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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 22
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00:01All right. That's going to do it for me tonight. Now it's time for the last word with the great
00:05Lawrence O'Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence. Good evening, Rachel. I'm so glad you had Georgia
00:09Fort on tonight. I've been wanting to hear from her since Friday, since we learned about this.
00:15We heard from some comments from Don Lemon already, but that's the first time I've heard
00:19her speak about it. And I'm also very, very glad you asked her about how does she handle this
00:25financially? How does she handle the legal challenges and everything she's facing? And
00:30she did mention that her website, georgiafort.com, has been getting a lot of support,
00:35a lot of contributions that she is absolutely going to need. Yeah, this is one of those moments
00:42where a lot of people who have said pretty things about defending the free press and about defending
00:48the pillars of our democracy now have a very practical way to do that. The free press isn't
00:52an abstraction. It's working journalists like Georgia Fort, who have just been charged with
00:59federal crimes for covering a protest. And as ridiculous as that indictment is, and it
01:04is effectively written in crayon, it is insane and will get laughed out of court. She's going
01:09to have to go through that process, which is an expensive process and a traumatizing process
01:13because of the way the Justice Department has been turned into essentially a torture tool
01:18by this president. And that's what Donald Trump knows about legal processes, that it's expensive
01:23for people to be dragged into. And for him, the whole point is the arrest. If he can get
01:29beyond the arrest, great. But if all he could do and looks like that's all he's going to be
01:34able to do is charge James Comey and never get beyond those charges, that's good enough for
01:41Donald Trump. And but what what Georgia Fort's going to have to contend with is is a lot.
01:47Yeah. And so people supporting her, it's a it's a money where your mouth is kind of moment.
01:51That's right. Rachel, we have Taylor Remitt joining us tonight from Texas, where he won that big win
01:58for the Democrats, the district that Donald Trump won by 17 points. He just won by 14 as a Democrat.
02:06And I have to say, with some really special help from his mother, which will will show in just one
02:13of the great TV commercials I've seen in campaigns lately. Oh, fantastic. I'm looking forward to that
02:18interview. I wrote in my notes to self before the election happened, I wrote like Trump plus 17
02:24district, like Democrats weirdly hopeful about this one, question mark, question mark. And then my next
02:29line in my notes to self was holy guacamole did one and by 14 plus points. It's an incredible story.
02:37I'm so glad you got him. He he's going to tell us how he did it. Great. Thanks, Lawrence. Looking
02:42forward to it. Thanks, Rachel. Thank you. Delete my name, please. I'm begging you to delete my name.
02:56Those are the words of a woman who was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and rape
03:01conspiracy when she was a teenager, when she was legally under age in the state of Florida.
03:08She is one of the survivors who has never come forward publicly. Never. We've seen dozens of
03:16survivors speaking publicly outside of the Capitol last year, urging Congress to pass a law forcing the
03:23release of the Epstein files, a law that Congress passed and Donald Trump signed into law, surely
03:27expecting that his Justice Department that he controls would violate that law as the Trump Justice
03:36Department has done. The Trump Justice Department keeps finding new ways to violate the law. They
03:42violated the deadline in the law by more than a month. And then they violated the requirement to
03:46deliver all of the Epstein files to Congress, not just a portion. And they violated the law requiring
03:52them to redact the names of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's
03:59co-conspirators, including the convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. The Trump controlled Justice
04:06Department redacted the names of the three co-defendants of Jeffrey Epstein in a draft federal indictment
04:18that was dropped by Alex Acosta, who then became, who was then the U.S. attorney for the Southern
04:26District of Florida, and then later became Donald Trump's secretary of labor during the first Trump
04:32administration. The indictment that Republican U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta decided not to pursue is 56 pages
04:39long and describes the sex trafficking crimes of Jeffrey Epstein beginning in 2002. That indictment
04:45was part of the Epstein files release that we got over the weekend last Friday. The first page of that
04:54indictment has three redactions and those three redactions right here on the first page of this
05:03indictment. Let me get it into the camera. Those three redactions are the three names of Jeffrey
05:11Epstein's co-conspirators in this draft indictment, who the indictment says were employed by Jeffrey
05:19Epstein, quote, to perform, among other things, services as personal assistance.
