- Good evening and welcome to the Washington Week Extra. I'm Yamiche Alcindor. We're continuing our conversation on the January 6th insurrection and the investigation into that day. Joining me tonight to discuss all of this are four top reporters, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, White House correspondent for the New York Times, Carol Leonnig, Washington Post investigative reporter. She's the co-author of the book, "I Alone Can Fix It". Ryan J. Reilly, senior justice reporter for HuffPost. He is working on a book about January 6th and Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News and co-author of the book, "The Hill To Die On". Thank you all of you for being here. Carol, I want to start with you. There was this news that broke this week, that Vice President Harris was evacuated from the Democratic National Committee headquarters when there was a pipe bomb discovered. Talk a little bit about just how much worse this could have been based on your reporting. You've been doing so much great reporting on just sort of the security issues around this.
- You know, this has caused a lot of consternation and also it was a secret for a long time until this story broke recently. Kamala Harris hadn't talked very much about where she was at the time that morning on January 6th. And so I, hats off to the reporter who broke it. I will ask, I will add, rather, that this is very disconcerting for a couple of reasons. What we know from the FBI is that this pipe bomb was placed outside the DNC the evening before January 6th, according to the video they've been able to rustle up, and the same with the RNC, let's keep that in mind. It wasn't right on the DNC property, but it was close enough, you know, close enough for cricket. And she could have been harmed if that pipe bomb had gone off and the FBI concluded that this was a viable bomb, she was there at 1:00 and taken off the scene as a result of the concern that this bomb had been found.
- I mean, it's just incredible to think about the danger that she could have been in, potentially. I also want to ask you about something that, a separate topic, and this is about the fact that the former White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, said this week that she along with something like a dozen or so former Trump administration officials, they're gonna somehow get together and try to come up with a plan to try to stop former President Trump from spreading disinformation. I just want to get your take as a reporter who's talked to so many people who are close to him, who understand how he's thinking. Whether there's any sort of possibility that that's successful?
- You know, I think this is really interesting. I've interviewed a lot of the people who were close to President Trump that day and also in the days coming up to it for our book and for the Washington Post. And what I've found is that there's a real divide. There are people who are livid with the president to this day, Stephanie's among them, but there are others, livid at the way he handled January 6th. The way he essentially lit the match, tossed the grenade, allow this to go forward and did nothing to stop it. And that anger is fueling a lot of efforts to, of course, cooperate with the committee. What I think, Yamiche, and of course I don't like to speculate, but I think the power of this group is their actual testimony. Their actual testimony in hearings, in which they narrate their experiences. In which they explain this is how bad it was behind the curtain. You know, here's the Wizard of Oz, but here's how it really was that day. President Trump says it was no big deal. I'm here to tell you it was a big deal. And this is how nervous and scared and besieging we were that he'd do something. And I have to say, there's another important character in this. And that is the people around the vice president. They are as angry as you can imagine about the way in which Donald Trump targeted his most loyal vice president. Somebody who stood noddingly next to him for four years. And basically Donald Trump put a bulls-eye on his, on the back of his head on January 6th. And those are important narrators as well.
- Yeah, yeah. And as Carol was just talking about Ryan, there are people of course, who are seething with anger at what former President Trump did. There are also of course, people who don't think that he's responsible and I want to share with you, there's a poll that's out that said that 1/3 of Trump voters told the pollsters that the attack on the Capitol was quote, "Actually carried out by opponents of Donald Trump." What are your sources tell you about this sort of disinformation campaign or are people just sort of holding on to this sort of, these lies just because they can't really grasp the idea that these supporters were in fact supporters of the former president?
- Yeah I mean, it's sort of politically inconvenient for them. They don't want to acknowledge that, right? Like, that's bad if your supporters attack the Capitol because they believed the lies about the stolen election. So there've been all these efforts, whether it's saying that it was somehow Black Lives Matter or undercover Antifa people, or perhaps it was the FBI behind this. There's just all these sort of theories that they're throwing out the wall. And it is just sort of frustrating as a reporter to have to cover this because some of it is just like such nonsense and there's just basic facts that you could put up against the table and say, okay, well, here's the reasonable explanation for this, but it doesn't really seem to matter because people are so willing to believe these lies and just are so ready to find any excuse that would really, you know, sort of brush off the fact of what actually happened on January 6th, which is that people who though the election were stolen, stormed the Capitol. And because they believe these lies, they took action. Because if you actually think this is the crime of the century, it makes kind of sense that you would do something about it. If you thought that behind those doors of the Capitol, the crime of the century was happening, you might do something about that.
