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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 No. 6 from the kitchen at 356 El
05:50Brio Way, upstairs to the master bedroom area at 358 El Brio Way. In or around May 2004,
06:01defendant Jeffrey Epstein redacted Jane Doe 6, who was then a 16-year-old girl.
06:10Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator and co-defendants in this indictment, the one who led that girl
06:18upstairs to Jeffrey Epstein is one of the people whose identity Donald Trump's Justice Department
06:27doesn'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 upstairs
06:42by Jeffrey Epstein's criminal co-conspirators, including Ghislaine Maxwell. Attorney Bradley
06:47Edwards represents hundreds of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and has told us on this program
06:54that only a very small number of the total number of survivors have ever 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. One, documents in which minor victim
07:25one had her name revealed 20 times in a single document. After reporting the violation, Department
07:30of Justice redacted her name three additional times, leaving 17 instances still unredacted
07:36as of this filing. Two, an email listing 32 minor child victims with only one name redacted and 31 left
07:44visible despite Department of Justice's possession of those names. Three, FBI 302 victim statements
07:51with full first and last names unredacted, including for minor victims. Four, handwritten FBI interview
07:57notes with minor victims, full names unredacted at the top and throughout. Five, documents containing
08:04victims' names alongside dates of birth, bank information, driver's license numbers, email
08:09addresses or home addresses. Six, documents where victims' names are redacted in some places but not
08:16others within the same document. Seven, documents where redactions are pencil thin, revealing the
08:22complete name and email address beneath. Eight, documents where photographs are properly redacted in one
08:29instance and appear fully unredacted nearby. Nine, hundreds of documents exposing the names of four
08:36women who have been in near constant communication with the Department of Justice since December requesting
08:43protection. Donald Trump's Justice Department did not give them that protection.
08:49Bradley Edwards told the judges, the Department of Justice cannot plausibly characterize this as error,
08:55negligence or bureaucratic failure. But that is exactly what Donald Trump's Justice Department claimed.
09:01Human error. Today, the Trump Justice Department said in a letter to the judges, quote,
09:06the department now has taken down several thousands of documents and media that may have inadvertently
09:12included victim 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,
09:24raided a county office to seize voting records last week, not copies of voting records, the actual
09:31voting records. How many human errors do they plan to make with those voting records? This is the same
09:38Trump Justice Department that now claims it is going to conduct an investigation of what video shows
09:43clearly to be the murder of registered nurse Alex Preddy in Minneapolis by federal border patrol agents
09:49sent there by Donald Trump. How many human errors does Donald Trump's Justice Department plan to make
09:56in that investigation that they first said was completely unnecessary? Republican Senator Rand Paul,
10:03who is chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Department, said he doesn't trust
10:09the FBI to investigate the murder of Alex Preddy. Could the FBI have a credible investigation?
10:19Um, that's, that's a question. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
10:25Maybe not, is what you're saying.
10:29Well, there were some pretty immediate conclusions on whether or not you're allowed to carry a gun at
10:33a 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. I think really, if it were an independent group outside
10:43of the federal government would be better, actually.
10:47Attorney Bradley Edwards' pleading to the judges included direct statements from some of his
10:53clients whose identities have been revealed. One of the Epstein survivors in Bradley Edwards'
10:59filing, identified as Jane Doe number five, wrote this to the judges.
11:06I have never come forward. I am now being harassed by the media and others. This is devastating to my
11:14life. Please pull my name down immediately as every minute that these document with my names are up.
11:22It causes more harm to me. Please, I'm begging you to delete my name. I can only imagine the
11:29devastation your errors are causing to so many other victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Wasn't the only job
11:36to redact victims' names. Hasn't every person with authority promised repeatedly that victims have
11:43nothing to worry about because our names will be redacted? Hasn't the entire delay of producing
11:49documents been allegedly because you have been redacting names? Judge Richard Berman of the
11:55Southern District of New York has scheduled a hearing on the issues raised by Bradley Edwards
11:59for Wednesday at 1130 a.m. It's not just names. Epstein survivor Annie Farmer, who testified convincingly
12:09to a jury in Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial that resulted in a unanimous verdict of guilty by that
12:15jury, told the New York Times, quote, It's hard to imagine a more egregious way of not protecting victims than
12:23having full nude images of them available for the world to download. Yes, Donald Trump's Justice Department did that.
