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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, as you've been hearing on the news, we now have the most significant convictions yet related to the January 6th riot. Two leaders of the Oath Keepers right-wing militia group, Stuart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, were convicted yesterday of Seditious conspiracy. What is that? Well, quoting from the law itself, have you ever read the actual US code on seditious conspiracy? I did this morning. It says seditious conspiracy is if two or more persons conspire to overthrow or to destroy by force, the government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof.

Those are just a few words from a longer definition, but it's such a serious crime different from, but similar to treason, that these were the first seditious conspiracy convictions since 1995 when, as the Associated Press reminds us, and as some of you longtime New Yorkers will remember, an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, and nine followers were convicted in a plot to blow up the United Nations, the FBI building, the two tunnels, and a bridge linking New York and New Jersey, that from the A.P. The difference, of course, the Sheikh and his followers were stopped in advance January 6th actually happened.

As The Washington Post reports today, Rhodes and his co-defendants were the first accused of seditious conspiracy and to be convicted on any conspiracy charges in the mass of January 6th investigation. He is the highest profile figure to face trial in connection with rioting by what the post calls angry Trump supporters who injured scores of officers, ransacked officers, and forced lawmakers to evacuate the US capital.

Let's talk about what this means, the legal implications for Trump himself, I know you're asking yourself that already, and more now with Devlin Barrett who covers national security and law enforcement for The Washington Post. Thanks for coming on after a really historic verdict. Devlin, welcome back to WNYC.

Devlin Barrett: Thank you, Brian. I feel very old because I covered that 1995 case and now I'm covering this one, and some time has passed between those two events.

Brian Lehrer: The one casually and derisively referred to as "The Blind Sheikh", right, back then?

Devlin Barrett: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe that jogs some more people's memory, maybe they didn't remember that name, but, oh, "The Blind Sheikh". Can you start with a little more than I just gave on the charge of Seditious Conspiracy? I understand it originated in the Civil War era. Do you know any of that history?

Devlin Barrett: I know the legal use history and the legal use has been pretty fraught in modern times, I guess is the way I think of it. That's because, as you read in the charge, it's a strange kind of individual or group that might decide on their own to levy war against the United States. The key part of that code as it applies to the Oath Keepers, just to be clear, is the phrase you read about opposed by force, the function of the government.

Brian Lehrer: The authority of his government.

Devlin Barrett: Exactly. That is what those two Oath Keeper leaders were convicted of yesterday. The Justice Department is generally very reluctant to bring seditious conspiracy charges because it's almost, one, if you're going to commit violent acts, there are other laws that are much simpler and cleaner, in prosecutor terms, to charge, that provide essentially the same amount of potential prison time.

In this instance, prosecutors wrestled with the question of bring seditious conspiracy charges and decided it was appropriate in this case to send a message about how seriously they took January 6th, because again, it was an attack on the basic functions of our government. If ever there was a case that probably merited seditious conspiracy charge, it's probably January 6th.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about the distinction between one phrase or another in the law that you just brought up because that definition under the law of seditious conspiracy is broad enough that it includes conspiring to actually overthrow the government of the United States, or as you were indicating, merely opposing the authority of the government by force, I guess in an individual instance. Did the jury basically reach a verdict?

I know all they do is come out and say guilty or not guilty, but can you interpret from that and from the way the case was tried if they reached a verdict on how far Rhodes and company planned to take this to overthrow the government by force? After all, this was a plot to not allow the transfer of power to Joe Biden, on the other hand, they certainly didn't have the weapons to fight the United States Army.

Devlin Barrett: I think it is hard to, one, just as a general observation, having covered a lot of trials, I think juries and jurors are incredibly smart, and I feel like every trial I've ever covered, I've learned something from the jurors. In this particular case, the jurors have not spoken to date, and so it's hard to know exactly what they were thinking. I do think one thing leaps out at me from the jury verdict, and that is that the top two people on this indictment were convicted of seditious conspiracy, and the three lower-down individuals were not convicted of seditious conspiracy but were convicted of a lesser charge.

