Updated
Summary
Secret Service fails to deliver the purged January 5 and 6 text messages. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) joins Hayes to discuss the growing scandal of a Secret Service deletion of January 6 text messages as calls of a cover-up grow. Attorney General Merrick Garland reissues a Trump-era guidance on investigations. Despite his best attempts to delay and delay, today, a jury actually heard opening arguments and the first witness in the criminal contempt trial of Steve Bannon. Indiana Attorney General attacks the doctor who helped the 10-year-old child get an abortion for breaking no law. Herschel Walker`s bad air comments adds to string of campaign missteps.
Transcript
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN, the text message purge at the Secret Service.
REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): We received a letter today that did provide us with a lot of documents and some data. However, we did nto receive the additional text messages that we were looking for.
HAYES: Tonight, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren on the growing scandal of a Secret Service deletion of January 6 text messages as calls of a cover-up grow.
Then, the flood of evidence likely leading to even more hearings and new fallout from the DOJ memo about political prosecutions.
Plus, the top lawyer for the 1/6 Committee takes the stand in the trial of Steve Bannon. Why an Indiana abortion doctor is threatening a defamation lawsuit against her state attorney general. And Jelani Cobb on the high stakes of a Georgia election completely warped by Donald Trump.
HERSCHEL WALKER (R-GA), SENATE CANDIDATE: People think I was crazy? I would take a gun, put in my head, snap, and I wouldn`t even think about it.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. As we approach Thursday`s primetime January 6 hearing, I got to say I`m struck by the enormously fruitful fact-finding the committee has done so far and continues to do, because day by day, we still keep getting new information, learning new things. So, most recently, the Committee met with former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne. That`s the Overstock guy about the now infamous December 2020 White House meeting he attended where a group of outside Trump advisors tried to sell the president the coup. That`s just today, they`re getting testimony from him — yesterday.
Then today, they got testimony from a former White House aide named Garrett Ziegler. I`d never heard of them before, who reportedly let the ragtag group of coup plotters into the White House for that crazy coup plotting December meeting. That`s still, you know, a year and a half after all this happened, right, the Committee, new testimony, learning new things.
Additionally, the committee has also been pulling on another I think really important thread. You might have seen some stuff about this. We`ve covered it a bit, in the news a lot today, the Secret Service, particularly and its relationship to Trump and Trump`s attempt to steal the election. Now, the Secret Service is kind of a strange, certainly unique entity inside the government, obviously tasked with protecting the president and the vice president, their families.
It has some other things it does. It does some investigations. It used to be in the Treasury Department investigating counterfeiting. It`s now under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, which makes it officially part of the national security apparatus of the United States.
But of course, being a Secret Service agent, right, being close to protectees as they`re called, you also form personal bonds with their protectees or you might find the opposite. You might come to really hate the people you protect. But they all come from spending every waking moment in close proximity to one another. It`s a strange and intimate relationship.
Now, Donald Trump, in particular, had a unique relationship with the Secret Service, particularly his detail. One of his closest aides, a man named Anthony Ornato, who we`ve talked about a bit, figures quite prominently in January 6, he was serving as Deputy White House Chief of Staff for operations on January 6, but he was also a Secret Service agent.
And as the Washington Post reports, “some of the Secret Service came under criticism during Trump`s tenure for appearing to embrace his political agenda. In fact, Ornato`s appointment was a huge departure from precedent to take someone who was in the Secret Service and made them essentially political actor, right, working for the president in the White House.
In fact, during the presidential transition, following the 2020 election, right, Biden coming in, The Post also reported that the Service had to alter some of the security detail for then-President-Elect Joe Biden “amid concerns that some current members were politically aligned with President Trump.” I remember reading that back during the transition and scratching my head. By the way, that`s published December 30, 2020, six days before all this goes down.
And speaking of that, the Secret Service was at the very least, present for, witness to some of the most dangerous moments of January 6, the insurrection and Trump`s attempted coup, if not directly involved. In some cases, in one prominent case, appearing to do the right thing and essentially stopping the worst form of the coup from happening.