12:35In direct violation of the law passed by our first guest tonight that forced the Trump
12:41Justice Department to deliver the Epstein files to Congress. Congressman Ro Khanna, along with his
12:46original co-sponsor of the legislation, Republican Thomas Massey, gained the support and confidence
12:51of Epstein survivors by showing them the language in the law that they were proposing that made it
12:57impossible for Donald Trump's Justice Department to release photographs of them, any kind of photographs
13:04of them. The law made it impossible for Donald Trump's Justice Department to release their names,
13:09their addresses, their email addresses. The law made it impossible for Donald Trump's Justice Department
13:13to release any information about the survivors. But the Trump Justice Department refused to follow the law.
13:21The last president presidential election meant that the Justice Department would abandon the mission
13:28of upholding the law and 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. Using a
13:54proprietary search tool, the New York Times identified more than 5,300 files containing more than 38,000
14:00references to Mr. Trump, his wife, his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and other related words and phrases
14:07in the latest batch of emails, government files, videos, and other records released by the Justice
14:13Justice Department. Previous installments of the Epstein files, which the department released late
14:19last year, included another 130 files with Trump-related references. None of those files include
14:25any direct communication between Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein. Mr. Trump is one of half a dozen prominent
14:32men about whom the agency's files include salacious information, according to an email an FBI official
14:38wrote to a colleague last year. The new released files also include notes and transcripts of
14:45interviews that federal investigators conducted with Mr. Epstein's victims, some of whom describe
14:51interactions with Mr. Trump, for instance. Handwritten notes from one interview in September 2019,
14:57about a month after Mr. Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail, say that a victim whose name has
15:04been redacted recalled being transported in a dark green car to Mar-a-Lago to meet Mr. Trump.
15:11This is a good one, huh? The victim recalls Mr. Epstein saying to Mr. Trump, the notes do not suggest
15:19misconduct by Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection to Mr. Epstein.
15:26Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. He's a member of
15:31the House Oversight Committee. Congressman 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. Here's what people should think. As disgusting as it is what they have released,
15:52imagine what they are concealing. And the survivors are furious for the reasons you outlined, Lawrence.
16:00Bradley Edwards, the survivor's lawyer, is furious. They took more care to protect the rich and powerful
16:08men who raped or abused these underage girls than they did for the actual victims of the crimes. And
16:16this is why people think they're two tiers of justice under Donald Trump. So what are the remedies at
16:23this point to try to obtain more of the Epstein files that are currently being withheld?
16:31Three things. First, 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. So
16:56we plan to look for
16:57the unredacted documents and see what else needs to be released.
17:03Second, the survivors can bring lawsuits with Judge Berman and Judge Engelmeyer. I 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,
17:28Howard Lutnik, is also as much of a liar about this as Donald Trump. He had claimed publicly that he
17:35met
17:36Epstein once, who was his next door neighbor in Manhattan, stepped into his house in Manhattan,
17:41his townhouse for five minutes and left, never to have anything to do with him again. The Epstein
17:46files reveal that he, in fact, scheduled a rendezvous with Epstein on Epstein's island.
17:55Lawrence, I don't understand how people can just get away with blatant lies. I mean,
18:00the only thing saving Lutnik is that there are more egregious scandals and we don't know
18:05where the media should focus. But you basically have someone who's a commerce secretary who lied
18:11to the American people. He said he had nothing to do with Epstein. Emails come out showing that he
18:16actually visited Epstein, that he brought his family to Epstein. And he needs to be asked,
18:22why did he lie? What is he trying to hide? Who is he trying to protect?
18:29I know you worked very carefully to include the Epstein survivors in what you were doing,
18:36and you sought their approval for what you were doing. How does it feel to you tonight that what
18:43you promised them in the release of the Epstein files did not happen for all of them, that some
18:50of them, in fact, were exposed in these files? I'm so angry, Lawrence. It's become personal for me.
18:59As you know, you're the one who connected me to Bradley Edwards, who then connected Thomas Massey
19:04and I to the survivors. These survivors have been in my office. They've talked about being abused and
19:11how it's like having a box and pushing that box away, but it never goes away. I've seen these people
19:17break down in tears in my office. This isn't politics. It's really become personal. And to see
19:23them betrayed when it all could have been avoided, that's why Thomas Massey and I asked the court for a
19:28special master. That's why we've been offering to meet with the Justice Department. That's why Bradley
19:34Edwards every day was saying to the Justice Department, consult us. And they did none of this.
19:40They've just been callous to these survivors. And they've been obsessed about protecting
19:46rich and powerful people who abuse them. And it's really a symptom of how our system has been
19:53co-opted by rich and powerful people and how ordinary people don't feel like they have justice
19:57in Donald Trump's America. So these files should be kept permanently at the Justice Department. If
20:06they're destroyed during the Trump years, of course, Donald Trump can pardon anyone in the Justice
20:11Department who destroys these files and completely get away with it and get away with issuing the
20:17pardon. But if they're not criminally destroyed in the Trump Justice Department, the next Justice
20:23Department controlled by a Democratic appointed Attorney General could release everything else that
20:30is in the Epstein files. They could release it and they must release it. And they must investigate
20:38what happened. When you have all these people who have gone to Epstein's Island, someone should ask them
20:44under oath, who did you see being abused there? Who did you see raping people there? Who did you see
20:51being paraded naked at parties? There needs to be not only the release, there needs to be an investigation
20:59about what happened. None of that has happened for decades. And it is the obligation of the next
21:05president to do that, to make the survivors whole, but also to show that the justice system actually
21:11works in this country.
21:13Carson Rochanna, thank you very much for starting off our discussions tonight.
21:18Thank you, Lawrence.
21:20Thank you. And coming up, Republican Senator Rand Paul doesn't trust the FBI to investigate the
21:25killing of Alex Petty. And a Democratic senator is demanding an investigation of Donald Trump's
21:29so-called border czar, Tom Homan, for accepting $50,000 in cash from FBI undercover agents. That and more
21:38is next with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
21:44Today, the Minnesota Star Tribune reports the Hennepin County medical examiner has classified
21:49Alex Petty's death as a homicide. That is not news. A homicide is simply a death caused by another
21:56person, as we have reported on this program. Not all homicides are crimes. The Star Tribune also reports,
22:03though, that the autopsy report, which has not yet been released, reveals that Alex Petty
22:08suffered, quote, multiple gunshot wounds. Here. Most of those multiple gunshot wounds
22:18were fired at Alex Petty and they were fired while all of the federal agents were walking backwards
22:25in the video away from the body of Alex Petty, who was lying face down on the pavement, not moving
22:32for most of the shots that were fired at him. Most of the federal agents present saw absolutely no threat
22:40from Alex Petty whatsoever at any time, which 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 Petty.
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. He didn't even obstruct traffic. He let a car go
23:09through.
23:10As the agents advanced on him, he retreated to the side of the street. A woman is violently pushed to
23:15the ground
23:16and he turns to Elper and that's when he is grabbed from behind.
23:21I saw no evidence of him assaulting the police. I think we have to get through our hearing February 12th
23:26and I think we have to see what the people who work for her say. But my advice to them,
23:32if they're watching and they come to testify is if you come in and you're going to justify
23:38that this man was aggressively assaulting your police officers, that cannot be acceptable.
23:44And that's why they're lacking in trust.
