Carl Bernstein told CNN's John Berman this morning if Republicans take over Congress, "they're going to try to shut down this investigation." So as he points out, the Jan. 6th committee has only one year to go to find out what happened in what he calls "the most grievous assault on democracy since the Confederacy and the Civil War."
Bernstein says there are people in Pence's inner circle who are angry, "because there are people who believe in the Constitution of the United States. Even in the Republican party, there are still people who believe in the Constitution, despite the fact that the party has been taken over by craven Republicans and made the party of Trumpism and authoritarianism, but there are some people there, and it is the job of the press, the job of this committee, particularly the press, to find a witness or several witnesses, perhaps among Pence's aides, not necessarily his principals, as Jamie Gandel has reported, but maybe some aides to the aides. With only a year to get it to unravel this horrible conspiracy."
"Someone, if that person exists, and if that person saw something, who would call it out publicly," Berman said.
"You compare this to a John Dean character, whom you dealt with, obviously, when you were dealing on Watergate."
"If you go look at Bob Woodward's and my papers down at the University of Texas, what happened in Watergate was, we got to John Dean before he testified," Bernstein said.
"And we knew he was going to name the president of the United States as the head of the conspiracy in Watergate, and he was going to turn on the president of the United States. Our job in the press right now, above all others, is to unravel this conspiracy before the Republican party captured by Donald Trump, is able to suppress what happened here. It is the business of the nation, and this committee might have a shot.
"I keep coming back to this idea of, in Watergate we got a list of everybody who worked for the president of the United States in his re-election. The committee is trying to do the same thing and find a couple of these people. There are indications from Republicans I talk to -- it's not just the Republicans on the committee, but there are other Republicans in the House, in the Senate particularly, who despise Trump, who believe this conspiracy can be unraveled if other Republicans, talking to each other, is happening now to some extent, keep pursuing this.
"It doesn't have to get out necessarily under oath. It could happen in pre-interviews, for instance, with some of the people who were named in Jamie Gandel's book."
"I don't know if there are Republicans necessarily who want to go back and look at the insurrection more and find out the truth there," Berman said.
They discussed the ambitious Chris Christie as a potential sign that Republicans will distance themselves.
"They're still embracing Trumpism. They're terrified of Donald Trump," Bernstein said.
"But there might be a few. Let's look again, this Republican party, like the Democratic party and the Confederacy, particularly the Southern Democrats in the Confederacy, have been captured by the Trumpist movement. They have been captured by an authoritarian movement unlike anything we've seen since the secessionist Democrats led by Jefferson Davis in the Civil War, who have sought to undermine the unity and the absolute basis of our democracy.
"Let me go back to the press again. This is our job for the next year above all else. If we get this narrative, and I say this to all my colleagues out there, this is the story that we cannot lose focus on -- and we'll get it if we pursue it."