05:24So the indictment describes those co-defendants literally leading children upstairs
05:34in Jeffrey Epstein's home for their first encounter with Jeffrey Epstein.
05:39Quote, quote, in or around May 2004, defendant redacted, led Jane Doe number six from the kitchen
05:49at 356 El Brio way upstairs to the master bedroom area at 358 El Brio way. In or around May
05:592004,
06:01defendant Jeffrey Epstein redacted Jane Doe six, who was then a 16 year old girl.
06:10Now, Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator and co-defendants in this indictment, the one
06:17who led that girl upstairs to Jeffrey Epstein, is one of the people whose identity, Donald
06:25Trump's Justice Department, doesn't want you to know and was very, very careful to protect.
06:33But that same Trump Justice Department did not protect many of those girls who were led
06:41upstairs by Jeffrey Epstein's criminal co-conspirators, including Ghislaine Maxwell.
06:46Attorney Bradley Edwards represents hundreds of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and has
06:53told us on this program that only a very small number of the total number of survivors have
06:59ever come forward publicly.
07:02Bradley Edwards is now asking federal judges to intervene and force the Trump Justice
07:06Department to, as one of his clients pleads, delete my name.
07:13In a filing to the federal judges, Bradley Edwards revealed some of the violations of the Epstein
07:18Transparency Act that the Trump Justice Department has committed.
07:22One, documents in which minor victim one had her name revealed 20 times in a single document
07:28after reporting the violation.
07:30Department of Justice redacted her name three additional times, leaving 17 instances still
07:35unredacted as of this filing.
07:38Two, an email listing 32 minor child victims with only one name redacted and 31 left visible
07:45despite Department of Justice's possession of those names.
07:49Three, FBI 302 victim statements with full first and last names unredacted, including for
07:55minor victims.
07:56Four, handwritten FBI interview notes with minor victims' full names unredacted at the top
08:02and throughout.
08:03Five, documents containing victims' names alongside dates of birth, bank information, driver's
08:08license numbers, email addresses, or home addresses.
08:12Six, documents where victims' names are redacted in some places but not others within the same document.
08:18Seven, documents where redactions are pencil thin, revealing the complete name and email address
08:24beneath.
08:25Eight, documents where photographs are properly redacted in one instance and appear fully
08:31unredacted nearby.
08:33Nine, hundreds of documents exposing the names of four women who have been in near constant
08:39communication with the Department of Justice since December, requesting protection.
08:45Donald Trump's Justice Department did not give them that protection.
08:49Bradley Edwards told the judges, the Department of Justice cannot plausibly characterize this
08:55as error, negligence, or bureaucratic failure.
08:57But that is exactly what Donald Trump's Justice Department claimed, human error.
09:03Today, the Trump Justice Department said in a letter to the judges, quote, the department
09:07now has taken down several thousands of documents and media that may have inadvertently included
09:13victim-identifying information due to various factors, including technical or human error.
09:20This is the same Trump Justice Department that for the first time in history raided a county
09:26office to seize voting records last week.
09:29Not copies of voting records, the actual voting records.
09:32How many human errors do they plan to make with those voting records?
09:36This is the same Trump Justice Department that now claims it is going to conduct an investigation
09:41of what video shows clearly to be the murder of registered nurse Alex Preddy in Minneapolis
09:47by federal Border Patrol agents sent there by Donald Trump.
09:52How many human errors does Donald Trump's Justice Department plan to make in that investigation
09:58that they first said was completely unnecessary?
10:01Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the
10:06Homeland Security Department, said he doesn't trust the FBI to investigate the murder of Alex
10:13Preddy.
10:15Could the FBI have a credible investigation?
10:21That's that's a question.
10:23I don't know.
10:24I don't know the answer to that.
10:25Maybe not is what you're saying.
