Lisa Graves, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy, joins Cheddar News to discuss what to expect in the fifth January 6 House committee hearing.

Cheddar Politics

What To Expect in the Fifth Jan 6. House Committee Hearing

thank everyone to enter politics later on Capitol Hill today, the House select committee investigating the insurrection will hold another hearing earlier this week. The committee looked at a pressure campaign on state officials and that included emotional testimony from a Georgia election worker. Then about the disastrous effects of attacks on her by then president trump and his allies. So what can we expect later today will help us break down. Today's hearing is lisa graves, former Deputy Assistant Attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy under the Clinton administration, lisa's such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. So what are you sort of expecting to hear today, Jeffrey Clark no doubt going to be one of the more important witnesses today. Yes, this afternoon we're about to hear about donald trump's efforts to pressure the U. S. Department of Justice and the highest officials, the highest law enforcement officials in our country to help advance his scheme to uh to basically steal the election. And um what we're going to see, I believe are statements from high officials of the department who rejected his efforts to put forward claims about the election that were false, that there was no evidence for and um that how they even threatened to resign if he attempted to replace the top law enforcement official with a crony, someone who was willing to do his bidding um and try to use the justice moment to distort um the election outcome. So obviously the most of the hearings. We've been seeing basically this legal argument that essentially President trump and his advisers knew that their argument about overturning the election was not legally sound. And in the last couple of days when we saw that with brad Ratzenberger testimony the other day was there was at least investigations into a lot of these claims and that showed that there was no voter fraud. That all the claims that they were saying were completely debunked. How much of that is sort of supplementing the legal theory that the president knew what he was doing was wrong and incorrect. That's exactly right. Your description of the evidence so far um really shows compellingly that there was no evidence supporting donald trump's claims that that there was fraud in this election. Um and that there was any fraud that would constitute a change in the outcome. I think brad raffensperger said that there were, they found through the investigation that the first two and a total of four people who had been deceased had voted not thousands like trump had claimed, but at every juncture his claim about the suitcases of ballots. His claims about the ballots in Arizona in Georgia and other places they were false and they had been proven false and yet trump continued to pursue them. And so I think what we're seeing is really evidence of a criminal conspiracy by this president Uh to undermine our very elections and to use his power as president to try to pressure and threaten elected officials to do his bidding. That's just wrong. It's not how America and American voting in American democracy are supposed to work. How are you, how do you feel? He said that the committee has been doing so far in sort of showing their investigation? Because look, every, every one of these hearings, it seems like we're getting more bombshell testimony and more bombshell evidence in terms of what happened on January six and the subsequent lead up to what happened on January six. How do you sort of assess how the committee has been doing thus far? Well, this is a bipartisan committee notwithstanding the attacks on it by trump and some of his um closest allies. The reality is, is that Representative Cheney and the other members of that committee have been doing tremendous work, a nonpartisan trans partisan work in service of our constitution. Their staff with nonpartisan career prosecutors who are putting the law first and putting our devotion to the constitution, the duty, the oath that people take to uphold the constitution first. And so I think they're doing an excellent job. It really is must watch tv. It's extraordinary, compelling and actually horrifying what we're seeing unfolding. It also shows the power of having people under oath or subject of penalty of perjury in terms of being able to get the truth. You can see that in Bill Barr's testimony where he said one thing to the congress under oath, while he was saying other things in public. Um and so the penalty of perjury in an investigation of congressional investigation or criminal investigation is a very sobering potential penalty. That really helps get the truth out. Oh, absolutely. And look, there's a lot of these people that are testifying like Rusty Bowers from Arizona even said they would still vote for donald trump if he was on the ballot. So it also kind of shows that these are not sort of your, your traditional, maybe liberal witnesses that shows that they're basically getting important people here. But this is also interestingly because obviously the committee's work is important, but the Department of Justice, the place that you used to work also is doing their own investigation here. Let's just say they find, you know, and we can argue that maybe they already have so far, let's just say they find criminal wrongdoing here. And they basically asked the Department of Justice to, to charge individuals in this particular case. Does this make Merrick Garland the attorney general's job incredibly hard given the fact that we have never prosecuted a former president in this in this country's history ever. Well, I think it's hard because of that because of that. But it's also, uh, necessary because we've never had a president engaged in criminal misconduct of this magnitude or even anything this way. Um, Certainly President Nixon said that he made the claim that the President does it, it can't be illegal. That's wrong. That's inconsistent with the oath that presidents take to uphold the constitution and the laws of the United States. Um, it's unprecedented because we've never had a person like trump, so willing to use his power to engage in a series of criminal acts to try to remain in power. And so, um, I think that it's necessary for Merrick Garland and just department to um, uh, convene a grand jury to pursue these cases and follow them where they go in order to vindicate the rule of law and ensure that this ongoing threat as Michael leading, Judge leading said that this clear and present danger to our democracy does not continue to pursue its lies and deceit to the american people, lies and deceit that have resulted in death threats To both public officials and private individuals? How concerned also Lisa are you of whether the American public is paying attention to these hearings because we've seen a wrath of different polls out there, there was one pull a few weeks ago that said, less than 9% of the public watch the first hearings and less than 30% are paying attention to the hearings in full. And obviously that is split among, you know, partisan lines. We have Republicans saying that they're not paying attention to this at all. So how concerned are you that these are incredible revelations about what the what the future of our democracy essentially had basically holding on by a thread, but yet we have so many people in this country that are not even paying attention to this. Well, it is, I think must watch TV, but not everyone is compelled to watch it obviously. Um I've seen polling that shows that a substantial majority of Americans believe that what happened on January six was wrong and was criminally wrong. Um, and so I do think that a majority of the people, when they understand uh the evidence and hear some of the evidence, they recognize that this is inconsistent with uh the american history, american tradition, american values and they want of the people involved to be held accountable. Um, but you don't have to have 100% of the people in favor of something to do it if it's the right thing to do. And so I do think what we're seeing is substantial support for these hearings, substantial support for accountability and a real rejection of Trump's claims and his behavior that day, even though as you point out, there are some partisans and fans of trump who aren't listening, refused to listen and continue to perpetuate the big lucrative lie that trump is telling absolutely lisa graves such great insight. Thank you so much for joining us. Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy