>> don, pat cipollone is the ultimate insider. we have seen that he was involved in or present for or a witness for so many of the key conversations. generally speaking, his role was as a voice of reason, telling them, no, you can't take over the justice department. no, you can get on board with this. no, john eastman's theories are not legal. they're not constitutional. i think one of the questions your lips as i think abby phillip was alluding to this -- is how hard is doj going to push back against these executive privilege claims, because if we think to pat cipollone's videotaped deposition testimony, which we saw in some of the hearings, there were these moments when he was asked what was your conversation with donald trump. pat cipollone would pause, turned to his lawyer, a guy who i used to work with the doj, and cipollone would say, privilege. he would not answer. so, is doj willing to go to court to force them to give those answers, or are they will going to be able to negotiate some point, where they agree on what cipoll

pat cipollone and pat filled in the, white house counsel and his deputy under president donald j trump, were interviewed by the fbi in connection with boxes of sensitive documents that were stored at mr. trump's residence in florida after he left office. three people familiar with the matter said. mr. philbin was interviewed in the spring. it was unclear when mr. cipollone was interviewed. that means that attorney general merrick garland definitely had the information from the fbi interview when patrick philbin which was conducted in the spring all the attorney general was considering to seek a search warrant for donald trump's home. the wall street journal said more like deliberated for weeks over whether to approve the application for a warrant to search former president donald trump's florida home, people familiar with the matter said. the decision had been the subject of weeks of meetings between senior justice department and fbi officials. now that we know that deputy white house counsel patrick philbin definitely spoke with the fbi during that period when merrick garland was cons

>> well, don, pat cipollone is the ultimate insider. and i think we saw was involved in, present for, witness for so many of the key conversations. and generally speaking, his roles as a voice of reason, telling them no, you can't take over the justice department. no, you can't get on board with us fake elector scheme. no, john eastman's theories are not legal, they're not constitutional. and i think one of the questions here, and i think abby philip was just alluding to this, is how hard is doj going to push back against these executive privilege claims? because we think to pat cipollone's videotape deposition testimony, which we saw some of the hearings, there are these moments where he was asked what was your conversation with donald trump, pat cipollone would sort of pause, turned his lawyer again in michael perot, who are used to work for ideology, and we just say privilege. and he would not answer. so, is the og willing to go to court to force him to give those answers? or are they willing, are they going to be able to negotiate s

if pat cipollone turned a hypothetical and said, sir, is that illegal? is that privilege if you're talking about potentially committing a crime? >> he can argue to this, but i think he's on a losing side of this to a legal analyst point of view. first of all, you've got a number of court decisions against him. nixon, the supreme court said that this generalized assertion of executive privilege going to fail in front of a need in a criminal investigation. second of all, bruce lindsey tried to assert executive privilege, and the d.c. court of appeals knocked that down. and lastly we have the most recent suggesting in the civil context there's already a preponderance of evidence there may have been a crime committed. so there's the crime fraud exception. so i think all those things weigh against the privilege arguments, but it certainly can be a blame tactic. and overall i'd say one bright piece of news for cipollone in this is that doj does not subpoena targets. that's something they won't do. they don't just bring you in front of the grand jury. so it sou

. >> pat cipollone has gone from standing on the senate floor opposing you in the impeachment trial of donald trump, the first one to now cooperating with the fbi, presumably telling the fbi everything he knows about the documents at mar-a-lago. we are seeing congresswoman cheney come close to a microphone, but what's your reaction to where pat cipollone is now with his cooperation of the fbi? we'll go to the congresswoman whenever she needs to speak. >> cipollone is indicative of many people in the trump administration in that, they finally got to a point where there's a line they wouldn't cross. but they crossed an awful lot of lines before that. he was one of the trump enabler, as one of the trump defenders, and we saw that during the impeachment trial when he told the senate there was no evidence of print quote print cuoco was being discussed. that's his history. at the same time, he wouldn't go along with it and insurrection against the government, and i think sure being brought in placed under oath by the fbi, he's going to tell them the truth and in this case it's hard to imagin

you see that pat cipollone is essential to doj getting the full picture here. why is that? >> well, he's in all the rooms that matter. we learned from pat cipollone's own testimony in front of the committee and the testimony of others that essentially every time donald trump was pitched on one of these ridiculous ideas, let's seize voting machines, let's pressure the vice president to throw out electoral votes, pat cipollone is in the room. and generally speaking, he's pushing back, explaining to donald trump why we can't do that, why there is no evidence of fraud, why we can't lean on the vice president. so he's going to be a crucial witness. and this shows me that there's been a real change in the focus of doj's investigation. just in the last couple of weeks we've learned that doj was inside the white house. they were speaking to key staffers for vice president mike pence, and now we're talking about the white house counsel. so this is a big change in the investigation. >> the fact that it's cipollone, trump's white house counsel, does this -- does it confirm the justice