I speak of course of White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson`s transformational testimony before the committee a few weeks ago, which included a number of shocking revelations. The one that possibly grabbed the most headlines was this detail which she was straightforward about what she knew and what she did. And she recounts that she heard this secondhand from again, that same man, the deputy White House Chief of Staff for Operations, Anthony Ornato. And it was about Trump`s conduct immediately after the Ellipse rally, after he sent that armed crowd to march on the Capitol.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: So, once the President had gotten into the vehicle with Bobby, he thought that they`re going up to the Capitol. And when Bobby had relayed to him, we`re not, we don`t have the assets to do it, it`s not secure, we`re going back to the West Wing, the President had very strong — very angry response to that.
Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, I`m the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now. To which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing. The President reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm and said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We`re going back to the West Wing. We`re not going to the Capitol.
Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And when Mr. Ornato had recounted this stories me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:50]
HAYES: The Bobby Engel she refers to there was the head of Trump`s Secret Service detail at the time on that day. And again, this particular story alluring and headline-grabbing is not even the most relevant part of Hutchinson`s testimony substantively. She also testified, remember, that Trump wanted to get rid of the metal detectors in the Ellipse rally that right-wing gangs like Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were being discussed at the White House in the run up to the insurrection. That Trump wanted to send what he knew to be an armed mob to the Capitol.
But the detail about Trump wanting to join the mob, so much so he reportedly tried to grab the steering wheel, it was so wild got a lot of attention, understandably. And then something strange happened. Interesting, I would say. Almost immediately, the Secret Service as a kind of institution began trying to discredit the story and specifically discredit Cassidy Hutchinson, even though — and this is — this should be a key point here. The story does not reflect poorly on the Service or its agents. In fact, it`s the opposite.
The story reflects well on the Secret Service who in a crucial moment intervene to stop what would have been a wildly dangerous scene, both to the crowd, to the Metropolitan Police officers, to Capitol Police, to the president, to everyone involved, right? They did the right thing. And yet, and yet, anonymous sources close to the Service tried to dismiss the stories as untrue. Unnamed agents were apparently “prepared to testify under oath the story was a lie.” Of course, anonymously, saying you`re prepared to testify under oath is functionally meaningless.
But it sure looked like from the outside at least that the point was to discredit this woman who was relaying negative information about their guy, Trump. And those anonymous Secret Service leaks were of course then weaponized by Trump allies against Hutchinson. Even though as it turns out, the story Hutchinson recounted had been circulating in Secret Service channels for more than a year. And a metropolitan police officer who is in the motorcade with Trump`s Secret Service detail corroborated its details to the January 6 Committee.
OK, but the Secret Service connections to January 6 go even deeper than that. We also know — and this is one of the crucial moments in this whole episode, right, from reporting by journalist Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker, that the people closest to Mike Pence on that day, the allies of Mike Pence were concerned that the Secret Service was actually in on Trump`s coup attempts, that they were fundamentally loyal to him overall this.
When Anthony Ornato — again, this is the guy who had been in the Secret Service and took a leave to go work for Donald Trump personally, when Anthony Ornato told Pence advisor Keith Kellogg that the Secret Service Plan to evacuate Pence from the Capitol where he was in a secure location to Joint Base Andrews. Kellogg reportedly told him this. “You can`t do that, Tony. Leave them where he`s at. He`s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You`ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don`t do it.”
OK, now, there`s a lot of ways to interpret that. You guys are so worried about security you`ll fly as far as you can, charitable reading. Or you guys are in on the coup attempt and want to physically remove the man who has the power to occasion the peaceful transfer of power. I don`t trust you. We also know Pence refuse to get in the car with a Secret Service detail during the insurrection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): It`s the Secret Service agents who presumably are reporting to Trump`s Secret Service agents were trying to spirit him off of the campus. And he said I`m not getting in that car until we count the Electoral College votes. He knew exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was going to do.
This was not a coup directed at the president. It was a coup directed by the President against the Vice President and against the Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So knowing all this, it is not surprising the January 6 Committee wants to hear from Secret Service, and not just testimony but documents, right, data. Except last week, we learned from the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security that has oversight over the Secret Service writing in a memo, “The Secret Service had erased text messages from January 5 and 6.”