To me, that suggests, and obviously, we won't know for certain until some of the jurors decide to speak if they do decide to speak, but that, to me, suggests that what the jury here is saying is that the leaders of this effort, the leaders of the Oath Keepers knew what they were doing and knew what they were telling their people to do, but that some of the folks lower down, even some of the more strident folks, one of the people who was acquitted of seditious conspiracy, in this case, had not just a angry exchange on the witness stand about her beliefs about the election, but also had a voluminous evidence of what she said in real time about stopping Joe Biden from becoming president.

The verdict sheet to me suggests that the jury decided that the people lower down the chain here in Oath Keepers were not nearly as culpable as the people who were running and managing Oath Keepers. I think that's an interesting potential lesson.

Brian Lehrer: That's really interesting and important. For people who don't know, there were five Oath Keepers on trial here, and the two leaders, Stuart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs were the ones convicted of seditious conspiracy. The others were convicted only of the lesser crime of obstructing Congress. Listeners, we can take your phone calls for our guest, Devlin Barrett, from The Washington Post. What do you want to ask or what do you want to say about this Oath Keepers verdict? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll keep looking at the details and the implications. You can also tweet a comment or a question @BrianLehrer.

Let me continue for a minute before we get into Trump and other stuff. On this same thread, what does the conviction mean then in the case of Oath Keepers founder Stuart Rhodes and top associate Kelly Meggs about what they found that they actually did to conspire to commit sedition? You understand the question? What did they do? What was the narrative of what they did?

Devlin Barrett: I think the narrative of what they did is that from the day that Biden was declared the victor of the 2020 election, Stuart Rhodes started telling his people, the members of the Oath Keepers that they should prepare for civil war, that they would have to fight hard to keep Trump in office, and that he conspired. The definition of the charge is that he conspired with others to create and put together violence directed at the government.

His defense had argued, there was no plan to attack the Congress. He never meant for his people to go inside, he never planned to actually overthrow Congress or disrupt Congress, that's just what happened in the course of the riot. The jury, I think, the fundamental definition of the verdict is that the jury didn't agree with that. The jury felt he did conspire and the jury found he did have some type of plan to create violence and chaos.

Brian Lehrer: I guess if you say prepare for Civil war, [chuckles] that's a little bit of an indication. Here--

Devlin Barrett: Right.

Brian Lehrer: You want to talk about that? Go ahead.

Devlin Barrett: I was just going to say, I think the Oath Keeper are a fascinating arc in extremism because they have talked apocalyptically for a very long time. For instance, leading up to the 2016 election, Stuart Rhodes was saying things like, "There will be civil war when Hillary Clinton wins the White House." Obviously, that didn't come to pass in either form of the sentence, but I think what you see in January 6th is you see a year's long culmination of just apocalyptic rhetoric that his own followers took seriously.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a short clip of tape of Stewart Rhodes that was used at the trial. He's speaking here after January 6th, praising what rioters did there and expressing one regret. Listen.

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Stewart Rhodes: It'll also show the people that we got a spirit of resistance. My only regret is they should have brought rifles.

[end of audio playback]

Brian Lehrer: I know that was a little off-mic, so if you couldn't hear that well, folks, the copy there was, "It'll also show the people that we've got a spirit of resistance. My only regret, they should have brought rifles." I guess that was evidence of a plot to overthrow the government or resist authority by force. Just one that failed.

Devlin Barrett: Absolutely. I think one of the most damning for a lot of these guys, the most damning evidence against them was not so much what they said before January 6th, but what they said after January 6th. When you cannot pretend anymore that you're just playing dress up. A bunch of these people went there and engaged in Act. Now, Stewart Rhodes never went into the halls of Congress. One of the ways in which this case was a little tricky for prosecutors is that he never set foot inside that building. What the jury found was that he conspired with others to make that happen, essentially.

Brian Lehrer: Where does Trump come in? The question many listeners are probably asking themselves right now. What are the implications for Donald Trump? Or let me ask it this way, was evidence brought at trial of any ways that Stewart Rhodes conspired with Donald Trump or the Trump-directed Stewart Rhodes?

