Capehart and Abernathy on the special counsel appointed to oversee Trump investigations

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Democrats have held the Senate, but Republicans clinched the House this week, setting off a seismic shift within that chamber's leadership.

  To discuss that and more, we turn to the analysis of Capehart and Abernathy. That is Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and his Post colleague Gary Abernathy. David Brooks is away tonight.

  And welcome to you both.

  A busy week, a busy Friday evening.

  And I want to start with the news just today.

  Jonathan, you have the attorney general of the United States appointing a special counsel to investigate a former president. It's an extraordinary moment. And I wonder, as you watch the way he did it and the person he appointed, what does all this say to you about how the Department of Justice is viewing this?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, one, this is huge news.

  Two, to your question how the Justice Department is viewing this, they view this as a significant — well, significant cases that needs to be looked into by a significant person in American life, in American political life, a former president who just announced he's seeking the Republican nomination for the next presidential cycle, which the attorney general said was the — was the thing that happened that necessitated this move.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Right.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  And I think it should say to the American people, one, and I think also the attorney general also announced, yes, we have been investigating, but we're taking this so seriously that we're giving it to a special counsel, who is quite literally out of the Justice Department mean.

  He's over at The Hague, if memory serves. And this person will be in charge of running the rest of the investigation. It is an attempt by the Justice Department, by the attorney general to give the American people confidence that the investigations are being done fairly and being done impartially, in that no favor is being given or taken away from Donald Trump.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Gary, as part of this work, they're going to determine if there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.

  If there are criminal charges, do you think former President Trump should still run for office?

• GARY ABERNATHY, The Washington Post:

  Well, Amna, Merrick Garland has been under tremendous pressure to do more, to take a more aggressive stance in these investigations by a lot of folks on the left. And this is an escalation of that.

  The only thing, I feel bad for the American people, frankly, because, much like the Mueller investigation, we're in now for day after day of headlines, and commentary, and speculation, and breaking news, and leaks about what the special — what the special counsel is investigating and which direction it's going and what it means for us all.

  And that's too bad, not to say this wasn't a proper step, Amna, but it would be nice if the prosecutor could do his work and then announce later what he's found, without all the speculation and headlines in between. But we know from Mueller and the Russia report how this is going to play out.

  We know that The Post reported just a couple of days ago that Justice doesn't really think that Trump had these unclassified documents — or these classified documents — I'm sorry — at Mar-a-Lago because of any interest in trying to profit from them or any nefarious reason, other than he thinks they're his.

  Well, he's wrong. But that's not a real strong legal case, I think, to make against him, and the same with January 6 investigation. We have seen an awful lot of things come out of the January 6 Committee, nothing that really seems to rise to the level of criminality. But people will disagree about that. We will see what comes out with it.

  But should he keep running if he's charged? I don't know. But if there's a way to bring Trump's base back to him just at a moment when it seems like maybe they had reason to separate, this is the type of thing that seems to do just that.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Jonathan, I see you scribbling furiously.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Gary said people disagree. I'm going to disagree.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Please.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  One, I know that our that our paper said that investigators think that President Trump took the papers not for any monetary advancement, but because he just wanted to have them.

  It's still illegal. Those papers did not belong to him. They do not belong to him. They belong to the American people, which is why there are laws against taking classified material.

  To your point — to the point about leaks happening, this is not a bad day for the American people because a special counsel was appointed. This is a fantastic day, because it tells the American people that the gears of justice are grinding on Donald Trump, in the sense that he is not above the law. He is at some — is being held accountable through the special counsel process.

  And if the special counsel says there's no — we don't have enough to indict him, well, at least the American people will know and the evidence will be laid out whether — the reasons why or why not.

  The one thing that's different between this special counsel and what happened with Robert Mueller is that we have an attorney general who, when he gets this gets this report, he's not going to hold on to it, recast it in a way that mischaracterizes what the report actually says, and then releases it long after the narrative has been baked, and it's almost impossible to tell the American people or even show the American people what really happened.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Gary, when you look at Republican leadership, though — and you have talked about there being more leaders willing to break with President Trump, especially recently.

  You're coming off the midterms, right, where Republicans did recapture the House, but really underperformed, failed to get to the Senate, largely because of Trump-backed candidates. Do you think Republicans continue to stand by him, as this probe now moves forward?

• Gary Abernathy:

  I don't think Republican leader so much will coalesce back around him, Amna. I could be wrong. I have been wrong about that before.

  But I think that what I'm talking about are the grassroots Republicans out there in Trump land, Trump world, across the country, who are looking at DeSantis, looking at other candidates who might be good alternatives now, especially based on the performance of the midterms, in part, but also, in the part, on Trump bizarrely attacking Ron DeSantis, calling him DeSanctimonious the other — a few days before the election, which just seemed strange.

  But now it just seems like, any time Trump comes under attack, the base kind of wraps themselves back around him again to — like a wall of protection. And this is exactly the type of thing that could cause that. We will see if it's — to what degree that may happen.

• Amna Nawaz:

  We will see. We will see.