cipollone and today we learned it also subpoenaed his deputy, pat philbin. the new york times reported today that this is all coming quote, when federal prosecutors are sharpening their focus on the conduct of mr. trump and not simply the people who are advising him. in recent weeks, event investigators had asked witnesses questions about mr. trump and his actions including of people who worked in the white house. if you're only paying half attention to the january 6th hearings and i don't blame you, it's summertime, let me just clarify a couple of things before we move forward. grand jury subpoenas we're talking about right now are not subpoenas from the january six committee. we're talking about the grand jury, the committee that has been holding the public hearings you may have seen on primetime tv this summer is not the grand jury. these subpoenas are from the federal prosecutors at merrick garland's justice department and the feds have the ability to charge anyone they find has committed a crime. yes, that potentially could include the former president

cipollone they are not asking pat cipollone about his election work, they're asking pat cipollone about donald trump. there's no question about that. you are absolutely right. i do just want to make clear to people watching that this is why we make clear what we know and what we don't know. >> exactly. and that's important. >> important clarifications and also i think reflecting your different roles. >> right. >> you're a journalist, you are expressing your experience as a former federal prosecutor and looking into this circumstance. i want to take the whole theme of conspiracies and depositions and digital evidence and bring it to alex jones because there was a bombshell revelation in his trial yesterday regarding the fact that two years of his text messages on his phone are now in possession of the lawyers on the other side and there's some indication or expectation that the january 6th committee will ask for them. given the centrality of alex jones' role in the january 6th insurrection, his contacts with people in the orbit of trump at the very least, even the oath keepers, maggie, w

even in the course of their hearings, pat cipollone did come and testify. do you think there are other folks that are around the president that we may not even know about that may come up in headlines because they've been subpoenaed for the grand jury? >> i think that is a safe assumption. i think if marc short, chief of staff for mike pence and the white house counsel is before the grand jury, there must be other dozens of other top white house officials who've been subpoenaed that we just don't know about. i think it's interesting with pat cipollone, the white house declined to waive executive privilege when he went to testify. now that he's part of a criminal investigation, i think it's safe to assume that the white house counsel's office will waive privilege in this instance. and if that's the case, then pat cipollone will have a blank slate to talk about anything in respect to trump and everything that went on in the west wing on january six. so i think this investigation is really heating up. >> so fascinating, this breaking news because i want to rem

when donald trump was contemplating seizing voting machines pat cipollone was there pushing back. when donald trump was being advised he should try to take over doj, pat cipollone pushed back on that. on january 6 we know that cipollone urged donald trump to do something, to take action and we heard from one of the other witnesses in the committee, cassidy hutchinson, that as the capitol riot was unfolding pat cipollone said we're going to get charged with every crime in the book if we don't do something if donald trump goes down to the capitol. so he is rlg a central witness here, someone who is essential for doj to talk to. >> is he so central that he could have a credible executive privilege claim and if so could doj challenge it? >> well, so pat cipollone did claim executive privilege in front of the committee. >> sure. >> he might try to do the same or donald trump might try to step in and claim executive privilege in front of a grand jury. you can claim executive privilege, but there is a difference between claiming executive privilege and actually winning on executive privi

as white house counsel pat cipollone told us -- >> with respect to the whole election fraud issue, to me, making those claims. people were open to them early on because people were making all sorts of claims. the real question is, show the evidence, okay? >> it wasn't just the justice department, the trump campaign and the trump white house lawyers knew it. even rudy giuliani's own legal team admitted that they did not have any real evidence of fraud sufficient to change the election results. here is an email from rudy giuliani's lead investigator, bernie character on december 28th, 2020, to chief of staff mark meadows. mr. character did not mince any words. we can do all the investigations we want later, but if the president plans on winning it's a legislators and have to be moved. and this will do just that. mr. kerik one of the president win, but he didn't say in this email was what he would later tell the select many in a letter his lawyer wrote to us in november. the letter said, quote, it was impossible for mr. kerik and his team to determine conclusively whether there was wides

here is more from legal analyst elie honig. >> pat cipollone is the ultimate insider and i think that we've seen that he was involved in or present for or a witness for so many of the key conversations and generally speaking his role was as a voice of reason telling them, no, you can't take over the justice department. no, you can't get on board with this fake elector scheme, no, john eastman's theories are not constitutional. if we think to pat cipollone's videotaped deposition testimony which we saw in some of the hearings, there were moments where he was asked what was your conversation with donald cipol attorney and say privileged and he would not answer. so is doj willing to go to courts to force him to give those answers or are they going to be able to negotiate some sort of point where they agree on what cipollone will and won't give them. if they go to the courts, that will be a very high stakes battle and that could take months. and this is the next level up from marc short, from greg jacob, this is the white house counsel, he is in all the rooms for all the big meetings. so