- Yeah, and then that same vein, Ryan, one of the people who are sort of spreading the disinformation and the lies is Matt Gaetz. He held a press conference that accused the federal government of being behind this. I would try to ask you a articulate question, but the question really is what in the world is going on?
- Yeah, I think with the specific individual he focused on was this individual Ray Epps and I completely think that there's a possibility now that Ray Epps is cooperating with the FBI after January 6th, but I would be absolutely astonished if he was working for the FBI during January 6th itself. And I think that there's a much more reasonable and, there's a much more reasonable explanation for what is going on with that case which was that this is an individual who was on the grounds of the Capitol, but didn't enter into the Capitol building. And there's no evidence the attack officers outside of the building. And those are really the lines that prosecutors have dropped. Because he's not in that category he would sort of be an outlier if he was charged, because he's only on the grounds of the Capitol. And prosecutors have decided that anyone who was in the grounds of the Capitol, there's too many of them, there's thousands of them. They're not gonna charge them so they're going to sort of, those cases are sort of gonna go away. So it would kind of be based on the evidence that's public facing right now. It would be unusual if this individual was charged, but that's really not the narrative that you see being spun up on many sort of right wing websites and on Fox News.
- Yeah, and Jake, there was this, most of the people who were marking the day, most of the lawmakers who were marking the day at the Capitol were Democrats, but you also had Liz Cheney and of course her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney there, and he was talking to reporters, he said, his daughter can take care of herself, but you could tell, obviously that this father wanted to be there to sort of back his daughter up. What are your sources telling you? What are you hearing about that sort of moment where you see them walking through the Capitol together? Given of course, the attacks and targeting that Liz Cheney's having to deal with.
- Yeah, I mean, Liz Cheney is an island at the moment. She and Adam Kinzinger are the two Republicans who are on this committee who are willing to talk about January 6th in a, or investigate January 6th in a truthful matter. I mean, it was a stunning scene, Dick Cheney, who was really quite frankly a, one of the biggest targets in the Bush administration. One of the biggest targets of House Democrats in the Bush administration. House Democrats were on the House floor. I was there and the chamber on January 6th this year. They were waiting and shaking his hand. It was a quite stunning, quite stunning scene. And I think, listen, I think this is a father who is backing up his daughter, but furthermore, I mean, Liz Cheney is in terrible political peril back home. She has a primary challenger that is endorsed by Donald Trump. She's in a state where Donald Trump is immensely popular and she is outspoken in her views that not only should they investigate January 6th, but they should also make sure that Donald Trump is never president again. She will do anything, she says, to make sure that Donald Trump is never the president of the United States again. And I think that is part of this, but it was a really remarkable scene. I mean Dick Cheney, just to take it back a little bit. Liz Cheney followed in her father's footsteps. She passed up on a Senate seat that she would have won when her seat came open a couple of years ago. Did not run for the Senate seat, stayed in House leadership. Her father was the House Republican Conference Chair and House Republican Whip from the, I think 1985 to 1989. He was in the House Leadership and Liz Cheney followed in her foot, in his footsteps. And to see him back in the House Chamber after all those years, 35, 36 years later, supporting her daughter was quite the scene.
- Yeah, it was quite the scene. And Jake, you also, you asked some really smart and I think really important questions in Punchbowl News. And two of them really stuck out to me. And one is, that does the select committee, of course, the January select committee investigating the attack, does it have enough time to really finish the job? But also you said, "Are the American people listening?" What's the answers to those questions?
- I think number one, the first question, there's a lot of, and I think I'm not the best most qualified to answer about the legal questions here, but the--
- [Yamiche] Well, you did write about it so I had to go to you.
- Yeah, no, no, no. I appreciate that and I'll answer. I think that a lot of stuff is being caught in the courts right now. I'm not an expert on how quickly they will move through the courts. Some of those questions on whether Donald Trump or whether the National Archives are being, will be forced to fork over some of those documents from the Trump administration, from the years of the Trump administration to the committee. That's an open question. So I think those kinds of cases could take some time, and it's not clear that that evidence, A, is dispositive to the result of the committee, and B, if it is dispositive, will be given over to the committee. It's obviously useful to the committee, but that doesn't mean they can't come to a result without those documents. That's number one. Number two, are the American people listening? And I don't know the answer to that. I think that the American people tend not to pay attention to what Congress does, unfortunately for me, and for some of us, 'cause I think it's the most important, some of the most important work in our country. And I, and furthermore, I think that people are really in their camps here. I think that people feel like it was, if you're a supporter of Donald Trump, you most likely believe, wrongly, incorrectly, that nothing happened here and it was overblown and it might've been Antifa, which it was not, it was Trump supporters and it might've been some, the FBI, which again, it was not, it was Trump supporters. And I'm not sure that many people are gonna be movable on that. But I think this goes beyond the political ramifications here and I think it becomes a question of this needs to go down in history. This needs to be documented for history. People need to be held responsible for what happened on January 6th. So I, so yes, we did ask that question, Yamiche, and it's a very important question, but the larger question is, and I think the larger dynamic that we need to keep in mind is that this is an incredibly important body of work for Congress to accomplish in the next 12 months.