Devlin Barrett: Well, we know a little bit about that. We know that Rhodes tried to communicate with President Trump during that time period. We know that he had messages that he wanted to relay to President Trump at that time period. The evidence presented at trial suggests that Rhodes was ultimately unsuccessful in getting those messages through to President Trump. It's a little complicated, but part of the dynamic between Trump and the Oath Keepers was the Oath Keepers spent months trying to get the president to invoke the Insurrection Act and then somehow deputized the Oath Keepers to be essentially a government-sponsored militia.

Now, that may sound crazy, and I think, realistically, it is a little crazy. That was what the Oath Keepers were arguing for and hoped to accomplish. When you played that clip about bringing rifles, they had rifles stashed in a hotel in Arlington. The theory of bringing those weapons nearby was that if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and they became Trump's personal guard or whatever, that those weapons would then be brought out. None of that happened, obviously, when Trump did not take that step, the Oath Keepers went ahead on their own clearly.

Brian Lehrer: Vicky in Tudor City in Manhattan. You're on WNYC with Devlin Barrett from The Washington Post. Hello.

Vicky: Oh, good morning. Thank you very much. I just wondered if Mr. Barrett would hazard a guess on when the sentencing might take place, especially for Mr. Rhodes. Then, of course, my question was, if he could hazard a guess of whether or not these charges might be levied against the former president. I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. We'll talk more about the implications for Trump as we go. What about sentencing for Stewart Rhodes or any of them?

Devlin Barrett: I believe sentencing should come in a few months. I will tell you the sentencing dates after verdict and they often end up moving around a bit. My understanding as best we can tell right now, is that he faces in the ballpark of five to seven years in prison, based on a rough look at the sentencing guidelines. I will say this, as far as if you think about a prosecution in an investigation. Prosecutors tend to work what they call up the ladder, meaning you start with a small fish and then work to the higher and then investigate up the higher levels of responsibility. Stewart Rhodes is the most high profile and high-level person convicted over January 6th.

I think the verdict is a big win for the Justice Department. It's a big win for the more aggressive approach to prosecuting and investigating January 6th. It does suggest that there are winnable cases to make against people who were not at the capital that day. How much higher that goes past Stewart Rhodes is I think very hard to say. Like I mentioned, the evidence at trial suggests that Rhodes tried to coordinate with the president and was unsuccessful. That would not be great evidence for prosecution of President Trump related to January 6th, but that doesn't mean that's the only evidence prosecutors have, or that's the only witnesses they will have.

Brian Lehrer: Continuing down that track. The Washington Post article on the verdict by your colleagues, Spencer Hsu, Tom Jackman, and Rachel Werner says, "The verdict in Rhodes's case likely will be taken as a bellwether for to remaining January 6th seditious conspiracy trial set for December against five other Oath Keepers." Here's the important part I think "Leaders of the Proud Boys, including the longtime chairman, Henry Enrique Tarrio, both Rhodes and Tarrio, are highly visible leaders of the alt-right or far-right anti-government movements and were highlighted at hearings probing the attack earlier this year by the House January 6th committee."

What I've heard commentators say on television since the verdict came in yesterday is that "You think this was something, wait till you see the trial of the Proud Boy's leader and the evidence that's going to come up at that trial about coordination with Trump and his people." You think?

Devlin Barrett: I do think that Proud Boys' trial is going to be very important. We are in the thick of a period of trials related to January 6th that are very important. This is the first verdict we've gotten from that batch of cases. I think it does if you're one of the lawyers for the Proud Boys. I think you have to be very alarmed that the jury convicted every defendant in the Oath Keepers case of something. I do think that the Proud Boys trial has at least the potential to implicate people above the Proud Boys. I don't assume that that means there are more charges definitely coming out of that trial. I think that's a thing that's not really knowable yet.

Brian Lehrer: What I was taking from the TV commentary was that the Proud Boys were more coordinated with Trump world than the Oath Keepers were. I think some things came out at the January 6th hearings. Was that White House assistant the, I forget her name. Cassidy Hutchinson.

Devlin Barrett: Cassidy Hutchinson.

Brian Lehrer: The aid to Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, who is all over this whole thing. Mark Meadows saying something about contacting the Proud Boys and Roger Stone. I forget the exact quote, but there seems to be-- Potentially, I guess this is what the evidence is going to show or not. A more direct line from the leaders of the Proud Boys, maybe through Roger Stone to Mark Meadows and Donald Trump, at another level, from the Oath Keepers.