23:48The man who says he is now in charge of drawing down Donald Trump's invasion of Minneapolis was
23:53recorded by FBI undercover agents on video receiving $50,000 in a cash payoff during the last Trump
23:59presidential campaign. Democratic Senator Jackie Rosen of Nevada is now demanding that the Trump
24:04Justice Department inspector general investigate the $50,000 undercover payoff to Donald Trump's
24:09so-called border czar, Tom Holman, who says he did nothing wrong. In a letter to the deputy inspector
24:17general of the Trump Justice Department, Senator Rosen says, I request that you conduct a robust
24:22investigation into Mr. Holman's acceptance of the $50,000 cash payment from undercover FBI agents
24:27and DOJ's handling of the case. Furthermore, given that it is unclear what happened to the $50,000
24:34provided to Mr. Holman and the sting operation, it is critical for your office to determine how Mr.
24:41Holman later used this money, particularly if the payment was funded by taxpayer dollars.
24:48And today, in an indirect admission of mission failure in Minneapolis, Donald Trump's Homeland
24:54Security Secretary, Kristi Noem issued a statement saying, effective immediately,
25:00we are deploying body cameras to every officer in the field in Minneapolis. Joining us now is
25:07Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
25:11also a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Budget Committee. He is the top Democrat on the
25:16Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Senator, the $50,000 question about Tom Holman has
25:24never been fully explored. And Tom Holman certainly has not fully responded to it.
25:31No, I asked Attorney General Bondi about that in her hearing in the Judiciary Committee and I didn't
25:39get an answer. We followed up with questions for the record. I went to Chairman Grassley to ask him to
25:46tell Attorney General Bondi that she should answer the question for the record truthfully the way we
25:52expect all witnesses to answer. And then we followed up with a Freedom of Information Act request because
25:59we haven't had very good luck getting answers, let alone truthful ones, out of the Trump Department of
26:06Justice. So 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. And particularly when you have
26:23the Republican chairman of the Homeland Services Committee that oversees ICE and CBP saying that
26:33there's a problem of trust, that they are lacking in trust. What could be more lacking in trust than to
26:39send in as the replacement for that little person, Bovino, who behaved badly that even in the Trump
26:48administration, he was too incompetent and dangerous to stay? This guy, this is the guy they chose to send
26:55in. This is the guy who's supposed to be the one who would restore trust. And he can't even tell
27:00the
27:00truth about what he did with $50,000 in bribe money received from FBI agents.
27:06We just heard Rand Paul say he doesn't trust the FBI to do the investigation and he doesn't trust
27:12the federal government to do the investigation of federal agents shooting and killing Alex
27:18Preddy in Minneapolis. Well, there's the local county attorney, they don't call them district
27:25attorneys, they call them county attorneys there, Mary Moriarty, who is investigating this,
27:30wants to investigate this and just needs more cooperation from the federal, the FBI that has
27:37custody of so much of the evidence. Yeah, at this point, it seems that the federal government is not
27:42cooperating with local officials, not 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
28:03group. If we were looking into corruption in the city of Providence, which I did, then we would carve
28:10out the city of Providence police department because they would have to report up to the subject of our
28:17investigation. But in the ordinary course, it is rule one elementary law enforcement practice
28:25that you put a task force together, you put a working group together, you bring in the local police
28:30because they can add resources, they can add value, they have their own evidence that they can support.
28:35So the fact that they're not doing this is almost an admission of culpability in itself. It is a
28:42flashing alarm that something is very wrong in the Trump DHS.
28:48And before Donald Trump moved him out of Minneapolis, his commander of the invasion forces, Gregory Bovino,
28:58was on a phone call in which he voiced his own anti-Semitic feelings about the U.S. attorney
29:05there who's Orthodox Jew and observes the Sabbath. And that was something that bothered Bovino greatly.
29:14This in the administration where they're going after institutions like Harvard University claiming that
29:20Harvard is anti-Semitic and needs to be fixed by Donald Trump, who has probably employed more anti-Semites
29:27in the federal government than any other president. Yeah, it makes it seem that that is pretty pretextual.