And after this report, the Service responded with a statement denying any wrongdoing and bristling with a chip on its shoulder hostility you see in police unions all the time with a spokesman writing, “The insinuation the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages following request is false.” The agency tried to blame a technical error for the failure to retain key documents saying it was tied to an effort to upgrade agents cell phones.
Undeterred, January 6 Committee issued a formal subpoena to the Service to try and recover the documents. Today the agency said, too bad, gone forever. January 6 Committee member Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy of Florida explain what happened to my colleague Nicolle Wallace earlier today.
[20:10:54]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MURPHY: What happened though is that they received four requests from congressional committees in — on January 16 to preserve records. And they had this planned migration for the 25th, I believe, of January. And nobody along the way stopped and thought, well, maybe we shouldn`t do the migration of data and of the devices until we are able to fulfill these four requests from Congress.
They moved ahead with their efforts to migrate the devices and the data. And their process as explained to us was simply to leave it to the agents to determine whether or not there was anything on their phones worth saving that was necessary to save for federal records. And as a result, today, there — they have — they did not receive any texts from their agents when they made that transition that was flagged for preservation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, it was up to Secret Service agents to just decide to preserve documents they thought were relevant. Shockingly, it looks like none of them did. A little lot from an organization that insists it has nothing to hide. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren is a Democrat of California. She sits on the January 6 Committee which will hold its next public hearing on Thursday. And she joins me now.
Well, Congresswoman, what is your response, reaction to them coming back pursuant the subpoena and saying sorry, there`s nothing there?
REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): Well, we have a concern. And the letter that was sent to the committee, I think, it`s going to be released shortly by the staff and I won`t go into it. But as Stephanie Murphy said earlier today, six committee chairman from the committees of jurisdiction, this is before the January 6 Committee existed, Homeland Security, Oversight, Intelligence, and Judiciary, sent a letter on the 16th of January saying preserve everything. And subsequent to that, the Secret Service allowed the evidence that would have been commanded to be retained to be destroyed, so that`s a tremendous concern.
We have — we got one text message, and I haven`t seen it yet. It`s going to be sent over to me. But I — it`s clear to me that that is a text message that might have been a captured through another branch of government. I just think, you know, we need to find out a lot more about this than we currently know. And we also need to find out what technologically is possible to recover all of the communications between the Secret Service and others on that — on the fifth and on the sixth in particular, but not just those days. So, we will be pursuing more information as a committee soon.
HAYES: Yes. Just to follow up on that. I mean, somewhat ironically, my understanding is the Secret Service actually runs a document recovery forensic unit that specializes in essentially extracting data that is deleted or lost. It does seem like there might be some technical means of finding that information. Is that something you`re going to pursue?
LOFGREN: Yes. And there is backup that`s done for continuity of government purposes under the Federal Records Act. In their letter, they gave no indication that they have secured the phones in question and done some forensic work with them. That`s something we want to know. This obviously – – this doesn`t look good.
And so, you know, coincidences can happen, but you know, we really need to get to the bottom of this and get a lot more information than we have currently. And again, I mean, it`s — you know, we don`t want to overthink this. January 16, they were told to preserve everything, and within a week or two, they allowed it to be destroyed. So, that`s very problematic.
[20:15:06]
HAYES: Yes, just — I mean, I got to say, I mean document retention requests are very common. They`re common in government. They happen in civil litigation all the time. People take them seriously. I mean, unless you`re — you know, it`s a big deal. If you get a — you know, if there`s a lawsuit, anything, you know, a real estate dispute, a trust in a state dispute, retain these documents. Like, you go and you make sure you retain them.
And also, it`s fairly standard. It happens a fair amount it. This is not — I guess what I`m trying to say is, this is not a crazy, anomalous request to come into the Secret Service for them to be sort of incapable of handling, right?
LOFGREN: Well, I would think not. And, you know, let`s remember the demand to preserve documents and evidence was directed by the chair, people of the four committees of jurisdiction in the House of Representatives. And it was about an insurrection, a one of the — a huge threat to our country. And it`s inconceivable that that would have been dismissed. I mean, so what did happen? We need to find out.