10:28Well, there were some pretty immediate conclusions on whether or not you're allowed to carry a gun
10:32at a rally, which were incorrect and not really reflective of the Second Amendment or the law.
10:38So I don't know who should do this.
10:40I think really, if it were an independent group outside of the federal government, would be better, actually.
10:47Attorney Bradley Edwards is pleading to the judges included direct statements from some of his clients
10:53whose identities have been revealed.
10:55One of the Epstein survivors in Bradley Edwards filing, identified as Jane Doe No. 5,
11:03wrote this to the judges.
11:06I have never come forward.
11:09I am now being harassed by the media and others.
11:12This is devastating to my life.
11:14Please pull my name down immediately, as every minute that these document with my names are up,
11:22it causes more harm to me.
11:24Please, I'm begging you to delete my name.
11:27I can only imagine the devastation your errors are causing to so many other victims of Jeffrey Epstein.
11:35Wasn't the only job to redact victims' names.
11:38Hasn't every person with authority promised repeatedly that victims have nothing to worry about
11:44because our names will be redacted?
11:46Hasn't the entire delay of producing documents been allegedly because you have been redacting names?
11:54Judge Richard Berman of the Southern District of New York has scheduled a hearing on the issues
11:58raised by Bradley Edwards for Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
12:02It's not just names.
12:05Yes, Epstein survivor Annie Farmer, who testified convincingly to a jury in Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial
12:11that resulted in a unanimous verdict of guilty by that jury, told the New York Times, quote,
12:18It's hard to imagine a more egregious way of not protecting victims than having full nude images of them
12:26available for the world to download.
12:30Yes, Donald Trump's Justice Department did that in direct violation of the law passed by our first guest tonight
12:39that forced the Trump Justice Department to deliver the Epstein files to Congress.
12:44Congressman Ro Khanna, along with his original co-sponsor of the legislation, Republican Thomas Massey,
12:50gained the support and confidence of Epstein survivors by showing them the language in the law
12:54that they were proposing that made it impossible for Donald Trump's Justice Department
13:00to release photographs of them, any kind of photographs of them.
13:05The law made it impossible for Donald Trump's Justice Department to release their names,
13:09their addresses, their email addresses.
13:10The law made it impossible for Donald Trump's Justice Department to release any information about the survivors.
13:15But the Trump Justice Department refused to follow the law.
13:21The last presidential election meant that the Justice Department would abandon the mission of upholding the law
13:29and simply break the law at will with impunity and Donald Trump's approval.
13:39The name that appears in the Epstein files, second only to the name Epstein, is the name Trump.
13:45The New York Times, using its own search software, revealed this count of Trump mentions.
13:54Using a proprietary search tool, the New York Times identified more than 5,300 files
13:58containing more than 38,000 references to Mr. Trump, his wife, his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida,
14:05and other related words and phrases in the latest batch of emails, government files, videos,
14:10and other records released by the Justice Department.
14:14Previous installments of the Epstein files, which the department released late last year,
14:19included another 130 files with Trump-related references.
14:23None of those files include any direct communication between Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein.
14:29Mr. Trump is one of half a dozen prominent men,
14:32one about whom the agency's files include salacious information,
14:36according to an email an FBI official wrote to a colleague last year.
14:40The new released files also include notes and transcripts of interviews
14:45that federal investigators conducted with Mr. Epstein's victims,
14:49some of whom describe interactions with Mr. Trump, for instance.
14:54Handwritten notes from one interview in September 2019,
14:57about a month after Mr. Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail,
15:01say that a victim whose name has been redacted recalled being transported in a dark green car
15:08to Mar-a-Lago to meet Mr. Trump.
15:11This is a good one, huh?
15:13The victim recalls Mr. Epstein saying to Mr. Trump,
15:18the notes do not suggest misconduct by Mr. Trump.
15:22Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection to Mr. Epstein.
15:26Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California.
15:30He's a member of the House Oversight Committee.
15:32Congressman Khanna, the Trump Justice Department says they're finished.
15:36They said their release of the Epstein files is now everything that you asked for.
15:44They're wrong.
15:46Here's what people should think.