even in the course of their hearings, pat cipollone did come and testify. do you think there are other folks who around the president that we may not even know about that may come up in headlines because they've been subpoenaed for the grand jury? >> i think that is a safe assumption. i think if marc short, chief of staff for might pence and the white house counsel is before the grand jury, there must be other dozens of other top white house officials who've been subpoenaed and we don't know about. i think it's interesting with pat cipollone, the white house declined to waive executive privilege when he went to testify. now that he's part of a criminal investigation, i think it's safe to assume that the white house counsel office will not waive privilege in this instance. and if that's the case, then pat cipollone will have a blank slate to talk about anything in respect to trump and everything that went on in the west wing on january six. so i think this investigation is really heating up. >> so fascinating, this breaking news i want to remind people at ho

pat cipollone has been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury investigating attempts to overturn the 2020 election. they are in discussions about his appearance before that panel including how to handle executive privilege issues. let's bring in areva martin. when it comes to executive privilege, i think as we talk about what these conversations could be between pat cipollone's attorneys and the doj, that grand jury, i should say, what is covered by executive privilege? just remind us here. what conversations could potentially be covered. >> what we know is that pat cipollone and others have claimed executive privilege to allow them basically to avoid answering questions about conver conversations, private conversations they claim they had with donald trump leading up to and including on january 6. we know with respect to the january 6 committee that pat cipollone, although he appeared before that committee, that he used executive privilege oftentimes to avoid answering specific questions. and this is going to test, quite frankly, whether that privilege holds now that we know that there i

and that pat cipollone according to the white house lawyer, according to the archives lawyer, pat cipollone, the white house lawyer, wanted the material returned. they asked repeatedly for the material to be returned and a ad not been returned. they asked again in may 2021, please return to material, in fact, they were almost begging. they set besides the boxes, they noticed several other high-profile items that had not been returned. former president trump correspondence with kim jong-un, the north korean dictator. his correspondence with former president obama had not been returned, even though they discussed a return for that. it really needed all these things back. wihat that shows is that long before the raid happened on mar-a-lago, the national archives and former president trump's lawyers were concerned that he had not given the materials back that he was supposed to return. >> just to be clear, based on the reporting, white house counsel pat cipollone and the national archives were both in agreement that records kept in the white house residence were supposed to be turned over, but

a federal grand jury has subpoenaed former white house counsel pat cipollone. he's already told the january 6th committee there was no evidence of voter fraud in 2020. but now the doj wants to hear from him. cnn senior crime and justice correspondent katelyn polantz joins us now. what you got? >> reporter: john, this is a really significant step in this criminal investigation into january 6th. pat cipollone is the highest ranking person in the trump white house that we know of who has received a subpoena from the justice department to testify to a grand jury so our pamela brown was able to confirm this last night that pat cipollone has indeed received a grand jury subpoena to testify and this is a really drastic fact-finding step for justice department investigators to take. we already know that cipollone testified to the house select committee, was speaking about what he witnessed up to a certain point about january 6th. he was unable to share with the house committee what he heard donald trump saying, and was really trying not to speak about trump himself. bu

we all saw in the public hearings pat cipollone invoke executive privilege. he kept looking over at his lawyer and his lawyer was kind of giving him one of the signs so he wouldn't testify about certain things. well the january six congressional committees don't really have an effective vehicle to challenge, to go behind those assertions of privilege and try to get testimony. not so in a federal grand jury. there's a robust vehicle to test someone's absorption of privilege. you know what we do if a witness assert privilege in a grand jury? we package up the information and we go see the chief judge, barrel how in federal district court in d.c. and we litigate the privilege. they don't have the opportunity to do that at the j six committee if somebody asserts privilege. and i have to say, nobody knows for sure but when that privilege is litigated in the event pat cipollone tries to assert executive privilege in the grand jury barrel howell could very well say no because one it's not donald trump's privilege to invoke anymore it's joe biden's and he seems entir

cipollone, according to the archives lawyer, pat cipollone, the white house lawyer, wanted the material returned. they had asked repeatedly for the material to be returned and it had not been returned. and they were asking again in may 2021 to please return the material. in fact, they were almost begging. and they said besides the boxes, they had noticed several other high pro-file items that had not been termed. president trump's correspondence with kim jong-un. his correspondence with former president obama had not been returned even though that is customary for presidents to return that. and that they really needed all of these things back. what that shows is that long, long, long before the raid happened on mar-a-lago, the national archives and former president trump's lawyers were concerned that he had not given materials back he was supposed to return. >> based on your reporting, white house counsel pat cipollone and the national archives were in agreement records kept in the white house residence were supposed to be turned over but they weren't, is that correct? >> according to t