HAYES: I agree with that. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, thank you very much.
LOFGREN: You bet.
HAYES: Coming up, Rachel Maddow with the inside scoop breaking some news last night, a memo from Biden`s Attorney General Merrick Garland saying to listen to Trump`s Attorney General. What it means for the many investigations into the former president next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:00]
HAYES: Last night, my colleague Rachel Maddow delivered an amazing scoop. She obtained this memo issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland back in May. Now, it basically reaffirms and restates a policy that was put into place by Donald Trump`s Attorney General in 2020, William Barr.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Trump Attorney General Bill Barr established that new rule in February 2020, no investigating any declared candidate for President or anybody working for that candidate, unless I personally give my permission.
That new rule was established by Bill Barr when he was working for Donald Trump. Merrick Garland has just formally extended that guidance and told every employee of the Justice Department that it is still in effect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, this Garland memo reaffirms the suspicions and concerns of a lot of people up to including clearly, members of the January 6 Committee that the Select Committee is essentially the only game in town. It may well be the only entity approaching the investigation into what happened on January 6 with the kind of durable ferocity needed to save American democracy.
And many are worried, and this has been a recurring line of critique even from Adam Schiff and others I think understandably so that that will continue to be the case in the foreseeable future, certainly between now and when Americans make their very fateful decision in the midterms.
Asha Rangappa is a former FBI Special Agent and attorney and senior lecturer at Yale University, also an editor of the Just Security Blog. Asha, first, I just wanted to get your thoughts on the memo in its importance or significance.
ASHA RANGAPPA, ATTORNEY AND SENIOR LECTURER, YALE UNIVERSITY: Yes. So, Chris, I think that Merrick Garland is basically the Jimmy Carter of Attorney General. You know, he`s a good dude, he`s got right –he`s got the right values. 50 years from now, we may think of him as the AG we never deserved. But right now, there`s a lot that just doesn`t seem to fit.
This memo — I mean, the bulk of the memo is standard DOJ guidance, previous Attorney Generals have put it out there. It`s DOJ standard procedure to not do — to time investigative steps so that they don`t coincide right near and election. That`s been there. What raised my eyebrows was the wholesale adoption of Barr`s new, you know, additional authorization piece for particular types of subjects.
And in spirit, this is not a bad thing. You don`t want an FBI agent in Kansas to open a case on Joe Biden. But I think that putting all of the power in the hands of a political appointee can create the potential for abuse. I mean, imagine a future Trump administration with Sidney Powell as the AG. I would not want her to be the final say on whether Trump or his opponents get investigated.
So, it doesn`t actually stop Merrick Garland from pursuing an investigation. I think, in his case, as a good faith actor, it would unnecessarily politicize a step depending on when he takes it, and I think that`s my concern.
HAYES: OK, so, two things. I find this fascinating because I think it strikes at the heart of like, an existential question about what the Department of Justice is, and how the law and executive function, right? But to your purse point, right? So, the counterfactual or the future possibility of Sidney Powell as AG, right? You wouldn`t want that to be the case.
I mean, my feeling about that is like, if Sidney Powell is the AG, like, no memo in either direction is going to save us, right?
RANGAPPA: We have bigger problems.
HAYES: Like, so, that some level which actually — which actually is adjacent to the deeper point here, which is about whether the people at the Department of Justice are acting in good faith or not. That whatever memos are being promulgated, right, that`s the fundamental question. And the worry is that in creating this extra step, Garland saying it`s on me when he`s the political appointee.
[20:25:08]
RANGAPPA: Right. You know, I think that ideally, in a case involving either the sitting president, a former president, or a future candidate for president, you actually want more of a buffer between the Attorney General and the decision makers, not that he shouldn`t be notified or be aware of it, but you want some objective distance and that — on those decisions on whether to pursue that case being made by, you know, independent decision- makers who don`t have the appearance of any kind of self-interest.