Devlin Barrett: It's certainly possible. Stone has a long relationship with the Proud Boys but Stone also had a pretty significant relationship with the Oath Keepers too. Stone, obviously, though he runs in and out of favor with Trump from time to time, Stone has a long relationship with Trump, so that is certainly possible, and that's certainly something investigators have spent more than a year investigating. Again, I don't want to predict too much, based on what we haven't seen yet.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer in East Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Good morning, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted just to raise the point that I know that Rhodes, as well as Kavanaugh, as well as Vance, of the Hillbilly or Hillbilly Elegy.

Brian Lehrer: J.D. Vance, the Trumpy, Senator-elect from Ohio.

Jennifer: Yes. Who previously obviously was very anti-Trump until it no longer served his purpose. I'm curious-

Brian Lehrer: Brett Kavanaugh, you say, go ahead. Were?

Jennifer: Yes, on the basis that obviously Yale if it's not the best law school, ranking-wise, it's certainly one of the top three. You're talking about individuals who are coming out with and have done things that are so preposterous and so damaging to our democracy. You really have to wonder considering these are law schools that are the most prestigious or supposed to be bastions of progressive liberal thought, where is this coming from? It's deeply, deeply disturbing.

Brian Lehrer: Well, that's interesting that they all came out of Yale Law School. Jennifer, if you went down a list, I'm just guessing here, I imagine if you went down a list of all the prominent people who've come out of Yale Law School, you would find that these three are in a small minority.

Jennifer: I agree.

Brian Lehrer: People who are more aggressive in their politics and there's a difference also between Brett Kavanaugh and Stewart Rhodes, we should say.

Jennifer: No question about it. I'm only raising the issue that considering the prestige of their educations and such one has to be that much more just amazed that these individuals have come out with and done the kinds of things that they have done considering their power and positioning and certainly the elitism of their academic and professional training.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting observation, Jennifer. Thank you. Devlin, any thought on that?

Devlin Barrett: Look, I think one of the things that's incredible about this case is Stewart Rhodes's professional history. He was a congressional aid briefly. He went to Yale Law School, he served in the US military and he ended up leading a group of people who tried to undo an American election. That is just an incredible arc of one person's life.

To be honest, I think it wouldn't surprise me if the jury viewed him particularly more skeptically because he knew better than most what these institutions are. He served in a lot of important institutions in America and yet he still tried to destroy one.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Devlin Barrett from The Washington Post and we're going to bring another case into this conversation. We'll take more of your calls. Marvin and Brooklyn, we see you. I think you have a really interesting question about allowing groups like the Oath Keepers with their weapons to exist at all in this country.

We'll get to you but also bring in the case in Georgia right now about Trump trying to interfere with the secretary of state there, Brad Raffensperger, and asking him to find 11,000 votes to make Trump the winner in Georgia and a very important ruling in that case yesterday. Stay with us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to talk primarily about the convictions yesterday of two leaders of the Oath Keepers right-wing militia group on seditious conspiracy charges. The first such convictions in the United States since 1995. As I said before the break we're going to get into some other things with Devlin Barrett who covers national security and law enforcement for the Washington Post. Let me take Marvin and Brooklyn's call next before we get off the Oath Keepers directly. Marvin, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in today.

Marvin: Thank you for taking my call and thanks to your great staff for having this important program on. I have two quick things. One is what's almost incomprehensible is how the United States allows all of these heavily alarmed armed groups to be in existence. We've seen stories of people with attack guns going to intimidate voters, et cetera.

Definition of sovereignty is that the sovereign has complete control of force and yet, we allow these groups to exist. Relatedly, you also are bringing up the question of sentencing. The judges would do well to remember that in the 1920s, Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government of Germany and was put in jail for a couple of years essentially given a slap in the wrist and then came out and tried again and that time succeeded. These people should be dealt with as severely as possible but again the question of allowing such heavily armed groups who exist needs to be taken into consideration and dealt with.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Marvin. Devlin what about that, the existence? We have the Second Amendment in this country we know and there are different rules and different states about when you can openly carry weapons. We're having the national concealed carry debate right now after the Supreme Court case this year affecting New York and other places but openly carry not even concealed is another level that I think the Oath Keepers sometimes try to display. What about that under the law in a country that says it's ruled by the rule of law?