29:34And you see anti-Semitism sort of riddled throughout this administration, but nothing more visually
29:42telling than little Mr. Bovino, who looked like sort of a miniature version of an extra in a World War
29:512 Nazi movie. We're going to squeeze in a commercial break here, Senator. And as you know, Tulsi Gabbard
29:58has gone where no previous intelligence official has gone to seize voting records. That's next with
30:05Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Tonight, Donald Trump's fully incompetent director of national intelligence,
30:12Tulsi Gabbard, responded to questions from intelligence community committee Democrats
30:17about her participation in the FBI raid, seizing voting records in Fulton County, Georgia. Tulsi Gabbard
30:24said, my presence was requested by the president and executed under broad statutory authority to
30:31coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence,
30:37foreign and other malign influence in cybersecurity. The FBI's intelligence,
30:42counterintelligence divisions are one of the 18 elements that I oversee. And the Wall Street Journal is
30:46reporting a U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by director of national intelligence,
30:53Tulsi Gabbard in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified. It has sparked months of
30:59wrangling over how to share it with Congress, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
31:06The filing of the complaint has prompted a continuing behind the scenes struggle about how to assess and handle
31:13it with the whistleblower's lawyer accusing Gabbard of stonewalling the complaint. Gabbard's office
31:19rejects that characterization, contending it is navigating a unique set of circumstances and working
31:24to resolve the issue. Back with us, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. And Senator, as you know, Tulsi Gabbard
31:33also placed a cell phone call to Donald Trump with the FBI agents involved in the raid in Fulton County,
31:41Georgia, Georgia to have some kind of, I guess, discussion with the coach about how they ran the play.
31:50Everything about this is highly suspicious. First of all, the search warrant that they were executing in
32:00Fulton County, Georgia came 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. Now, I was a U.S. attorney and sometimes your
32:17case in your
32:18district requires you to get evidence from another district. And what you do then is you have the local U
32:26.S. attorney
32:27get a warrant in the local area. So that would make sense, Georgia and Georgia. And then you would have
32:36the FBI agent be the affiant on the affidavit. And that would be from your home state because you don't
32:45want to have to walk another FBI agent through the whole case. So you're in your state. The investigation
32:51is in your state. The FBI agent in your state provides the affidavit. And then in the state where
32:59you're going to get the warrant, an AUSA from that state gets the warrant. Very standard practice here.
33:08None of that happened. And worse than that, the special agent in charge in that district in Georgia
33:16seems to have been fired. They said he was resigned. We don't know yet. But anyway, spontaneously
33:21disappeared in the days before the execution of this warrant. He's the person who would have,
33:28you know, been looking over this and seeing if that was legitimate behavior. The Missouri U.S.
33:36attorney who did this is not even a confirmed U.S. attorney. What he is is an election denier
33:43with a paper record of election denial from his service in Missouri as an assistant attorney general,
33:51which creates a huge record for defendants to go after to allege, you know, vindictive and unfair
33:58prosecution and political pals with Ken Martin, the creepy guy who just got moved out of the Department
34:06of Justice and ran 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,
34:19which is this bizarre group of Trumpy people across multiple federal agencies who basically conspired
34:26together across the agencies without necessarily going up the chain of command to their cabinet officials.
34:32They're running their own operation. And the purpose of that operation is to try to run political
34:38errands for Donald Trump using the offices of the United States government. And if all that's not
34:44enough, of course, he has to call in just like that Raffensperger call. You think you'd have the good
34:50sense to know, wait a minute, if this is election mischief and it's Georgia, maybe I shouldn't be making stupid
34:57phone calls. But every single piece of this is bad Department of Justice practice because it opens up
35:05avenues of inquiry for defendants. So the final question here is, will there ever be a defendant to
35:12ask questions about this? Or was the purpose of the seizure of those documents just to get them in the
35:18hands of Trump's election monkey wrenchers to try to rig elections in the future? And there's no plan
35:26to bring charges that would allow any of these inquiries to proceed. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse,
35:33your guidance on this one, invaluable as usual. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
35:38Thank you. Coming up, a big, big win for Democrats in Texas in a district Donald Trump won by 17
35:47points.