- Yeah, it's an incredibly important, and Zolan, there are some federal judges who have been critical of prosecutors in particular, of the people that were attacking the Capitol. They're saying that prosecutors are pursuing mainly misdemeanor charges, not seeking jail time for many of the defendants. What do you hear from your sources on sort of how these people, who Jake was just talking about, some of them believing all sorts of lies, how they're being prosecuted by this justice system?
- Right, I mean, that criticism, like you said, has stretched from, you know, pundits to actual judges as well. I believe, you know, some in the DC region as well. So I, the criticism from some of the law enforcement is that when you're only going and charging with a misdemeanor charge, that you're making it hard to, at that point for some of these district judges to really build a case to say that there's, that that person should be indicted. And that they've also criticized some of the ambiguity in some of those charges. But look, also, you look to earlier this week, Merrick Garland came out and seemed to provide a pretty stern answer to a lot of those critics. They're concerned at this point, that one, something that is weighing on them, and then being the DOJ and the administration, is any hint that this investigation could be politicized as well. And you saw him go out and say that, right. It's also important to know, and I know Ryan knows about this, he's following closer than me as well, but just the breadth of this investigation of hundreds of cases at this point. So while you may have, you know, a set that is going to come down with a misdemeanor charge, you're going, there's going to be a range as well. And really, that speech earlier this week by the attorney general was revealing. You know, they're gonna be, they're aware they're gonna be criticized for the pace of the investigation for some of the charges that are gonna come out. But at the same time, as they near, as they continue to prosecute this, what they don't want is any hint that it's politicized whatsoever. Because as everyone on this panel has been saying throughout this, there were crimes that were committed that day. There were, it was one of the worst incidents in our country's history as well. So they want the investigation to be sound and the perception of it to be sound as well.
- And we only have about a minute left. So I just want to do a quick, quick, quick round-robin. Each of you tell me in 10 seconds, what's keeping you up at night, but also what's driving your reporting? Zolan, I'll start with you. 10 seconds.
- What's keeping me up at night? I would say, and I think Carol got at this before, when she was talking about just the threat to our democracy. It's not just political, it's not, as important as that is, it's not just the integrity of our elections, but I often think that one thing that doesn't get talked about enough is it seems like the various FBI and DHS bulletins that have gone out that have said these false statements, and they are false about election fraud, don't just have political ramifications, but are also a main factor that's emboldening domestic extremists in this country. So you may not just see--
- [Yamiche] Carol, 10.
- These, sorry. Round-robin, but go ahead, Carol, you got it.
- I'll try to be quick too, Zolan.
- [Yamiche] Carol, 10 seconds, what's keeping?
- I'm the most worried about the fact that I'm a journalist who devotes all my time to finding facts, as my colleagues do, and there's a large portion of America that rejects them right out of the gate. And we've got to find a way as journalists to connect with that group and make sure that they're not brainwashed and manipulated.
- [Yamiche] Yeah, Ryan 10 seconds.
- Yeah, I think the pipe bomber, obviously is still out there. And a lot of other people who committed violent crimes that day are still out there and there's a worry about what they could do when they're still on loose and they're not being monitored by any sort of court system.
- [Yamiche] And Jake, last one, you were in the building. What's keeping you up at night, but also what's driving your reporting?
- The two party system is quickly crumbling. We have a Republican party that doesn't believe in many facts as we know them. And furthermore, that the public frankly, doesn't pay attention to what's going on in its legislative branch, which I think is some of the most consequential work in this country.
- Absolutely, well thank you so much to all of you for sharing that. We'll have to leave it there tonight. Thank you so much to Zolan, Carol, Ryan and Jake for sharing your reporting and make sure to sign up for the Washington Week newsletter on our website. We'll give you a look at all things Washington. Thank you for joining us. I'm Yamiche Alcindor, goodnight.
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