15:48As disgusting as it is what they have released, imagine what they are concealing.
15:55And the survivors are furious for the reasons you outlined, Lawrence.
16:00Bradley Edwards, the survivor's lawyer, is furious.
16:04They took more care to protect the rich and powerful men who raped or abused these underage girls
16:11than they did for the actual victims of the crimes.
16:15And this is why people think they're two tiers of justice under Donald Trump.
16:21So what are the remedies at this point to try to obtain more of the Epstein files that are currently
16:28being withheld?
16:31Three things.
16:33First, Thomas Massey and I have requested a meeting with Deputy Attorney General Blanche.
16:39Now, he has been so callous and flippant going on TV saying this is just about men partying with Epstein,
16:46leaving out that people went to the island to rape underage girls.
16:50But he has said that he's open to meeting us and he has said he's open to meeting Raskin.
16:56So we plan to look for the unredacted documents and see what else needs to be released.
17:03Second, the survivors can bring lawsuits with Judge Berman and Judge Engelmeyer.
17:09I expect that they will.
17:10And third, Massey and I retain the ability to file lawsuits in the Southern District of New York.
17:17But we are going to push for the rest of the files to be released while protecting the survivors.
17:22We discovered in the Epstein files that Donald Trump's completely incompetent Commerce Secretary, Howard Letnick,
17:29is also as much of a liar about this as Donald Trump.
17:33He had claimed publicly that he met Epstein once, who was his next door neighbor in Manhattan,
17:39stepped into his house in Manhattan, his townhouse for five minutes and left,
17:43never to have anything to do with him again.
17:45The Epstein files reveal that he, in fact, scheduled a rendezvous with Epstein on Epstein's island.
17:55Well, I don't understand how people can just get away with blatant lies.
17:59I mean, the only thing saving Letnick is that there are more egregious scandals,
18:04and we don't know where the media should focus.
18:07But you basically have someone who's a Commerce Secretary who lied to the American people.
18:12He said he had nothing to do with Epstein.
18:14Emails come out showing that he actually visited Epstein,
18:19that he brought his family to Epstein, and he needs to be asked,
18:22why did he lie?
18:24What is he trying to hide?
18:26Who is he trying to protect?
18:29I know you worked very carefully to include the Epstein survivors in what you were doing,
18:37and you sought their approval for what you were doing.
18:39How does it feel to you tonight that what you promised them in the release of the Epstein files
18:46did not happen for all of them, that some of them, in fact, were exposed in these files?
18:55I'm so angry, Lawrence.
18:57It's become personal for me.
18:59As you know, you're the one who connected me to Bradley Edwards,
19:02who then connected Thomas Massey and I to the survivors.
19:06These survivors have been in my office.
19:08They've talked about being abused and how it's like having a box
19:13and pushing that box away, but it never goes away.
19:16I've seen these people break down in tears in my office.
19:19This isn't politics.
19:20It's really become personal.
19:22And to see them betrayed when it all could have been avoided,
19:26that's why Thomas Massey and I asked the court for a special master.
19:30That's why we've been offering to meet with the Justice Department.
19:33That's why Bradley Edwards every day was saying to the Justice Department,
19:37consult us, and they did none of this.
19:40They've just been callous to these survivors, and they've been obsessed about protecting rich
19:47and powerful people who abuse them.
19:49And it's really a symptom of how our system has been co-opted by rich and powerful people
19:55and how ordinary people don't feel like they have justice in Donald Trump's America.
20:01So these files should be kept permanently at the Justice Department.
20:06If they're destroyed during the Trump years, of course, Donald Trump can pardon anyone in the Justice Department
20:11who destroys these files and completely get away with it and get away with issuing the pardon.
20:17But if they're not criminally destroyed in the Trump Justice Department,
20:22the next Justice Department controlled by a Democratic appointed attorney general
20:28could release everything else that is in the Epstein files.
20:34They could release it and they must release it and they must investigate what happened.
20:39When you have all these people who have gone to Epstein's Island, someone should ask them under oath,
20:45who did you see being abused there?