Devlin Barrett: To your point, the Second Amendment has been upheld in case after case before the Supreme Court. We are a country of guns. I'm a crime reporter. I think guns are just such a ubiquitous presence in American life that I understand the concern about the Oath Keepers in particular but to be honest there are guns all around this country and there are a lot of them.

I take the concern. I will say to the caller's point a judge did rule in the case of people standing near ballot drop-off places with weapons that they had to move back, that they had to give more space and they did restrict that.

Brian Lehrer: Just now in the midterm elections.

Devlin Barrett: Correct. We are a country that, in many states, allows people to openly carry weapons. Realistically I don't know that that's going to change anything.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to take a call from Franken Hicksville who has called in before to say he attended the January 6th rally. Frank, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling. You want to react to the Oath Keepers' verdicts?

Franken Hicksville: Brian I want to react here. I can't get over what I'm hearing here. What your audience needs to understand is the actual name Oath Keepers. These people are ex-military, ex-police. Now, I've been to Oath Keeper meetings. They are very good people. They're concerned about our nation, they're concerned about our children. They want to make sure our constitution is not impeded. They are not criminals. They are law-abiding citizens. The fact that they're going to try to paint this picture that they are criminals is preposterous. It's absolutely disgusting.

Brian Lehrer: Frank, wouldn't the evidence that was brought at trial about Stewart Rhodes, never mind the rank and file Oath Keepers for the moment but that Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs were preparing for a violent confrontation with United States government armed forces?

Franken Hicksville: Rogue FBI operation where they may have been victims of if anything. The Second Amendment is there for a well-regulated militia necessary to keep the security of a free state. That is our constitutional right. Let's remind you, these are ex-military and ex-police, the people you depend on when they were doing their service.

Brian Lehrer: Frank, I'll take you one step further, why shouldn't we be concerned that a lot of people who are ex-military and ex-police and some people have been found to be current military and current police and belong to these groups that should make us concerned about whether they're really there to uphold the law or just violently pursue their own beliefs.

Franken Hicksville: Brian, were you there on January 6th, sir?

Brian Lehrer: I was not.

Franken Hicksville: I was and the picture that's not being told and I had this on your show last time I got on. The picture that was not being show was the unity of the people. There was over a million people there in peaceful protest that one shot fired. That was from a crooked capital police guy who didn't have to defend himself or explain himself which is unbelievable.

You watch the police open the barricades and let people in. If you weren't allowed into the capital building I don't think they'd be opening the barricades and letting him in. There's more evidence showing that there was over 30 FBI undercover agents in the crowds participating. There was that one guy--

Brian Lehrer: Frank, I'm going to have to stop you there, I'm sorry because I think now you're really veering off from your opinion of things into things that are just wrong. I appreciate you calling in. Devlin, I guess I should say to the audience some of whom will say you should never put somebody like that on the air. I think it's useful to hear what's out there in parts of Trump world and what the beliefs are. I think I was challenging him point by point but go ahead and add.

Devlin Barrett: There's a couple factual things I think are important to be clear on.

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Devlin Barrett: Folks who are defending what happened on January 6th often argue that it was essentially some false flag operation by the FBI. I think--

Brian Lehrer: That's why I cut him off.

Devlin Barrett: The caller said something about there being dozens of undercover FBI agents. There is no evidence to date that there were dozens of undercover FBI agents. Now I do think there is reasonable evidence that there were some people who served as informants to the FBI or who talked to the FBI on a regular basis were in that crowd that day. I think the notion that the FBI created or instigated or brought January 6th to pass, I think is just-- There's no factual basis for that yet.

Look, as a reporter, no one wants more than me to understand exactly what the FBI knew and didn't know in the lead up to January 6th because I will tell you, my reporting is that the FBI got a great number of warnings, very dire warnings, and they didn't really feel a sense of urgency about it because they didn't see a crowd of mostly middle-aged white folks as a threat. I think that was a severe misjudgment and miscalculation on their part, but that is a far cry from they made it happen, it was some sort of setup. There's really no evidence, to date, to support that notion.