35:47The Democratic candidate for Texas state Senate in a special election on Saturday. Taylor, I'm at
35:54one by 14 points. He'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 or is
36:08he just too old to remember what he did yesterday? Donald Trump was on the losing side of a special
36:13election in Texas on Saturday. On election day Saturday, Donald Trump posted a social media
36:19post telling people to get out and vote for the Republican candidate for state Senate,
36:24who he called a true mega warrior, who has my complete and total endorsement. The next day,
36:29Donald Trump claimed he had no memory of telling anyone to vote for a true mega warrior just the day
36:37before.
36:39The president of Texas, a Democrat won in a special election in an area that you had won by 17
36:46points.
36:46What is your reaction to that? I don't know. I didn't hear about it. Somebody ran where?
36:50In Texas, a special election for a legislative seat. The ninth state Senate seat.
36:54I'm not involved in that. That's a local Texas race. You mean I won by 17 and this person lost?
37:02Things like that happened. Our next guest is the winner of that election,
37:09Taylor Emmett, a former Air Force B-52 mechanic who is now a unionized factory worker for Lockheed
37:16Martin building fighter jets. In a district, Donald Trump won by 17 points. Taylor Emmett, who has never
37:22run for office before, won by 14 points. And here is how he did it.
37:50I'm Taylor Emmett, and I'm running for Texas Senate District 9 to make Texas work for you.
37:55Cut. I'm Taylor Emmett's mom, and I approve this message.
38:00And joining us now is Texas State Senator-elect Taylor Emmett. Thank you very much for joining us
38:06tonight. Thank you so much, Lawrence. And I got to say, for me, I have no more questions about how
38:14you did it. Your mom put you over the top. Shout out to my mom.
38:22I read today that the reason you got involved, the reason you decided to run,
38:27was frustration you experienced in your one attempt, your one interest in the state Senate,
38:33just trying to do something about veterans benefits, alerting people to veterans benefits
38:40that wouldn't have cost anyone a penny. Yes, it was that. There was stuff before that,
38:46but that was really the straw that broke the camel's back. I was tired of seeing working folks get left
38:52behind this state. We 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
39:08to the next election. You're pretty much starting to run for re-election almost immediately. How will
39:15you make that case to Texas voters going forward? The hard work we put in has won us two elections
39:23so
39:24far in a very short amount of time. But we know listening and engaging the community is the best
39:30way to earn their trust. And when you earn their trust, you can be outspent like me,
39:36ten to one, and still come ahead with a really powerful victory. This is not about part of the
39:41politics. That's what I want to make clear, is that we did the work, we focused on voters,
39:47no matter what side of the political aisle, and we just stuck to the major issues here that we've been
39:53hearing on knocking these doors and making these phone calls. How much did you learn from voters?
39:59I know when you go into a race like this, you go in as a voter, so you know what
40:03you think,
40:04you know what you think matters, and I'm sure a lot of that is in the campaign. But how much
40:08of it
40:09did you learn from voters by campaigning?
40:13So what I learned was that it's not just about working folks. We do need to work on that, but
40:21we
40:21also have a big problem with public schools here, and people are struggling in this economy. So just with
40:28that we need to find a way to lower costs. I had a woman come up to me at one
40:32of my campaign events,
40:33and she was shook. She was the director of a cancer center here in district, and she said the people
40:41that come to get cancer treatment are choosing between their treatment and rent and their food.
40:47This is a major problem. This is a fire alarm fire we have to address. But going back to the
40:52public
40:52schools, we have a voucher scan that's now being implemented here in our great state, and it's
40:58going to affect our public schools, which to me, we should hold sacred. They're not supposed to be
41:03partisan. We 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. Thank you. Sounds good. We'll be right back.
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