20:48Who did you see raping people there?
20:50Who did you see being paraded naked at parties?
20:54There needs to be not only the release, there needs to be an investigation about what happened.
21:00None of that has happened for decades and it is the obligation of the next president to do that,
21:06to make the survivors whole, but also to show that the justice system actually works in this country.
21:13Carson Rochanna, thank you very much for starting off our discussions tonight.
21:18Thank you, Lawrence.
21:20And coming up, Republican Senator Rand Paul doesn't trust the FBI to investigate the killing of Alex Preddy
21:26and a Democratic senator is demanding an investigation of Donald Trump's so-called border czar, Tom Homan,
21:31for accepting $50,000 in cash from FBI undercover agents.
21:37That and more is next with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
21:44Today, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reports the Hennepin County medical examiner has classified Alex Preddy's death as a homicide.
21:51That is not news. A homicide is simply a death caused by another person, as we have reported on this
21:57program.
21:58Not all homicides are crimes.
22:01The Star-Tribune also reports, though, that the autopsy report, which has not yet been released,
22:06reveals that Alex Preddy suffered, quote, multiple gunshot wounds.
22:14Most of those multiple gunshot wounds were fired at Alex Preddy,
22:20and they were fired while all of the federal agents were walking backwards in the video,
22:26away from the body of Alex Preddy, who was lying face down on the pavement, not moving,
22:32for most of the shots that were fired at him.
22:36Most of the federal agents present saw absolutely no threat from Alex Preddy whatsoever at any time,
22:43which is why most of the federal agents did not fire their guns.
22:46Only two of the agents made the decision to shoot and continue shooting at Alex Preddy.
22:52And the Republican senator, who's chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over those agents, said this.
23:00I saw no evidence. I saw a man that was retreating.
23:04I mean, he went to the middle of the street.
23:07He didn't even obstruct traffic. He let a car go through.
23:10As the agents advanced on him, he retreated to the side of the street.
23:13A woman is violently pushed to the ground, and he turns to Elper, and that's when he is grabbed from
23:19behind.
23:21I said no evidence of him assaulting the police.
23:24I think we have to get through our hearing February 12th, and I think we have to see what the
23:28people who work for her say.
23:30But my advice to them, if they're watching and they come to testify, is if you come in and you're
23:37going to justify
23:38that this man was aggressively assaulting your police officers, that cannot be acceptable, and that's why they're lacking in trust.
23:47The man who says he is now in charge of drawing down Donald Trump's invasion of Minneapolis was recorded by
23:53FBI undercover agents on video
23:55receiving $50,000 in a cash payoff during the last Trump presidential campaign.
24:00Democratic Senator Jackie Rosen of Nevada is now demanding that the Trump Justice Department inspector general
24:05investigate the $50,000 undercover payoff to Donald Trump's so-called border czar, Tom Homan, who says he did nothing
24:14wrong.
24:15In a letter to the deputy inspector general of the Trump Justice Department, Senator Rosen says,
24:20I request that you conduct a robust investigation into Mr. Homan's acceptance of the $50,000 cash payment
24:26from undercover FBI agents and DOJ's handling of the case.
24:30Furthermore, given that it is unclear what happened to the $50,000 provided to Mr. Homan and the sting operation,
24:36it is critical for your office to determine how Mr. Homan later used this money, particularly if the payment was
24:45funded by taxpayer dollars.
24:48And today, in an indirect admission of mission failure in Minneapolis, Donald Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem,
24:57issued a statement saying,
24:59Effective immediately, we are deploying body cameras to every officer in the field in Minneapolis.
25:06Joining us now is Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
25:09He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Budget Committee.
25:14He's the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
25:18Senator, the $50,000 question about Tom Homan has never been fully explored,
25:27and Tom Homan certainly has not fully responded to it.
25:31No, I asked Attorney General Bondi about that in her hearing in the Judiciary Committee,
25:38and I didn't get an answer.
25:40We followed up with questions for the record.
25:43I went to Chairman Grassley to ask him to tell Attorney General Bondi that she should answer the question for
25:50the record truthfully,
25:51the way we expect all witnesses to answer.