The Special Counsel regulations are there to do exactly this. Ideally, in this kind of situation, you would move it into that realm. If you`re not going to move it into that realm, you can imagine a more carefully designed policy, for example, that when such an investigation is opened, it gets vetted by the FBI General Counsel, or gets signed off by the director of the FBI who has a little bit more distance and independence from a sitting administration.
So, I was just surprised that it was just adopted. But I do think that people need to know it doesn`t actually stop an investigation. I don`t think it means that he can`t indict the president. Basically, if Trump declares his candidacy and an investigation is pursued after that. There may be one already open for all we know. But if one gets opened after that, Merrick Garland name will be, you know, right there in the authorization. And I think that that can potentially open a can of unnecessary worms in terms of whether there was an objective factual basis to do it, you know, even without him doing the sign-off.
HAYES: Yeah, it`s such an interesting point because it really does seem like there`s — there are these two things in tension, right? At one level, the kind of outsourcing and the sort of pushing down the organizational hierarchy to people at the bottom to make these decisions with neither fair nor favor who were furthest away from the political chain of command, right? You want that.
RANGAPPA: Right.
HAYES: At the same time, it`s like, the impulse that I could see sort of between the lines of text in this memo is Garland being like, if we`re doing this, for the first time in American history, like, we`re not doing it out of some field office where some FBI agents like open up an investigation because they have a good factual predicate. Like, we`re doing it because I give it the green light and we`re controlling it. And I understand that impulse but it also seems to your point like a real double- edged sword.
RANGAPPA: It is. And I don`t know that there`s a good answer. And in many ways I keep coming back to, you know, why impeachment is such an important tool for accountability, because you face all these thorny questions. And I think why the Special Counsel regulations are really, you know, a very good escape valve for some of these questions as well. And I`m frankly curious why that hasn`t been utilized in this situation.
HAYES: Yes, it`s a very good point. I mean, they`re there for that, for precisely that reason because of the inherent conflicts that might arise in this kind of situation. Asha Rangappa, that was thoughtful. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
RANGAPPA: Thank you.
HAYES: Still to come, despite his best attempts to delay and delay, today, a jury actually heard opening arguments and the first witness in the criminal contempt trial of one Steve Bannon. Glenn Kirschner was in the courtroom and he`s — he`ll tell us what happened next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:00]
HAYES: Steve Bannon has now had more attempts to delay his trial than the number of button down shirts you worn to court today. So, at least three. This morning, Bannon`s team tried again to delay the trial first asking for another month, then a couple more days. Well, both requests were denied and opening statements began.
The Department of Justice arguing that Bannon`s failure to comply with the January 6 Committee`s subpoena was “thumbing his nose at the orderly process of our government and Bannon just decided not to follow the rules.” The defense posited that Steve Bannon is, of course, the innocent victim of a political witch hunt. We also got to hear from the prosecution`s first witness today, Kristin Emerling. That`s the Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel for the January 6 Committee. The Bannon team had argued that somehow Emerling was not competent to testify today.
For more on what we heard from the witness and where the trial is headed, I want to bring in bringing Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor who`s in the courtroom during Bannon`s trial today. Glenn, welcome. First off, Glenn, the judge wants this trial to happen. I mean, that — if one thing is clear from the ruling so far, is that this judge is moving this along at a pretty fast clip.
Yes. You know, the latest ask of the defense team was for a one month continuance. And Judge Nichols ultimately said, you know what, I may give you a one day continuance, and then about an hour later, Judge Nichols took it back and said, no, we`re going to opening statements today. So, we are now in the thick of Steve Bannon`s criminal contempt of Congress trial.
HAYES: So, what went down today?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: So opening statements, which were actually pretty interesting. The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Vaughn, did a really nice job. She presented a linear, logical, and perhaps most importantly, layman-friendly opening statement to the jury. You know, it almost had a civics class feel to it, which I think was appropriate, because she needed to explain to the jurors, they don`t all necessarily know how Congress functions, what the House of Representatives is, what committees are, what the J-6 House Select Committee is, how they do their business, what their mission and mandate is, what congressional subpoenas are all about.