Brian Lehrer: Good that you elaborated on that. From what I hear, the new Republican Congress is going to do an alternative January 6th investigation to what the current Congress has been doing with the January 6th Committee, and that one of the things they're going to investigate is the failures to prepare for any possible trouble on that day and focus on Democratic politicians, I'm not sure which one, it's probably Nancy Pelosi and things that they'll say they allegedly failed to do to protect the Capitol. Are you aware or familiar with what lines like that we're likely to hear on the House floor, in House committees next year?

Devlin Barrett: Sure. I think there's a number of efforts that House Republicans are going to make in, frankly, what fits into a larger campaign against law enforcement, dating back to the Russia investigation and the FBI's pursuit of that issue. A great number of House Republicans have basically come out swinging against the FBI and all federal law enforcement that works with the Justice Department. I think you're going to see what you mentioned, which is an examination of what wasn't done to prepare.

When it comes to the Capitol Police, they ultimately answer to the political leaders of Congress. There is a chain of command there where you can at least rationally ask some important questions about why was this so thinly staffed, why were you so unprepared for the mob to get angry and why were almost no arrests made in real time? I will tell you having covered law enforcement, one of the things that was really terrifying about January 6th, is that for a long time the Capitol Police just tried to hold the line and take punishment. I've never seen so many cops get punched in the face. You can watch the videos I'm talking about. I've never seen so many cops get punched in the face without anyone being just pulled off and arrested.

I think there are failures that do deserve accounting, but I also think that it has become a political argument on the right to say that the FBI either set up or is biased against conservatives. I think you're going to see versions of that argument made when it comes to January 6th, when it comes to President Trump and when it comes to Hunter Biden. I think all of those are going to be avenues of attack on the Justice Department by House Republicans.

Brian Lehrer: That's another thing that's worth responding to from the caller who smeared the officer who's never been brought up on any kinds of charges, there was so much evidence, who fired the one shot that was fired at January 6th and did kill a protester who appeared, from all evidence, to be an immediate threat to others. That's the only shot that was fired.

It was by a law enforcement officer, not by a member of the Oathkeeper or anyone else, but it wasn't just guns as I quoted from your colleagues in The Washington Post at the beginning, they injured scores of officers. They may not have done it with guns, but they did it. It was violent and the officers who you just described as taking a lot of physical punishment without responding at some point, they felt that they needed to respond.

I do want to, before we run out of time, touch on this Georgia case. I don't know how much you've been following that, but the Trump find 11,000 votes investigation, and they haven't decided yet whether to bring criminal charges against the president or anyone else, but a Supreme Court in the State of South Carolina ruled yesterday that Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff at the time, can be compelled to testify in that investigation.

Mark Meadows was really involved from everything that I've read and saw with all the stuff leading up to January 6th, and I guess, including the political machinations like trying to get the Georgia Secretary of State to flip the election results. I'm just curious how significant a ruling this is. What can they expect to hear from Mark Meadows that's going to result in an indictment or not indictment of the president?

Devlin Barrett: I think it is an important part of all the legal issues swirling around Donald Trump, this Georgia prosecutor's investigation. Mark Meadows is important because he's Trump's former chief of staff, and he was the chief of staff in a lot of these meetings, as you say, in a lot of these meetings and discussions leading up to January 6th. He has, up until now, managed to avoid having to give direct testimony. That was a legal fight he got into with Congress, and he basically provided a lot of his text messages, but ultimately did not testify before them. This time, it looks like he is going to have to testify.

I will say that I think sometimes it's understandable that people get so interested, in particular, people giving testimony. I will say that given Mark Meadows' track record, I don't know that you can expect him to be a super reliable narrator of events. The value of his testimony is, to me, very much an open question. The value to prosecutors, the value to the public, the value to just understanding what happened. I don't know that Mark Meadows is going to offer a lot of the types of insight that people would most like to have about how and why this all happened.

Brian Lehrer: Devlin Barrett who covers national security and law enforcement for The Washington Post. More to come, obviously. Thank you for coming on and explaining so much today.

Devlin Barrett: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come this morning.

 

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