25:54And then we followed up with a Freedom of Information Act request,
25:58because we haven't had very good luck getting answers, let alone truthful ones,
26:03out of the Trump Department of Justice.
26:06So the step now to ask the Inspector General to examine this, I think, is merited.
26:13And it's kind of stunning that they aren't able to answer this question,
26:21and particularly when you have the Republican chairman of the Homeland Services Committee
26:28that oversees ICE and CBP, saying that there's a problem of trust, that they are lacking in trust.
26:37What could be more lacking in trust than to send in as the replacement for that little person, Bovino,
26:45who behaved so badly that even in the Trump administration he was too incompetent and dangerous to stay?
26:52This guy. This guy. This is the guy they chose to send in.
26:55This is the guy who's supposed to be the one who would restore trust.
26:59And he can't even tell the truth about what he did with $50,000 in bribe money received from FBI
27:05agents.
27:05We just heard Rand Paul say he doesn't trust the FBI to do the investigation,
27:11and he doesn't trust the federal government to do the investigation of federal agents shooting and killing Alex Preddy in
27:19Minneapolis.
27:20Well, there's the local county attorney.
27:24They don't call them district attorneys.
27:25They call them county attorneys there.
27:27Mary Moriarty, who is investigating this, wants to investigate this,
27:31and just needs more cooperation from the federal FBI that has custody of so much of the evidence.
27:40Yeah, at this point, it seems that the federal government is not cooperating with local officials,
27:44not sharing evidence, and that is extremely, extremely unusual.
27:51When I was the U.S. attorney, the only reason that we would not cooperate with local officials
27:56in an investigation that they were interested in was because there was some problem with that local group.
28:04If we were looking into corruption in the city of Providence, which I did,
28:09then we would carve out the city of Providence police department
28:13because they would have to report up to the subject of our investigation.
28:18But in the ordinary course, it is rule one elementary law enforcement practice
28:24that you put a task force together, you put a working group together,
28:28you bring in the local police because they can add resources, they can add value,
28:33they have their own evidence that they can support.
28:36So the fact that they're not doing this is almost an admission of culpability in itself.
28:41It is a flashing alarm that something is very wrong in the Trump DHS.
28:48And before Donald Trump moved him out of Minneapolis,
28:54his commander of the invasion forces, Gregory Bovino, was on a phone call
29:00in which he voiced his own anti-Semitic feelings about the U.S. attorney there
29:06who's orthodox Jew and observes the Sabbath,
29:10and that was something that bothered Bovino greatly.
29:13This, in the administration, where they're going after institutions like Harvard University,
29:19claiming that Harvard is anti-Semitic and needs to be fixed by Donald Trump,
29:24who has probably employed more anti-Semites in the federal government than any other president.
29:30Yeah.
29:30It makes it seem that that is pretty pretextual.
29:34And you see anti-Semitism sort of riddled throughout this administration,
29:39but nothing more visually telling than little Mr. Bovino,
29:46who looked like sort of a miniature version of an extra in a World War II Nazi movie.
29:54We're going to squeeze in a commercial break here, Senator.
29:57And as you know, Tulsi Gabbard has gone where no previous intelligence official has gone
30:02to seize voting records.
30:04That's next with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
30:08Tonight, Donald Trump's fully incompetent director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,
30:12responded to questions from Intelligence Committee Democrats about her participation
30:18in the FBI raid, seizing voting records in Fulton County, Georgia.
30:23Tulsi Gabbard said,
30:24my presence was requested by the president and executed under broad statutory authority
30:31to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security,
30:36including counterintelligence, foreign and other malign influence in cybersecurity.
30:40The FBI's intelligence, counterintelligence divisions are one of the 18 elements that I oversee.
30:45And the Wall Street Journal is reporting a U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing
30:51by director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, in a whistleblower complaint
30:55that is so highly classified, it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress,
31:02according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
31:06The filing of the complaint has prompted a continuing behind-the-scenes struggle
31:11about how to assess and handle it with the whistleblower's lawyer accusing Gabbard
31:16of stonewalling the complaint.