[20:35:18]
And then, she kind of dove into the heart of it. She said Steve Bannon had critically important information about what happened on January 6 at the Capitol. And the committee needed it wanted it and had every lawful right to it. So, they subpoenaed him, and then he intentionally defied the subpoena. It wasn`t a mistake. It wasn`t an accident. He simply decided that he doesn`t live by the same rules and laws that his fellow citizens live by.
And I thought it was a really effective opening statement, not so much when the defense got up to open. A defense attorney by the name of Evan Corcoran opened for Steve Bannon. And I think he made a fatal mistake. He wrote a bad check to the jury. He wrote the check that I do not think the evidence will cash. Trial lawyers will tell you never bounce a check with your jury because it hurt your case, substantively, and it can hurt your credibility in the eyes of the jury.
What he said and it was really interesting was, you know, ladies and gentlemen, sure, Steve Bannon was served with these subpoenas but the dates weren`t fixed. They weren`t “flexible.” I have seen no evidence, Chris, in the government`s opening statements or any of the litigation on the motions that will support that assertion. In fact, the first witness who has already testified, Kristin Emerling, the chief counsel for the J-6 Committee has already shot that down. She said he was subpoenaed and he defied, he violated the subpoenas.
Now, Miss Emerling has not been cross-examined yet. That will come tomorrow. But you know what, if you write a check to the jury, an opening statement that you can`t cash, you`re in trouble.
HAYES: Wait a second. Now, we should be clear, and I don`t want to impugn this defense attorney who has been, in his own words, left with very little defense and a bunch of pretrial motions. He wanted to raise a number of arguments that the judge effectively ruled out of order that he can`t use about the sort of legitimacy of the committee itself. You know, he said, what`s the point of going to trial here if they`re no defenses. So, his strategies are limited.
But was the idea that the dates weren`t fixed that like, Steve had this on his to do list and didn`t just hadn`t quite gotten around to it yet?
KIRSCHNER: I`m not exactly sure how they`re going to prove up that the dates were fixed — they were flexible. Here`s what they might do, Chris. They might say, well, Steve Bannon, maybe misunderstood that the dates were flexible, and that could give him a defense because it has to be willful and intentional violation of subpoenas.
HAYES: Right.
KIRSCHNER: But here`s the thing. Steve Bannon would have to testify to make some of these arguments to the jury, and I have a feeling he will not fare all that well on cross-examination. And I wasn`t impugning the integrity of Evan Corcoran. I assume —
HAYES: No, no, of course not.
KIRSCHNER: — that if he`s making these arguments in good faith, they`re going to have some kind of evidence, even if only circumstantial, to backup what they are promising to the jury.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, it would be — there`d be something sort of, I guess, somewhat amusingly ironic where he to end up giving sworn testimony on the witness stand in his own trial that is about his refusal to give testimony to the January 6 Committee. But it seems highly unlikely, right?
KIRSCHNER: Highly unlikely. You know, in most criminal cases, defendants do not take the stand. And that`s for good tactical reasons. I think it`s really unlikely we`re going to see Steve Bannon raise his right hand and begin to tell the truth.
HAYES: I think that`s probably right. Glenn Kirschner, thank you very much for that dispatch. I appreciate it.
Still ahead —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: This is one of the most environmentally drilling countries in the world, but yet we`re walking on all the resources we have underneath our feet and we won`t say hey guys, we got to come out of this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: He`s one of the worst major party candidates in recent memory. But despite his lies and his answers like that one, my next guest says Herschel Walker can still win in Georgia. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:00]
HAYES: Already, one of the most depraved chapters in this new era of post Roe America has been the case of the 10-year-old girl impregnated by a rapist. She was forced to flee from the state she lives in Ohio to Indiana in order to get an abortion. When the first — the story broke, right-wing media shouted this could not possibly be true. The Wall Street Journal editorial board ran an op-ed titled, “An abortion story too good to confirm,” saying, “There is no evidence the girl exists.” Fox News host Jesse Watters and Tucker Carlson also told their audiences the same lie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSE WATTERS, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Primetime decided to investigate this alleged child right. But we quickly found out that authorities in Ohio haven`t even begun a criminal investigation into the rape. This doesn`t make any sense. No one reported this child rape to law enforcement?