  I want to get to Congress now, because there's a lot of shifts going on there right now. And, Jonathan, as we move into this next Congress, you have got a lot of activity on the Democratic side. You have Speaker Pelosi stepping down, a huge generational shift, right, Hakeem Jeffries announcing his bid for leadership.

  Yesterday, as Pelosi was addressing her colleagues, she said this: "For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic Caucus that I so deeply respect. I'm grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility."

  At the same time, Jonathan, Republicans are now taking control. We have a divided Congress. What is ahead? Is it gridlock? Is there a possibility for shared goals?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  There's a — there's always a possibility for shared goals.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

  And I don't think I — no. Let me deal with Speaker Pelosi first. I agree with President Biden when he said that she was — quote — "the most consequential speaker in history." And there's no denying that if you look at what she has been able to do as speaker of the House, most notably getting the Affordable Care Act passed through the House without a single Republican vote.

  Every time I have interviewed Speaker Pelosi and I'm talking to her about the machinations of the House and whether something is going to — whether she's going to be able to get something over the finish line, she will always say: I got the ACA through without a single Republican vote.

  That is — that is a huge accomplishment. And I think millions of Americans are very happy that she was able to do that. The other thing I want to note is that Speaker Pelosi, while she says it's time — the hour has come for the next generation, she's been bringing that next generation along since 2018, in the sense that, remember, she promised, when Democrats retook the House, that she would stay for a finite period of time.

  But what did she do? Katherine Clark was assistant speaker. Hakeem Jeffries was in the leadership. Pete Aguilar, I believe, was deputy whip to Whip Clyburn. The old three and the new three have been working together for years now.

  And the fact that each one of them today or late yesterday announced that they were running for leadership positions, each one, Jeffries for Pelosi, Clark for Hoyer, Aguilar for Clyburn, shows that this is a — for Democrats in disarray — we're always like, Democrats are in disarray. This is probably going to be one of the smoothest transitions of power within the Democratic Caucus perhaps ever.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I will leave — I will leave Gary to talk about what's happened over on the other side.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I do talk about the Republican transition.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Amna Nawaz:

  Let's talk about that, Gary, right?

  You have got some Republicans, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, saying, our priority is to investigate. We want to look into Hunter Biden. We want to look into the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago. You have other new members coming in and saying, you know what? That's not my priority. I was elected to fix inflation, gas prices, and so on.

  How does a leader, any leader, maybe Kevin McCarthy, likely Kevin McCarthy, how do you herd everyone the same direction in that caucus?

• Gary Abernathy:

  Yes, it's not easy, Amna and Jonathan.

  Republicans got elected because they campaigned on how bad inflation was, how high gas prices were, that we need to address the Southern border. And one of the first things they do is hold a press conference and talk about the Hunter Biden hearing, investigation opening.

  You know what? That's a legitimate investigation, in my opinion. And there are some other legitimate investigations. But keep in mind that's not why you got returned to control of the House, as narrow as it's going to be.

  So focus, at least publicly, on the things that you campaigned on, that you're going to tackle those things, because, if you don't, you're not going to be there for very long. It's going to be a very short time before the Democrats are returned back to power.

  So, hopefully, one — one item I think of agreement that they could look at and start working on together would be the immigration problem, Amna. I think that both sides have a stake in fixing that. And, certainly, we have a humanitarian reason to fix that for the people coming across the border.

  I think that, if people would get serious, including the president, and say, you know what, we do need to tighten our security at the Southern border, we need to do something that's some kind of a path to citizenship for folks who are already here, let's get serious for the first time in 15 or 20 years and sit down — and it's going to take compromise on both sides.

  I think that's an area that's worth trying to say, can we bring both sides together and do something about the immigration issue?

• Amna Nawaz:

  I think there's a lot of consensus on both sides. Immigration absolutely needs to be fixed.

  I want to come to both of you quickly, though, before we go, just to end this week, if you would like to say something about a man who has sat at this table, your colleague the late Michael Gerson. I know you both know him, know his work.

  And I'd like to give you each an opportunity to say something.

  Jonathan.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  So, Amna, I — I didn't know Michael personally. The most time I spent with him was at this — was at this desk.

  But I did get to know him through his writing. And in going back and reading some of his writing, I came away believing writing was a calling for him, and his writing called us to higher ideals. He always talked to our — what we have in common, even if we are on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum.

  He had conviction, passion, compassion. And that is what I'm going to miss the most, his voice.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Now, Gary, what about you?

• Gary Abernathy:

  Yes.

  No, I would agree 100 percent with Jonathan. Michael was a guy who wrote with empathy and deep intelligence. I consider my — he was an evangelical Christian, and I consider myself one too. And even when I didn't — there were disagreements about how evangelicals dealt with Trump and so on, this is a guy who wrote very personally.

  He wrote with great empathy and great — when you came away reading him, whether you agreed with what he was writing or not, you came away thinking, there's something deep and thoughtful there to think about. It's a voice we're going to miss.

• Amna Nawaz:

  We will, indeed.

  And I can't think of a better note on which to end this conversation and the week.

  My thanks to both of you, Gary Abernathy and Jonathan Capehart.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Amna.

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