31:18Gabbard's office rejects that characterization, contending it is navigating a unique set of circumstances
31:23and working to resolve the issue.
31:26Back with us, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
31:29And Senator, as you know, Tulsi Gabbard also placed a cell phone call to Donald Trump
31:37with the FBI agents involved in the raid in Fulton County, Georgia,
31:41to have some kind of, I guess, discussion with the coach about how they ran the play.
31:50Everything about this is highly suspicious.
31:56First of all, the search warrant that they were executing in Fulton County, Georgia,
32:02came out of a U.S. attorney's office and a magistrate judge in Missouri.
32:08And the local FBI office in Georgia was not involved.
32:14Now, I was a U.S. attorney, and sometimes your case in your district requires you to get evidence
32:21from another district.
32:23And what you do then is you have the local U.S. attorney get a warrant in the local area.
32:29So that would make sense, Georgia and Georgia.
32:35And then you would have the FBI agent be the affiant on the affidavit.
32:41And that would be from your home state because you don't want to have to walk another FBI agent through
32:47the whole case.
32:48So you're in your state.
32:50The investigation is in your state.
32:52The FBI agent in your state provides the affidavit.
32:58And then in the state where you're going to get the warrant, an AUSA from that state gets the warrant.
33:06Very standard practice here.
33:08None of that happened.
33:09And worse than that, the special agent in charge in that district in Georgia seems to have been fired.
33:17They said he was resigned.
33:18We don't know yet.
33:19But anyway, spontaneously disappeared in the days before the execution of this warrant.
33:26He's the person who would have, you know, been looking over this and seeing if that was legitimate behavior.
33:34The Missouri U.S. attorney who did this is not even a confirmed U.S. attorney.
33:40What he is is an election denier with a paper record of election denial from his service in Missouri as
33:49an assistant attorney general, which creates a huge record for defendants to go after to allege, you know, vindictive and
33:57unfair prosecution.
33:58And political pals with Ken Martin, the creepy guy who just got moved out of the Department of Justice and
34:08ran the weaponization working group for the Department of Justice.
34:12And that takes you back to Tulsi Gabbard, who says she stood up the weaponization working group, which is this
34:19bizarre group of Trumpy people across multiple federal agencies who basically conspired together across the agencies without necessarily going up
34:30the chain of command to their cabinet officials.
34:32They're running their own operation.
34:34And the purpose of that operation is to try to run political errands for Donald Trump using the offices of
34:41the United States government.
34:43And if all that's not enough, of course, he has to call in just like that Raffensperger call.
34:49You think you'd have the good sense to know, wait a minute, if this is election mischief and it's Georgia,
34:55maybe I shouldn't be making stupid phone calls.
34:57But every single piece of this is bad Department of Justice practice because it opens up avenues of inquiry for
35:06defendants.
35:08So the final question here is, will there ever be a defendant to ask questions about this?
35:13Or was the purpose of the seizure of those documents just to get them in the hands of Trump's election
35:21monkey wrenchers to try to rig elections in the future?
35:25And there's no plan to bring charges that would allow any of these inquiries to proceed.
35:32Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, your guidance on this one, invaluable as usual.
35:36Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
35:40And coming up, a big, big win for Democrats in Texas in a district Donald Trump won by 17 points.
35:47It's the Democratic candidate for Texas state Senate in a special election on Saturday.
35:52Taylor, I'm at one by 14 points.
35:57He'll join us next and tell us how he did it.
36:02And so once again, we face the question, is Donald Trump lying or is he losing cognitive ability?
36:08Or is he just too old to remember what he did yesterday?
36:11Donald Trump was on the losing side of a special election in Texas on Saturday.
36:15On Election Day Saturday, Donald Trump posted a social media post telling people to get out and vote for the
36:22Republican candidate for state Senate,
36:24who he called a true mega warrior, who has my complete and total endorsement.
36:28The next day, Donald Trump claimed he had no memory of telling anyone to vote for a true mega warrior
36:35just the day before.