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Why did the Biden administration speaking of lying just repeat a story about a 10-year-old child who got pregnant and they got an abortion or was not allowed to get an abortion when it turns out that the story is not true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:45:10]
HAYES: You hear that part? When it turns out the story was not true. The story was in fact true. It turned out to be true. According to the Indianapolis Star which reported out this story, an Indiana OBGYN “took a call from a colleague, a child abuse doctor in Ohio.” Ohio “had outlawed any abortion after six weeks.” And this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant.
And so the doctor, the OBGYN in Indiana took steps to help this child. But once it was revealed that this appalling situation actually did happen, obviously appalling in every direction, the reaction on the right from the people that had lied about this was to go after the doctor and possibly even endanger her by plastering her face and name all over Fox News segments.
Then, Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita got involved. His office requested documents from state agencies to find out if the doctor had comply with state law and reported the abortion. But instead of waiting for the agencies to go through the records and report back about this compliance, he rushed to Fox News to join Jesse Watters in essentially slandering the doctor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: So, what`s going on, Todd?
TODD ROKITA, ATTORNEY GENERAL, INDIANA: Jesse, thanks for having me on. But I shouldn`t be here, right? I mean, first of all, this is an illegal immigration issue because likely of Biden`s lawlessness at the border and everything going on down there, that`s why Indiana, as a non-border state, has actually filed several independent lawsuits on that. Then we have the rape, and then we have this abortion activist acting as a doctor with a history of failing to report.
So, we`re gathering the information, we`re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we`re going to fight this to the end including looking at her licensure, if she failed to report. And in Indiana, it`s a crime for — to not report, to intentionally not report.
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HAYES: That is the State Ag on the T.V. screen with the face of this OBGYN implying that she`s a criminal. The day after that Fox News appearance, Indiana State agencies produce the records that Rokita requested showing surprise, surprise, the doctor did report the procedure as required. Information Rokita would have obtained if he had, oh I don`t know, simply waited another day to get to his Fox News hit.
But again, there will be no apologies or climbing down from this by right- wing commentators or politicians. Their goal, it seems to me, is to try and ruin this doctor`s life for the crime of having provided legal abortion services to a 10-year-old child impregnated by a rapist. Why? Because they want the 10-year-old child to carry her rapist child to term at the age of 10.
But there may be some small window of accountability. Washington Post reports a former dean of the Indiana University Law School filed a complaint that “alleges Rokita intended to harass and intimidate doctors who perform abortions and is expected to trigger a probe by the state`s Supreme Court disciplinary commission.”
For her part, the doctor in question, has hired an attorney, is taking the first steps to potentially sue Attorney General Rokita and others perhaps for defamation.
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WALKER: We don`t control the air. Our good air beside a photo with the China bad air. So, when China gets our good air, they`re bad air got to move. So, it moves over to our good airspace. Then now, we got to put (INAUDIBLE).
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HAYES: That is Georgia Republican nominee for Senate Herschel Walker outlining his stance on the environment, on clean air and climate change, particularly that moment, talking about the good air deciding whether wants to go to the bad air, represents just one of the many reasons why he is not just not a good candidate but a really truly catastrophic one. A man who, regardless of ideology or belief, simply has no business being U.S. senator.
Before and during his campaign, Walker has lied repeatedly. He falsely claimed to have graduated in a top percentile from the University of Georgia. He lied about having spent time in law enforcement. He said he was an FBI agent at one point. He exaggerated claims about the success of his businesses. He also has been accused of domestic violence, very serious accusations, reportedly lied to his own campaign about his multiple secret children.
But despite all this, Walker has a genuine chance to defeat an unambiguously qualified senator who currently holds the seat, Raphael Warnock. As Jelani Cobb writes in New Yorker, “No one in GOP leadership can possibly believe that Walker is fit to hold the Senate seat. But the hope as dangerous as it is cynical is that he may be able to win one.”
