Carol Leonnig

But the problem was that not looking at this evidence delayed things for a long time.

He kept saying he wanted to find out if there was some connection between Trump and the riot.

And ultimately, when the Department of Justice finally agrees to launch this investigation, it's not based on evidence that they gained in the riot probe.

It's based on evidence that had been public, at least that's what they formally cite in their documents, evidence that had been public since December of 2020, January of 2021, February of 2021.

Yeah.

The critical change was the House Select Committee.

News was leaking out of that unusual team of very, very aggressive prosecutors like a sieve.

And in January, there were a host of stories about the committee figuring out that these fake elector certificates were critical and that they were coordinated or appeared to be coordinated by Rudy Giuliani and members of Trump's campaign.

And that discovery was extremely embarrassing to the Department of Justice, Aaron and I learned in our interviews.

And we uncovered an email exchange in which a federal prosecutor who had been belatedly assigned alone to look into this case.

Potential linkage to Donald Trump's allies reaches out to that Waleska McClellan days after these barrage of stories are raising questions.

Where is the Department of Justice on this investigation?

That happened in January of 2022, a year after Waleska McClellan had been turned down.

Yeah, that's right.

There is an incredible, I apologize for my language here, sphincter tightening in the FBI, just such anxiety about launching on this probe.

You know, when Thomas Windham goes to the Washington field office and meets with Steve D'Antuono, the head of that office, he says, look, this is the investigation now.

I'd like you to potentially join me in.

And D'Antuono knows that

hey, this is actually a crime I could investigate, which is fascinating since nobody saw that when Maleska McClellan proposed it.

But he's thinking, okay, this is basic potential wire fraud, mail fraud, people sent in things, they actually signed them from various states and claim to be