cipollone is because they and pat cipollone knew that the committee is on the clock, that the committee likely to be disbanded after the midterms. so they just wanted to take whatever they could get from cipollone. doj is different. they have time on their side and they have more power to enforce their subpoenas. so ghelt the information that pat cipollone held back and they may even get it from philbin. >> and we'll be watching for more on that. the justice department is also suing peter inavarro, they want emails. he was using a private e-mail account that he used while working at the trump white house. it is rare for someone to be sued over this records act. they apparently tried to negotiate as i understand it? navarro was refusing unless he was given immunity. not clear from what. but this is a whole new can of worms. >> but his emails, further proof that trump world complaint that hillary clinton's private email server was nothing more than implied outrage. because he is saying i'll give you government property back if you give me an immunity deal. and we don't know the extent of

so pat cipollone, pat philbin, both working at the white house counsel's office during the trump administration and then at the end afterwards when they left they became the liaisons for president trump to the national archives, handling the turnover of his presidential records. and any records he may have had. around the time that they were interviewed and others were being interviewed, we also know that there were subpoenas that the justice department was sending out, subpoenas for things like the documents to get them back themselves and also subpoena for surveillance footage at mar-a-lago to keep an eye on those documents, what was going on around them. "the new york times" reported yesterday, last night, there was concern that federal investigators had once they were able to look at that surveillance video, they had some concern of what they saw, all of this leading ultimately to the search. at this point in time, donald trump's team would not have seen that affidavit, we're going to have to see what they say if they want it to be released or not. but we're going to look and see what happe

can pat cipollone offer more insight than what he told the january 6th committee? we'll look at the doj's new subpoenas and the criminal probe. that's next. i've asked my wife and plan member, to back k me up. you're not my wife. no, i just stand in for her on set during the boring stuff. the boring stuff? are you kidding, i'm announcing a family plan where just two lines gets everyone the $15 price. i'm literally revolutionizing the category! yeah, she owes me huge for this one. can you please let her know i'm upset? really? no. don't tell her i said that. this... is the planning effect. this is how it feels to have a dedicated fidelity advisor looking at your full financial picture. this is what it's like to have a comprehensive wealth plan with tax-smart investing strategies designed to help you keep more of what you earn. and set aside more for things like healthcare, or whatever comes down the road. this is "the planning effect" from fidelity. non-gaming tribes have been left in the dust. wealthy tribes with big casinos make billions, while small tribes strugg

pat cipollone, former trump white house counsel, subpoenaed. >>> alex jones at his defamation trial admitting the sandy hook massacre was 100% real, after previously suggesting it was a hoax and the stunning moment on the stand when jones was told his legal team accidentally sent his text messages to the other side's lawyers >>> the alert tonight on surging credit card debt what experts say you should do about it right now. >>> and remembering one of the most famous voices in baseball >> announcer: this is "nbc nightly news" with lester holt >>> good evening, everyone abortion rights advocates are savoring a significant and rare post-roe v. wade victory tonight. not in a statehouse but at the ballot box in kansas where voters upended assumptions, defeating by a wide margin a constitutional amendment that would have opened the door to a ban on abortions in kansas. the mechanics of the victory mustering an unexpectedly large voter turnout in the mostly red state, quickly becoming a case study for democrats and republicans as they weigh the potential impact of abortion as an animating issue in t

i think switching years by city pat cipollone conversation. his testimony is very valuable. he is one of the few people that can connect transactions, his words, his thoughts to actual criminal activity. i think with respect to what tish james is doing as attorney general, looking into the trump organization on the civil side is really trying to probe and see how far they can connect the dots all the way up to the top to donald trump or one of his senior officials. that is where the investigation is presently. >> thank you both so much. >>> the self claimed most influential gathering of conservatives in the world getting underway. what is really at stake after kansas voters dealt the party a major blow. and only 24-hour steroid free spray. while other allergy sprays take hours astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can... astepro and go. i had been giving koli kibble. it never looked like real food. with the farmer's dog you can see the pieces of turkey. it smells like actual food. as he's aged, he's still quite energetic and youthful. i really attribute that to diet.