36:39Mr. President, Texas, a Democrat won in a special election in an area that you had won by 17 points.
36:46What is your reaction to that?
36:47I don't know.
36:48I didn't hear about it.
36:49Somebody ran where?
36:50In Texas, a special election for a legislative seat.
36:53The ninth state Senate seat.
36:54I'm not involved in that.
36:55That's a local Texas race.
36:57You mean I won by 17 and this person lost?
37:03Things like that happen.
37:06Our next guest is the winner of that election, Taylor Emmett, a former Air Force B-52 mechanic
37:13who is now a unionized factory worker for Lockheed Martin building fighter jets.
37:17In a district, Donald Trump won by 17 points.
37:20Taylor Emmett, who has never run for office before, won by 14 points.
37:25And here is how he did it.
37:30Growing up, my mom always told me not to talk about money at the dinner table.
37:34Well, sorry, mom.
37:37Because this campaign is all about money.
37:39It's about how much we get in our paychecks, how much we spend on groceries and health insurance,
37:44how much we pay in property taxes.
37:46So while my opponent helps billionaires get richer, I'm fighting for you.
37:50I'm Taylor Emmett, and I'm running for Texas Senate District 9 to make Texas work for you.
37:55Cut.
37:56I'm Taylor Emmett's mom, and I approve this message.
38:00And joining us now is Texas State Senator-elect Taylor Emmett.
38:04Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
38:07Thank you so much, Lawrence.
38:10And I got to say, for me, I have no more questions about how you did it.
38:15Your mom put you over the top.
38:18Shout out to my mom.
38:22I read today that the reason you got involved, the reason you decided to run, was frustration you experienced in
38:30your one attempt,
38:31your one interest in the state Senate just trying to do something about veterans' benefits,
38:38alerting people to veterans' benefits that wouldn't have cost anyone a penny.
38:43Yes, it was that.
38:45There was stuff before that.
38:46But that was really the straw that broke the camel's back.
38:48I was tired of seeing working folks get left behind in this state.
38:53We have a ton of folks that clock in early, leave late, and keep this state running.
38:59And we need to focus legislation around that.
39:03And as you go forward now, you're going to have to, this is a special election, so it only gets
39:07you to the next election.
39:09You're pretty much starting to run for re-election almost immediately.
39:14How will you make that case to Texas voters going forward?
39:20The hard work we put in has won us two elections so far in a very short amount of time.
39:26But we know listening and engaging the community is the best way to earn their trust.
39:32And when you earn their trust, you can be outspent, like me, 10 to 1, and still come ahead with
39:37a really powerful victory.
39:40This is not about part of the politics.
39:42That's what I want to make clear, is that we did the work.
39:45We focused on voters, no matter what side of the political aisle.
39:50And we just stuck to the major issues here that we'd be hearing on knocking these doors and making these
39:55phone calls.
39:56How much did you learn from voters?
39:59I know when you go into a race like this, you go in as a voter.
40:02So you know what you think.
40:04You know what you think matters.
40:06And I'm sure a lot of that is in the campaign.
40:08But how much of it did you learn from voters by campaigning?
40:13So what I learned was that it's not just about working folks.
40:18We do need to work on that.
40:21But we also have a big problem with public schools here.
40:24And people are struggling in this economy.
40:26So just with that, we need to find a way to lower costs.
40:30I had a woman come up to me at one of my campaign events.
40:33And she was shook.
40:35She was the director of a cancer center here in district.
40:39And she said the people that come to get cancer treatment are choosing between their treatment and rent and their
40:47food.
40:47This is a major problem.
40:49This is a fire alarm fire we have to address.
40:51But going back to the public schools, we have a voucher scam that's now being implemented here in our great
40:57state.
40:58And it's going to affect our public schools, which, to me, we should hold sacred.
41:02They're not supposed to be partisan.
41:04We have to really invest in the next future of Texans.
41:10Texas State Senator-elect Taylor Emmett, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
41:15And please come back as the campaign continues.
41:19Sounds good.
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