This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with Nuremberg.

The Allies seek justice for the Holocaust.

The chief prosecutor leads the trial of the century,

while a U.S. Army psychiatrist battles Herman Guring's mind.

Nuremberg starts Friday only in theaters.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies.

If you watched the televised hearings of the select congressional committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, you probably remember the dramatic testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who were investigating Donald Trump's alleged interference in the

2020 election were watching, too. But at the time, they had no idea who Cassidy Hutchinson was.

That's one of many striking revelations you'll find in the new book by our guests, veteran investigative

reporters Carol Lindig and Aaron Davis. Lendig and Davis write about Donald

Trump's powerful impact on the Justice Department, including his efforts to protect friends and

punish those he considers enemies. But much of the book focuses on the Biden years, when Trump

wasn't in charge, and the Justice Department pursued investigations into the violence on January 6th,

and eventually into Trump's alleged interference in the 2020 election and his retention of thousands of government documents.

Their account is a bracingly clear explanation of why those efforts failed to get either case against Trump in front of a jury

before his re-election rendered them moot. It's largely a story of officials acting in good

faith, trying to adhere to standards of fairness and non-partisanship, perhaps too rigorously at times.

The authors say Trump's targeting of prosecutors and FBI agents in his first term in

office likely played a role in the department's caution. Carol Lenig worked for 25 years at the

Washington Post. She's won her shared in five Pulitzer Prizes and has written two books about

Donald Trump and another about the U.S. Secret Service. Lentick left the Post earlier

this year and is now a senior investigative correspondent for MSNBC.

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