Trump at the White House there was the recording, of course, of Trump’s call to Georgia’s republican secretary of state. He actually made more than one who Trump told quote, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.” And when none of that worked, then of course there was the January 6th plot to overturn the election in Congress to assemble a crowd, send them towards the capital to pressure Congress and his own Vice President. And we are learning more about that as well. Republican Congressman, Mo Brooks of Alabama is now facing a lawsuit over a speech he gave the morning of January 6 explicitly telling the crowd to start quote, “Kicking ass.” This week, the Department of Justice denied representing Brooks in the case arguing among other reasons quote, “instigating an attack on the United States capital would not be within the scope of a member of Congress’s employment.” Fair point. It’s clear Brooks was part of the planning for Trump’s coup because Brooks said so himself. Check this out: back on December 21, 2020, more than two weeks before the insurrection, Politico just reported a good piece by Melanie Zanona. President Donald Trump huddled with a group of congressional Republicans at the White House on Monday where they strategized over a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results. Next month, Congressman Mo Brooks who is spearheading the long-shot push to overturn the election results in Congress organized a trio of White House meetings which lasted over three hours and include roughly a dozen lawmakers. It was a back and forth concerning the planning and strategy for January 6th, Brooks said in a phone interview. I mean, he literally said they were meeting about strategy to overturn the election!
On the record two weeks before it happened then, on the morning of January 6, Congressman Mo Brooks spoke at the same rally as Donald Trump. We’re now learning that when he stood up there and spoke about taking the protest to the capitol, he was wearing body armor. “I’ve got a message that I need you to take to your heart and take back home and along the way stop at the capitol. Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. What are the words that scare the hell out of socialists and we need Republicans alike, join with me: USA! USA! Washington, America, heed those words because we’re going to carry them right to you! USA, God bless America!”
And the fight begins today. Yeah, go kick ass…Well, they did. I wonder if, when Mo Brooks saw them beating the cops and cussing them and violently assaulting them, he thought, ‘Oh they’re kicking ass, I told them to kick ass. Mo Brooks was not the only congressman implicated in the plot to keep Trump in power. New York Times reports Mr. Trump did not name the lawmakers, the ones who were helping him, but at other points during the call, again this is the one that they took notes of, he mentioned Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio whom he described as a fighter.
A spokesman for Jordan said quote, “Congressman Jordan did not, has not, and would not pressure anyone in the Justice Department about the 2020 election.”
Sure, that Politico report from a few days before Trump’s DOJ meeting says quote, “Other members who were in attendance include some of Trump’s staunchest allies on the hill, such as Congressman Jim Jordan.” So he was in the same meetings plotting on how to overturn the election earlier this week. Congressman Jordan was asked if he had spoken to Donald Trump on January 6th.
Listen to this response. “First off, yes or no, did you speak with President Trump on January 6th?” “Yeah, I mean, I speak, I spoke with the President last week. I speak with the President all the time. I spoke with him on January 6. I mean I talk with President Trump all the time and that’s, that’s, I don’t think that’s unusual. Uh, I would expect members of Congress to talk with the President of the United States when they’re trying to get done the things they told the voters in their district to do. Uh, I, I , I’m actually kind of amazed sometimes if people keep asking this, but of course, I talk to the President on time. I talk to him, like I said, I talked with him last week on January 6th.”
“Did you speak with him before, during, or after the capital was attacked?”
“Uh, I’d have to go, I, I, I spoke with him that day after, I think, after, I don’t know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I, I just don’t know, uh I’d have to go back and I, I mean I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know, uh though, that when when those conversations happened. But um, but what I know is I spoke to him all the time.”
Boy, he looked comfortable answering those questions doesn’t he?! Now, if Jim Jordan was speaking to Donald Trump about the attack on the capital, that happened, he absolutely could not be on the committee investigating the attack because, as Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney pointed out, Jordan could be a material witness who’s called to testify. At some level, the coup plot was done out in the open. I mean reported in Politico.
We all saw it and when all else failed, when Trump could not pressure the election officials, when he could not enlist the Justice Department, when he did not have enough votes in Congress, the last thing left to him was the mob. And so he used the mob. That violent, bloody, insurrection—the failed coup—we saw was his final attempt after he tried everything else. But he’s not done trying.