what our reporting shows us is that pat cipollone's teams are in communications over the parameters of the testimony and whatever he's able to tell this grand jury at the end of the day. this is someone who has claimed executive privilege on a number of things. we saw him claiming executive privilege during certain moments with his -- during his deposition interviews with lawmakers on the select committee. so he's likely to try to establish some parameters once again, but it will be the department of justice's work to try to push him beyond that as they get deeper into this investigation and as we've previously reported, investigators are owning in the criminal investigation on the former president himself, which means that cipollone's going to have to decide whether or not he's ultimately going to fully cooperate or not. >> jacqueline alemany, thank you so much for being with us this morning. >>> there's big news from the united nations amid worries of global hunger from the war in ukraine, and it has to do with that ship you see right there. and if you're listening to us, it looks li

we saw pat cipollone refusing to answer questions about his director interactions and communications with the president. the committee gave him a lot of leeway in that respect. it does seem with more and more of these trump officials being summoned to the grand jury that prosecutors are, in fact, sort of priming for what will be a fight over executive privilege, and how much information they can get out of especially eric hirschmann, on the same plane with pat cipollone, pat philbin as deputy white house counsel, so this further adds to the evidence that the department of justice is going full speed ahead while also prepping with how to fight and deal with this executive privilege issue. >> but renado, to your point, given, as you said, colorful interactions that we heard about, you know, in the last january 6th hearing, where he's basically calling out jeffrey clark and saying, you know, these guys are fairly incompetent. does that make you think that he is primed and ready to talk and willing? >> absolutely. i think mr. hirschmann, based upon what we heard is not going to be concer

a source says a federal grand jury has subpoenaed pat cipollone but now, we are learning that the justice department is expanding its probe. katelyn collins is breaking the story. you are learning about another person in the trump white house is being subpoenaed? >> it's not just any person it's the number 2 lawyer in the trump white house at the end of the administration, his name is patrick philbin, the deputy white house counsel, so working alongside pat cipollone, they both now have been subpoenaed for both documents and testimony in this federal criminal probe conducted by the us attorney's office in d.c., the justice department and the fbi. when you take this together, this is aggressive grand jury activity from the justice department and federal prosecutors as they are trying to lock down information about what was happening around the president inside the trump administration, up to and on january 6th, in addition to them, we also know this grand jury has already spoken to two very top advisors in the vice president's office as well, who were in key meetings with donald trump. tho

if i knew pat cipollone is no hero simply because he tries to stop president of the united states from inciting a riot on the capitol on january 6th. in fact, during the first impeachment, as you remember, cipollone was very involved in both the ukraine scheme that donald trump was executing, as well as the cover-up, where he facilitated placing that whistleblower complaint in the super classified system so that nobody would be able to see it, and then he was involved in creating and drafting the memo to cover up and prevent the intelligence community's inspector general from turning over the whistleblower complaint. so he both had a factual knowledge of donald trump's abuse of power, and he also was integrally involved in covering it up during that first. >> interestingly enough, many of the players you are talking about now, agencies, inspector general, secret service, communications, all these things have somehow found their way back into the discussion of today. and i do wonder, on those issues of privilege or confidentiality, what does it say to you that there seems to be this ram

cnn has learned the fbi interviewed two former white house lawyers, pat cipollone and patrick philbin before executing the search warrant on the former president's home, and it turns out that they were among a group of seven aides appointed by president trump in one of his last actions as president to handle his presidential documents. i'm joined now by former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe and elliot williams. great to have you here. if pat cipollone and patrick philbin were tasked with being in charge of the presidential records and the classified documents, aren't they in trouble today? >> you know, they may not be in trouble today because they may have been doing their jobs and attempting to advise their colleagues to not break the law, right? and so they can provide a tremendous amount of very valuable information as to how documents were stored there, who did what, who saw what. i don't think they're in trouble just yet. >> in terms of who saw what, maggie haberman reports that investigators obtained surveillance footage of the hallway outside of the storage room at mar-a-lag

cipollone agreed the documents needed to return. the washington post is reporting on an email that the national archives sent to trump's lawyers in may of last year where the agency's counsel wrote the following, it is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the residence of the white house. over the course of president trump's last year in office and have not been transferred to nara despite a determination by pat cipollone in the final days of the administration that they need to be. cipollone had been designated by trump to the archives. it was not the only attempt by the agency's chief counsel to try to get those documents back. the post adds throughout the fall of 2021 national archives attorney gary stern continued to urge multiple trump advisers to help the archives get the records back according to people familiar with the conversations. trump only decided to give some of the documents back after stern told trump officials that the archives would soon have to notify c

philbin worked under white house counsel pat cipollone who himself was just subpoenaed by the grand jury. both men were there, key witnesses for the trump's attempt to subvert the 2020 election. cara skinnel broke the story and what more can you tell about these subpoenas? the subpoenas to the former white house counsel pat sip loany and patrick philbin are seeking documents in their testimony before a federal grand jury. this is certainly another escalation of the department of justice investigations. they had previously called that we know of according to sources, mike pence and two of his top aides, mark short who is his chief of staff and greg jacob, his counsel and interestingly for both, these d ins have the question of executive privilege looming around it and as we've reported the justice department is preparing for a court fight on this, but certainly going to the highest ranking members of the trump administration, pat cipollone and patrick philbin. they're zeroing in on the actions within the house as cipollone testified before house committee he was in the room as there were