And Jelani Cobb, New Yorker staff writer and incoming dean of the Colombian — Columbia Journalism School joins me now. Jelani, I really liked your piece because it really did a great job of articulating part of what I found just sort of gobsmacking about this particular race, which is take away all of the lies, the embellishments, the really upsetting accusations of domestic violence against Herschel Walker, take all of that away, and just put them up and say, OK, you`re going to be U.S. senator, like, what do you think about these issues, what do you want to see happen in the country, and it just seems obvious within minutes that this is not a person who`s qualified to have that role.
[20:55:15]
JELANI COBB, STAFF WRITER, NEW YORKER: Sure. I mean, I think the thing is, you know, we`ve had less than brilliant senators.
HAYES: Oh, sure.
COBB: We`ve had less than brilliant people elected to many offices previously, not that this is an endorsement for unqualified people being elected to office. But I think that, you know, the problem with Walker is twofold. One is that he is unambiguously unqualified. And the other is that the stakes are so high, and so transparently obviously very high.
In a state where there is an ongoing active criminal probe about an attempt to subvert the previous election, the most recent presidential election happening there, the state with the legislature has made laws that are — that will make it more amenable to potentially subverting future election. And to have someone who, at best, you know, would be a rubber stamp for some of the most reactionary elements of that party. To have that person elected to the Senate is just, you know, another step closer to the ledge.
HAYES: Yes. And the point that you make in the piece, of course, right, is that — and this is always important one, that the structural factors do a lot of the work in a campaign like this, which is to say the person with an R next to their name who`s the nominee in a state like Georgia is going to have a fighting chance in a year that`s likely to be a tough one for the Democrats independent of the particular qualities, qualifications, or whatever of the of the candidate. And this is a kind of — this is an insight that the GOP has attempted and Trump particularly attempted to get as much mileage out of as possible.
COBB: Sure, they`re utilizing brand loyalty here. There`s also a kind of curious element of, you know, potentially racial cynicism here in that, you know, obviously, Raphael Warnock is the first African-American senator ever elected in the state of Georgia. And, you know, the fact that Herschel Walker is running means that no matter who wins that race, Georgia will have at least one Black senator in the future going forward.
But beyond skin color, beyond the epidermal concerns, there`s virtually nothing that these men have in common, certainly not their level of qualification. And so, it`s a kind of dual citizen of cynicism that`s operating here.
HAYES: Yes. And I think it`s also the case that Warnock is just one of the most distinct and remarkable individuals that will ever serve in the U.S. Senate just in terms of his background and his bio and where he comes from and what he represents in terms of, you know, the actual pastor from Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King Junior`s church, a man who was, you know, born into poverty who`s now a U.S. senator and acting pastor, that you know, that it`s not just a kind of random Democrat next to the name a generic Democrat here. There`s someone here who has a pretty remarkable set of qualifications.
COBB: Sure. That`s you know, skipping over the part about him earning a doctorate. You know, I think that those two things, you know, obviously, even outside the kind of question of, you know, what party people stand for, which is, you know, my point is not really a partisan one, it`s much more about the kind of metastasizing culture in which celebrity, an ability to ramble on about subjects in which you`re not very knowledgeable, A complete fluency with lies and untruths become a formula for, you know, political victory.
We just saw that in 2016. The lines that I had in a piece was that, you know, Trump looked at a person who had all those same qualities and saw something of himself because game recognizes game. But we`ve also seen what kind of wreckage was the result of that election in 2016 and, you know, the break in the tradition of peaceful transfer of power in this country. That`s something that should give us all pause.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, I think the one — the one sort of recent precedent I find slightly more encouraging or at least hopeful is that Alabama special election that pitted Roy Moore against Doug Jones in which you had, I think, a sort of similarly — I mean, again, independent of the incredible reporting from The Washington Post that showed that he was alleged multiple times to have preyed on underage women, right? Even independent of that, a guy who just had no business in the U.S. Senate versus someone who had a remarkable sort of career and record on the other side.
And in the end, even in the state of Alabama, that proved to be too much. I mean, they — it actually went too far. So, it`s not like the rubberband can stretch forever. The question now in Georgia is how far can it stretch and that`s what we`ll be watching.
Jelani Cobb, thank you very much.
COBB: Thank you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Tuesday night. “MSNBC PRIME” starts right now with Ayman Mohyeldin. Good evening, Ayman.