Carol Leonnig

In the others, he said, we have to triage to this.

We have to get moving.

His motivation was, as he articulated it to many people we interviewed, was we can't let the American public judge.

sit out there with these incredible allegations of a potential coup, of a president potentially stoking violence to overturn a free and fair election.

We can't let that wither out there in the countryside without resolving it in a fair court.

And he also felt that it was really important for Donald Trump to not have those allegations laying out there.

And so he was moving at a pace I have actually never seen in any DOJ prosecution of a complex case, much less one involving a former president.

But not typically for a person who's not an actually named candidate.

No, it turns out to be a weapon that Donald Trump uses very effectively against the Justice Department and against Jack Smith.

And during this time, Garland calls him and says, would you take the job if I offer it to you tomorrow?

Not realizing how damaged, how devastated really physically Jack Smith is.

And there's a question about whether or not Jack can take the oath of office.

under all these painkillers he's taking.

And he decides on his own to dismiss himself from the hospital against medical advice and stops taking the medication so he can properly take the oath without any question about his faculties.

He goes on to push his team with incredible rigor to bring these cases.

But back to your other point about this isn't a good look,

It ends up being really terrible because even though Jack Smith and his team are sprinting to make decisions and to bring the cases they think are justified, Donald Trump is falsely claiming that the only reason he's being prosecuted now in 2023 with a trial in 2024 is because a left-wing radical DOJ wants to help Biden block him from winning reelection.

You know, it's such a critical moment.

And I think I'd like to take you into a couple of the rooms where it happened here.

Because the Supreme Court, first off, immediately accelerates one case and postpones another.