trump has changed lawyers, to be fair, these are comments that pat cipollone was making when he was designated to deal with this, but what does it mean for the legal team that is making his arguments now. >> they've got a whole new range of arguments that they can bring into play. it's one thing to say that a former president is entitled to x, y or z and there were a lot of analogies brought up to former presidents and what they took to their libraries or what they used to write books and so forth. once you cross that line, you cross back past january into the trump administration, well, what can you tell a president to do and what are the legal ramifications of him not doing it? disregarding the advice of the white house counsel, which he's entitled to do which apparently he did do. it really gives them a whole lot more ammunition and i think we're going to see them throw up a lot more shields saying you cannot tell a sitting president what to do. >> one of the questions that's interesting and now it goes back to the final days of the trump presidency is who knew what was in these boxes? i me

a grand jury has subpoenaed pat cipollone following his revealing testimony to the january 6th committee. here's abc's chief justice correspondent pierre thomas. >> reporter: tonight, the justice department increasingly locking in on the white house and the actions of president trump. abc news first reporting that former white house counsel pat cipollone and his top deputy have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. making cipollone the highest ranking trump administration official known to be called so far. he can provide insight into critical areas the justice department is investigating, including what was going on in the white house as the insurrection unfolded. >> so, are you aware of any phone call by the president of the united states to the secretary of defense that day? >> not that i'm aware of, no. >> reporter: doj also clearly wants to know more about the scheme to use so-called fake electors who supported trump to derail biden's certification as president. cipollone opposed that plan. he told the january 6th committee some of trump's advisors even proposed seizing vot

pat cipollone, trump's white house counsel subpoenaed by a grand jury. what he knows and how his shield of executive privilege may not protect him any longer. new reporting on how the rnc is teaming up with stop the steal advocates at polling locations. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after this. don't go anywhere. house" continues after this don't go anywhere. ♪ ♪ we believe there's an innovator in all of us. ♪ ♪ that's why we build technology that makes it possible for every business... and every person... to come to the table and do more incredible things. ♪ ♪ the unknown is not empty. it's a storm that crashes, and consumes, replacing thought with worry. but one thing can calm uncertainty. an answer. uncovered through exploration, teamwork, and innovation. an answer that leads to even more answers. mayo clinic. you know where to go. if you're turning 65 soon or over 65 and planning to retire... now's the time to learn more about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan from unitedhealthcare and get help

the former administration's top white house attorney, pat cipollone, who allegedly warned about dire consequences for key aspects of the former presidents election scheme, he is now facing the prospect of appearing before a federal grand jury. he's not the only one. also potential fallout from those missing secret service text messages, on or around january 6th, late word that the agency might temporarily disable texting on employee phones while it fixes gaps in how it retains these messages. first, though, that could be a far-reaching, what could be far reaching repercussions from primary elections from five states last night, and deeper kansas a ballot to strip abortion rights lost by a wide margin. hailing it as a bellwether for november. >> in a decisive vote, in a decisive victory, voters made clear that politicians should not interfere with the fundamental rights of women. the voters of kansas sent a powerful signal that this fall the american people will vote to preserve and protect the right and refused to let them be ripped away by politicians. >> tonight we will look closer

pat cipollone led the way in pushing back on some of the instances that appeared to create the greatest criminal risk, the former president knowing that he lost that election. the two pats can testify about that, knowing that he had no legal basis to challenge it. they can testify about that. and then of course the run-up to the violence and the former president's alleged involvement in that, knowing the mob was armed and wanting to go to the capitol with them. and then agreeing with the sentiments, the murderous sentiments toward mike pence. so they are very important witnesses. >> norm eisen, that sums it up. thank you so much. >> thanks, pam. >>> coming up for you on this sunday night, a teacher shortage is hitting crisis levels across the united states. what's behind it and how schools are scram lbling to make sure students have someone to educate them come this fall. my d dad's been wondering about his childhood address for 70 years... and i found it in five minutes. ...that little leaf helped me learn all the names from the old neighborhood... it felt like a treasure hunt. the 195

abc news reports a grand jury has subpoenaed former trump white house counsel pat cipollone following his revealing testimony to the january 6th committee. here's abc's chief justice correspondent pierre thomas. >> reporter: tonight, the justice department inceasingly locking in on the white house and the actions of president trump. abc news first reporting that former white house counsel pat cipollone and his top deputy have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. making cipollone the highest ranking trump administration official known to be called so far. he can provide insight into critical areas the justice department is investigating, including what was going on in the white house as the insurrection unfolded. >> so, are you aware of any phone call by the president of the united states to the secretary of defense that day? >> not that i'm aware of, no. >> reporter: doj also clearly wants to know more about the scheme to use so-called fake electors who supported trump to derail biden's certification as president. cipollone opposed that plan. he also told the january 6th com

the national archives says the documents were not returned, despite the fact that pat cipollone, advising the president then, white house counsel, said trump should have handed them over. what more did we learn? >> this is the back story, this is a year the national archives spent trying to get boxes of federal records back from mar-a-lago with this concern building and the trump side just not helping for months after the presidency ended. "the washington post" unearthed this email from the archives general counsel, the archives was writing to trump's lawyers in may 2021, they believed top trump white house officials realized two dozen boxes of records had to be returned by trump to washington, and there were many emails and phone calls trying to get those boxes back. the archives knew they were looking for certain things, like the hurricane dorian forecast with a sharpie drawn on it, trump's letters with kim jong-un and they wrote to trump's lawyers, may 2021, roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the residence of the white house over the course of preside

just today, we learned the fbi interviewed former white house lawyers pat cipollone and pat bowman, earlier this year as part of the criminal investigation of possible mishandling of classified misinformation and destruction. that is as the fbi finds 11 sets a classified documents, including some mark, top secret, sci. one of the highest levels of classification in its search of mar-a-lago. now, a federal judge in florida will be holding a hearing on thursday with requests to unseal the affidavit used in that search. and the many, many investigations just keep rolling on. tomorrow, trump's number one defender, really giuliani, has been ordered to appear before a georgia grand jury investigating the former president and his allies, if they violated the law in the efforts to overturn the election results in georgia. that, after prosecutors told him he is now a target of the grand jury. and in the face of all, that with the midterms looming, president joe biden notches a big win, signing a sweeping 750 billion dollar health care, tax, and climate bill. his former boss calling it, a b f d. but

the former administration's top white house attorney pat cipollone, who warned about dire consequences for the former president's scheme, is now facing the prospect of appearing before a grand jury. late word that the agency might temporarily disable texting on employee phones while it fixes gaps in how it retains these messages. first, though, what could be far reaching repercussions from primary elections in five states last not. in kansas, a ballot measure to strip abortion rights from the state constitution lost by a wide margin. here's president biden say hailing it as a bellwether for november. >> in a decisive vote, in a decisive victory, voters made it clear that politicians should not interfere with the fundamental rights of women. the voters of kansas sent a powerful signal that this fall the american people will vote to preserve and protect the right and refuse to let them be ripped away by politicians. >> well, tonight, we'll look closer at whether that is likely to be the case based in part on who turned out in kansas and what polling. in the wake of last night the former

and apparently pat cipollone, one of trump's lawyers, was also in agreement with nara saying, yeah, the president should give back the documents. and didn't, for a year. then he gives back half of them and the rest are there, and this leads to the search of mar-a-lago. legally, what does that mean for the former president? >> well, it is not good, poppy. you know, it relates to the first subject that we talked about, what do you get when you give a president a pass on obstruction, more obstruction. and we know that obstruction of justice is one of the three crimes as to which probable cause was found, with the handling of these boxes of documents. and it is the pattern, poppy. it is over and over and over again, the government is trying to get donald trump to give up its property. the property of the united states, the property of all of us. and he just won't do it. so every day it seems there is a new revelation of failure by donald trump to comply with the law, and it is that pattern that has made it such profound legal risk for him on the document mishandling investigation. >> norm,

even though the archives says that the former white house counsel pat cipollone determined that they should be given back, and we are just hours away from the deadline for the doj to submit redactions for the mar-a-lago affidavit, before possible release from a federal judge. let's talk about this. now joining me to discuss this, george conway and john dean, the former nixon white house counsel. we're going to talk about that, and also about things that had to do with other reports. this report was sent roughly 100 days after trump left office, and it shows how long the archives are trying to get these documents. before the fbi search. there is a list on the screen right now. >> it is a completely and credible thing, how much he basically stiff armed neera about these documents. so far, he has not articulated, and none of his lawyers or representatives are articulating a coherent defence to the charge that he stole these documents. and this just enhances that, because it shows from the very beginning, his own people, pat cipollone, was telling him, or believed that these documents ha

and for them to go after pat cipollone to try to lock down what he knew about january 6th just shows how serious, how significant this criminal investigation is into january 6. my colleague pamela brown was able to confirm last night a story first reported by abc news that former white house counsel pat cipollone has been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury that is investigating january 6th out of washington, d.c. and this sort of fact-finding step, it would be the sort of thing where prosecutors would want to talk to cipollone probably about what he spoke to the house select committee about, but also what he was witnessing, what he was hearing in the west wing, maybe things that the house select didn't ask him about, other things he may have witnessed. part of this, too, that pam had learned when she was doing this reporting is that cipollone and his attorneys are in discussions over access, over executive privilege and whether prosecutors can actually get to trump's statements themselves. that's something that we already know is a brewing fight and a very important one at that bec

pat cipollone part of the broader investigation. while he was speaking to the january 6th committee, there were areas that he would not answer questions on. is this different? will it be different when he speaks to the grand jury to federal prosecutors? >> yeah. this is an incredibly different context. and there is binding court precedent on this issue. bruce lindsey who is the deputy white house counsel during the clinton white house is sitting white house counsel fought grand jury subpoena in that context. he lost before the d.c. circuit court of appeals. basically government lawyers have a special duty to provide evidence of potential wrongdoing. i expect that to be a loser if mr. cipollone tries to challenge the subpoena on grounds of attorney client or executive privilege. but i do expect that there could be a court fight about that issue. >> how long is that court fight go? >> could take months. but, you know, the justice department has time. i suspect mr. cipollone will certainly pursue. that in the end of the day, he appears

>> well, it was the determination by white house counsel pat cipollone that the documents didn't belong to the president, they had to go to the archives. that determination was communicated to the president through mark meadows. that put the president on notice that these important documents, some of which turned out to have been not just secret but top secret, all ultra top secret that needed to go to the government. because the government needed to know information contained in those documents. were they, because they had been in the white house residence for a while and now at a resort that had been penetrated by chinese spies, were they in the hands of enemies of the united states? what did we need to do to protect ourselves from their potential release? this was a matter of urgent importance to the national security, and any claim by the president that, well, i didn't know that these didn't belong to me, that's nonsense. he knew. he was warned. and any claim that the search was some sudden surprise has gone out the window. it's clear that the government tried and tried again, throu

we know from reporting that pat cipollone had conversations with the archives even before trump left office as he was about to transition out about the boxes in the residence of the white house that needed to go back. here's where i think, look, there's been a lot of criticism of d.o.j. and the fbi but have i a slightly take on the criticism. not that they moved too fast to a search warrant but they may not have moved fast enough. i think there was too much deference to a former president. i get it but it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. look, when it comes to trusting a good faith negotiation with trump and his team, i would think that from an established track record that you would not wait this long, that the trust is misplaced. so i think they tried. i think national archives tried for perhaps too long and then d.o.j. enters the picture and then d.o.j. doesn't really get the documents to the fbi fast enough to begin what they would want to do. so, yeah, there's delays here and it may end up being used as a defense that, look, this can't be that serious if you w

now, pat cipollone will go before the grand jury. you are also reporting for the times that two arizona republican officials that helped plan to overturn the 2020 election were worried that their actions could appear treasonous. the chairwoman of the arizona republican party, kelly ward, and kelly townsend were both said to express concern to translators in december 2020 about participating in a plan and [ audio is cutting in and out ]. according to emails reviewed by the times. the campaign lawyer wrote in a 2020 email to other members of the legal team, that ward and townsend, raised concerns about casting votes as part of the electors, because there was no pending legal challenge that could flip the results of arizona's election. the lawyer went on to write, ward and tauzin are concerned it could appear treasonous for the arizona electors to vote on monday, if there is no pending court proceeding that could eventually lead to the electors being ratified as a legitimate ones. the word treasonous was bolded in the email. according t

this as "the new york times" citing three people familiar with the matter report that pat cipollone, trump's former white house counsel and his deputy, patrick philbin, were interviewed by the fbi in connection with those boxes of sensitive documents stored at mar-a-lago. and tomorrow, a federal judge will decide whether to unseal the affidavit that federal investigators used to justify last week's search. the doj wants to keep it under wraps for now over concerns it will impact its ongoing investigation. trump and his allies are demanding it be made public. nbc's justice and intelligence correspondent, ken dilanian has the latest, and also joining me is andrew wiseman, former fbi general counsel, former senior member of the mueller probe, a law professor at nyu, and an msnbc legal analyst. ken, we'll start with you. what more do we know about tomorrow's hearing on this affidavit? >> lindsey, the justice department will make its case as to why it doesn't believe the th affidavit should be unsealed. it says, disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit would cause significant and irre

the federal gradually investigating the capitol riots, former white house counsel pat cipollone. let's talk about it, joining me now is msnbc legal analyst melissa murray. she's an nyu law professor and former associate clerk to the associate justice sonia soto meyer. and do nick pressley is here she's an attorney and legal analyst -- with monique pressley. welcome to you both. melissa, let's start with you what does this cipollone on cipollone subpoena really signal about the justice department's investigation, is this a turning point towards holding the folks accountable? >> i think it's a very big development, simone. i think it's important for a number of reasons. pat cipollone famously pleaded executive privilege in a attorney-client privilege when testimony -- in the district of columbia, the courts have held that those privileges do not necessarily hold sway in situations involving a criminal investigation. so, he might be required to provide provide more testimony than -- and not could be potentially enormous in terms of gathering evidence to bring together this case agai